David Harewood wrote a piece called “I have seen with pride how British overseas aid saves children’s lives. That is why I say cuts should be reversed”. He describes, movingly, how while visiting a hospital in Sierra Leone,
… I noticed a UK aid sticker fixed above a tiny incubator. Inside was a premature baby fighting for breath. Nearby stood oxygen equipment that staff explained had been funded through UK support. I learned that when power outages struck the hospital, as they often did, that equipment helped keep vulnerable newborns alive.
Being in the presence of these sometimes inconceivably small children, seeing the UK aid sticker labelled across the incubators that were keeping them alive, emotion completely overcame me. It was not only sadness. It was pride. Pride that people in Britain, most of whom would never meet that baby or their family, had helped make survival possible. Seven years later, that moment remains one of the most impactful of my life.
Many years ago, I turned against foreign aid – well, against most government-to-government foreign aid except immediately after natural disasters. How can I justify such a stance? Don’t I want premature babies in Sierra Leone to have incubators? I do want it. I want it very much. But take a look at this graph comparing the change in GDP per capita in current USA dollars of Sierra Leone and South Korea from 1960 to the present. In 1960, South Korea was at $158.8, a little higher than Sierra Leone’s $142.0, but still desperately poor. The next year South Korea’s figure ($94.2) was actually lower than Sierra Leone’s $142.3. I don’t know why that sudden year-on-year dip in South Korea’s wealth happened or if the effect were even real, but there can be no possible doubt about the reality of what happened over the next six and a half decades. The GDP per capita of the Republic of Korea is now $36,227.0, forty-three times higher than that of Sierra Leone, which is $846.7.
I want Sierra Leone to have incubators the way South Korea has incubators.“The Republic of Korea (South Korea) maintains excellent maternal and newborn health outcomes through its advanced healthcare system. With a maternal mortality ratio of approximately 8.1 deaths per 100,000 live births and a neonatal mortality rate of approximately 1.3 deaths per 1,000 live births, the country ranks among the world’s safest for childbirth.” South Korea did receive some foreign aid in the 1960s and 70s. Then it stopped. The country is now a donor rather than a recipient. Sierra Leone has received orders of magnitude more aid, and it has never stopped. In terms of things you can point to, like the incubators Mr Harewood saw, no doubt all that aid did some good. But in terms of that which is not seen, I believe that aid did more harm than good. The unceasing torrent of money made it less likely that Sierra Leone would do as South Korea did and so get South Korea-like outcomes.
So I’m not a fan of foreign aid. You knew that. Bet you didn’t know until you saw the headline to this post that Guardian readers are scarcely more enthusiastic about it than I am. Here are the top-level comments to Mr Harewood’s article ordered by number of recommendations:
misterrusty
27 Sep 2026 8.51
133If Africa, which is 3 times the size of Europe stopped all the tribal infighting, it might become rich enough to support itself. The question is why a continent with such huge resources is so poor it has to rely on aid.
–
aunib
27 Sep 2026 9.07
120We’re currently running a 4% GDP deficit and the interest on our debt is £110B a year. Charity is for surplus cash, and our government doesn’t have any of that at the moment.
–
Manchotte
27 Sep 2026 8.52
110But the question remains: when will these African countries be able to support themselves? Sixty years since independence and they are still relying on British aid. Where did all the £100 billion go? apart from Swiss bank accounts!
–
Firtree
27 Sep 2026 9.26
92Can someone please explain to me how it is okay for the government to borrow 10s of billions every month to keep us afloat while giving a big chunk of of it to others for free?
–
Bathreader
27 Sep 2026 8.50
83Foreign aid is laudable but has to take its place with other priorities.Defence is the urgent priority after years of underspend.
–
The Guardian does its best to hide this preponderance of aid-sceptical sentiment among its readers by taking all eight of its “Guardian picks” from among the pro-aid comments, but anyone who sorts by “recommends”, as most people do, cannot fail to note that it is only on the sixth comment down that we finally reach one that is unambiguously in favour of foreign aid.
Edit: if the link to the graph comparing historical GDP per capita for the Republic of Korea and Sierra Leone is too much for your browser, you can generate it yourself by going to the World Bank “GDP per capita” page, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD , and entering both “Sierra Leone” and “Korea, Rep” into the search bar.
The late Peter Bauer showed, in many works, how taxpayer funded aid, over time, does harm – not in cases of sudden emergency (Natalie rightly mentions disasters), but generally over time.
I believe his last major work was “Dissent on Development” – but I could be mistaken.
There is this, from an African:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb20VWDRmto
And a cogent argument why Africa should NOT be aided in any way:
https://africaunauthorised.com/kevin-myers/
All those Africans that Africa cannot and will not support will be outbreeding Europeans and will all be heading here.
As Kin Du Toit said, let Africa sink.
https://www.kimdutoit.com/2017/05/05/let-africa-sink/
In short, the UK cannot save the entire world either by financing them in their own country or allowing them to come here with zero skills necessary for a developed country and should not bother trying to do so.
As thew Guardian comments point out, the UK is broke and cannot afford to donate cash it does not have to the ungrateful and corrupt.
Phil B – the Bantu Diaries is meant to shame fellow black people into productive action (rather than protests and complaining – blaming whites for their problems), it does not mean that black people are genetically incapable of acting better – quite the contrary.
