I've temporarily dialed back on my charitable contributions. I believe that the US is at the front end of an unprecedented economic and political disaster, so I need to use the resources available to me to protect myself and my loved ones as best as I can.<p>Once I have that arranged, I can think about giving again.
The last section is worth a read.<p>> Your personal donations can also make a difference, especially if you focus on where they can go the furthest<p><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/foreign-aid-donations-increase#your-personal-donations-can-also-make-a-difference-especially-if-you-focus-on-where-they-can-go-the-furthest" rel="nofollow">https://ourworldindata.org/foreign-aid-donations-increase#yo...</a><p>Good time of year to donate (in the UK at least, as the tax year starts in April). Various ways to donate depending on your jurisdiction.<p><a href="https://www.givewell.org/about/donate/tax-deductibility" rel="nofollow">https://www.givewell.org/about/donate/tax-deductibility</a>
I warmly recommend setting up a recurring donation of, say, 0.5 % of your income. If most of us did this, in particular if we donate to effective charities -- it would make a difference, but not to our economies.<p>(Many of you may even find it is so non-scary to donate 0. 5 % that you choose to scale up to a larger percentage. But I have yet to find anyone who is willing to donate but claims 0.5 % is too much for them.)
If you are looking for reasonably responsible ways to donate money - I highly recommend using Charity Navigator which can help you avoid accidentally giving money away to fiscally irresponsible or downright scam charities (<i>cough World Vision cough</i>).<p><a href="https://www.charitynavigator.org" rel="nofollow">https://www.charitynavigator.org</a>
> American citizens were asked to guess how much US federal spending goes to foreign aid. ... The average guess was a whopping 31%.<p>What? I'm <i>very</i> curious how people arrived at such a number. I wouldn't be very surprised if people thought it was, say, 5%. But 31% is a wildly implausible number. 15% of people thought it was over half the budget, which is too far from the Lizardman's Constant to just be trolls, but at the same time it's such a wildly high guess that I can't imagine a normal person sincerely making such a guess.
I helped a friend in Brazil for a year by sending him a little money each month; less than $100. It would've made next to no difference in the life of an American, but where the exchange rate is 1 to 5, it made a significant difference in his life.<p>Unfortunately, it only made that difference for him because of the low exchange rate. If he were to receive free money from the government, for example, businesses with just raise their prices to account for the extra money in the system. Prices would go up and he would be left in the same situation that he was in.
Though it wasn't directly mentioned in the article, the relevant context is that the Trump administration is in the process of cutting foreign aid by the US; see the link below for a few details.<p>Looks to me like the OWID article is saying that the aid from the US is a good investment.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/how-trump-s-dismantling-of-usaid-will-affect-foreign-aid/ar-AA1AI3yr" rel="nofollow">https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/how-trump-s-di...</a>
"Small increases in foreign aid could go a long way"<p>Unfortunately, his graph of polio results would indicate the opposite.<p>It's similar, in my mind, to school spending in Chicago and Baltimore correlates to educational outcomes:<p>When the problem needs both a systemic change and broad-based endemic change, more money is not necessarily the answer.<p>(For Afghanistan/Pakistan, it's to counter the anti-vaxx narratives that caused the program to stall out. For those school systems, it may start with food and shelter security for students)
This recent article[1] from the economist shows how much of the aid spending around the world just replaces government spending and never creates a system where those countries can stand on their own.<p>Not always the case but definitely for a lot of aid spending. Where I'm located (Mongolia) aid spending just gives the government an excuse to free up the budget for handouts to get them elected. It's pretty useless.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/03/06/the-demise-of-foreign-aid-offers-an-opportunity" rel="nofollow">https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/03/06/the-demise-of-f...</a>
I used to be naive and covid changed that. I sincerely believe the US should have shared and China mainland should have accepted any and all knowledge we had about vaccines. Instead, we all went our own separate ways. It wouldn't have cost us much because it isn't like people in China mainland would have bought US vaccines and it isn't like we would import vaccines made in China mainland.<p>It was just common sense to share this knowledge the best we could and yet...
Most cases of polio now are caught from the lav deattenuating, so unless you vaccinated everyone in the entire world at the same time or invent a better vaccine it’s literally impossible to eradicate with current technology. you can see in the diminishing returns in their graph.. I’m not sure why this is their example of a good place to spend more money
<i>> UN’s target for developed countries to give 0.7% of their GNI to foreign aid</i><p>O/c, the UN (a body with a majority of non-democratic members) will want the taxpayers of democratic countries to finance it, all without any real accountability<p>Any country that has not yet solved its own domestic problems should not donate money to other countries
It's laudable to donate part of your own money to help those in need. It's much more laudable to be a well-functioning part of the deep capital markets that allow places like AMF to buy anti-malarial bednets for $2 apiece in the first place. It wasn't that long ago that making a single decent shirt was weeks of hard labor.
That's a good argument for voluntary individual contributions, but not for foreign aid.<p>The purpose of government is advancement of the common good of the citizens that form the polity. The good of people <i>outside</i> of the polity is beyond its scope and responsibility. Any aid to or alliance with a foreign nation can only be justified with tangible benefits at home.