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International Aid

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Disaster Medicine

Abstract

As a civil servant of a low-income country, it is your job to negotiate an international aid package for your people. To begin with the definitions of aid and its different types are explored. It is noted that UN expects 0.7 % of gross national income to be channeled towards aid, however very few countries have met this target. One reason may be that aid is not effective at improving development. In fact aid may impair a country’s economic growth. This may be because of poor collaboration, bureaucracy, or corruption. Quite often aid not altruistic but is provided in return for economic, political or strategic foreign policy interests. As a result, international agreements have been made to increase the level of mutual accountability in the form of aid partnerships. An attempt is made to improve the effectiveness of aid and other measures that may be taken to improve your country’s economic development.

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Correspondence to Shao Foong Chong MBBS, MA (Oxon) .

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Chong, S.F. (2013). International Aid. In: MacGarty, D., Nott, D. (eds) Disaster Medicine. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4423-6_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4423-6_9

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