People in Africa are people – the point is not that “they should not be helped” but, rather, that that government “development aid” (not aid in a disaster – development aid) does HARM – not good.
It is not a matter of “letting Africa sink” – if Africa “sinks” then tens of millions (indeed hundreds of millions) of Africans will be heading to Europe – because they would have no choice. It is a matter of better policies – economic and cultural (yes cultural as well).
Private property rights, especially in land, being the key to everything else.
I assure you that white people can be just as messy and destructive as black people – given the wrong economic and cultural (cultural again – because it is important) practices over time.
Lastly there is a myth being spread on the internet that black Africans have no concept of the future – most black Africans are farmers (not hunter gatherers – that is a myth) and have been so for many centuries.
Farmers have to have a concept of the future, they plant crops not for harvesting that day – but for harvesting months in the future – so what is being spread on the internet, namely that black Africans have no concept of the future, is FALSE.
Here’s a quote from a 1985 review of Lord Peter Bauer’s 1984 book “Reality and Rhetoric”:
Emphasis added
As somebody said a long time ago: foreign aid takes money from poor people in rich countries and gives it to rich people in poor countries.
Isn’t aid (or the farcical idea of slavery reparations) just The White Man’s Burden dressed-up for the C21st?
I could write a load more on this but I’m really tired because I stayed up late watching SpaceX on my Samsung TV.
More than half of mankind is dirt-poor. Not only Africa. Why? I dunno. But they are.
The more logical question should be – how come the other half managed to escape extreme poverty? I don’t know this, either. You can enumerate tons of reasons, and even some reasons that you are forbidden to mention. But it doesn’t add up. We do not know or understand everything.
The trouble is when people don’t accept the world as it is, and dream up a world that isn’t, a world of phantasy. Then they go around blaming everyone why the phantasy doesn’t exist, why the world is different from their dreams. And also believe that if you apply force and coercion the world will change for the better and make your dreams come true. Of course, only if the coercion is applied by me (the righteous dreamer), on them (other, wicked, people). And if the world still falls short, it is because not enough force was applied.
It starts with the assumption that all men are equal. They are not.
@Jacob
More than half of mankind is dirt-poor. Not only Africa. Why? I dunno. But they are.
That’s not true. The World Bank defines extreme poverty as living on less than $3 per person per day (inflation adjusted). Today only about 10% of the world’s population fit that criteria. in 1821 it was 80%, in 1950 it was 60% in 1980 it was 35%, today it is 10%. Poverty is systematically being eliminated in the world. Why? Well quite simply poverty is being eliminated by all the things that poverty campaigners hate. Massive economic growth in the west due to new technologies at all levels from GPUs to agriculture and globalization opening markets for poor country’s goods. The biggest barrier to progress is corrupt, big, centralized governments, which, unfortunately, poverty campaigners tend to favor.
The history of the world is, for the most part, the struggle between technology making us all richer and the ruling class trying to take as much of those riches for themselves. Right now technology is winning. And also, right now, one of the most powerful wealth generating engines humans have ever invented, namely AI and robotics, is under deep attack by these same people to try to capture all the value themselves and limit its power to liberate people.
It is why Sam Altman’s machinations to take “Open” AI from a company that made this liberating technology available to all, and made it into a closed wealth generation engine for our powerful leaders is one of the worst betrayals in history. And why Elon Musk, the one AI leader who is focused on freedom, freedom of speech, truth seeking in AI and so forth is so very important. And why, I suspect, the left and the powerful hate him so very much.
What Fraser said.
I’ll add that
1. The global income distribution is no longer bimodal, it is now unimodal.
2. The specific obstacles that people in poor countries face seem to be (afaik) red tape and weak property rights. (Paul Marks mentioned the latter.)
That is why the best investment that an African village can make is to send a promising young man to Europe.
Natalie – thank you for choosing and copying out the quotation, it is indeed very apt.
Fraser – you may well have a good point about the basic reason the Collectiviusts hate Elon Musk. Well said Sir.
Snorri Godhi – I include freedom to use your property under property rights. “Red Tape”, endless regulations – such as the old Indian “Permit Raj”, undermines private ownership – makes it a “legal fiction”.
For example the German government after 1933 formally kept private ownership – but made it almost meaningless by ordering every aspect of what farmers and manufacturers, and retailers, did.
Yes – the German state did not murder them (unlike “Lenin” and the other lunatics who took over Russia), and they got to keep their houses and cars, and other perks – but they were no longer really owners, they were now more “shop managers”.
As we can see from the accounts given in Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom”, and the work by Ludwig Von Mises titled “Omnipotent Govenment”.
The latter work built on what Mises observed in the First World War and wrote about in his book “Nation, State and Economy” – under “German Socialism” or “War Socialism” the degree of detailed state control was far more extreme in Germany than it was in, for example, France during the First World War.
Paul: well said indeed.
I thought so myself, but did not bother to explain the relationship between red tape and property rights.
Thank you for doing it for me.
Snorri – I certainly did not mean to imply that you did not know these things, of course you do.
I tend to worry (perhaps rather too much) about third parties reading comments and not knowing various things.
That is why my comments can go on-and-on – I keep thinking “but I have not explained such and such – and the man on the number nine bus may not know”.
Why “the man on the number nine bus” would be reading all this – I have no idea, but this is what is running through my old brain.