It is quite clear that most mendicant countries, once addicted to aid, never learn how to look after themselves. Stacks of books have been written on the uselessness of aid; if this young lady had read any of them, she would get a proper job and stop helping to perpetuate the waste.

Many of the books have been written not by ‘rich old white men’, but by citizens of the ‘aided’ countries, begging aid to be stopped so that their country can get used to looking after itself in a way that actually helps them.

Aid should have a time limit, and be conditional on self-help at the end of it.

Thanks to the wild-man approach of Australian politicians trying to look good internationally, and get nice UN job when they retire, and all their other outrageous spending of our money, voters should be demanding that the whole foreign aid lunacy be overhauled and, in many cases terminated.

Excellent article.

Having intimate experience in the field, all I can say about the first commmenter ("nevertrustpoliticians"?) - s/he doesn't know what s/he's talking about.

Alas, s/he has a right to his/her opinion, no matter how wrong it might be.

Foreign aid is used mostly by the donor country to have a degree of control over the country that is receiving the money.

1) Stop this happening or we will cut the aid.
2) Do this or we will stop the aid.
3) Support us doing this or we will stop the aid.
4) Do this for us or we stop the aid.
5) do this for us and we will give you more aid.

In the case of America the above are followed by OR we will have regime change.

Remember Rudd and the Millions he gave out to get the UN security council seat.

I assume 'Nevertrustpoliticians' is referring to books such as 'Dead Aid'. There are also many books talking about the amazing work being done by not-for-profits around the world- many of those funded by international aid programs. And many speaking about how the Chinese-business model detailed in 'Dead Aid' may be doing more harm than good. It is easy to cherry-pick which publications to believe if you have already formed an opinion- but really, we haven't yet found the 'golden bullet' when it comes to effective aid/economic development.

'Philip S.' I do agree that there are often unethical strings 'tied' to aid funding- part of the reason many of us are up in arms about AusAID being rolled back in DFAT ("Aid for trade" is not something we condone!). But I have to say that the NGOs/universities/etc who recieve funding do not, in my experience at least, have this mindset.

Come off it Dani, sitting in an air conditioned office in some university, pontificating about the good you do just doesn't cut it.

I've seen the donation begging adds too. All those smiling dark kids faces, pumping the handle of the new village pump, paid for by some fool Ozzies. I also see what it means.

Those pumps only work to 25 feet deep. Beyond that they fail continually. That means that the parents of those kids are just too damn lazy to dig a well. Dig a well like I & most of my mates did do years ago, to get water for our families.

Yes you can use donations, & heaps more Ozzy taxpayer funds to hire a $250,000 boring rig, pay tens of thousands for a company to bore the hole, line it, & fit a suction pipe & lift pump. You can then luxuriate in the publicity photo shoot. You can pat your self on the back, & believe your own bull dust. One village has water.

You could get serious. You could get a pick & spade, a bucket & a rope, get off your butt, & go dig a well, the same as the locals could, if they weren't so bone idle.

Hell, watching you sweet might just enthuse some from nearby villages to wake up to themselves, & go dig one at home. Now you might be doing something useful, & you wouldn't need that gym subscription any longer.

I dug my first well at age 10. I could fit down the shaft easier than dad. It was unlined & collapsed in a flood a few years later. The new one we lined with old railway sleepers, free to pick up from rail works. It is probably still providing water to someone.

You people waste billions on fool feel good projects, then want to be admired.

Do get real girl

Hasbeen - You forgot to add while all this work is being done the executives of said organization get very high salaries and benefits, of course they rely on a lot of volunteers so the overall ratio of salaries to workers is low (leaving out the fact a lot are non paid or on very low wages)

When the cuts to foreign aid were announced the Charities were the first to scream poor, ask any of them for a spreadsheet showing the salaries and benefits paid to executives you will get nowhere.

Hasbeen, you are just displaying blatant 'dumb-ass' ignorance and the big 'chip' on your shoulder.

Dani Barrington is speaking more sense, truth and reality than your reactionary ideologue rant - you wouldn't have a clue about AusAID, what it did and what benefits poured back into Australia from it.

The billions of dollars spent on our own Indigeneous people have seen them go backwards. Without spiritual transformation bellies are fed but lifestyles destructive.

Mathew Harris an atheist and columinst for Times very reluctantly came to the conclusion "As an atheist I truely believe that Africa needs God: missionaries not aid money, are the solution to Africa"'s biggest problem - the crushing passivity of people's mindsets. " He writes
'Travelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I have been trying to banish all my life, but an observation that I have been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my worldview, and has embarassed my belief that their is no God."

He goes on to make a sharp distinction between secular NGO's and the Christians who brought about spiritual transformation in areas. He concludes 'A whole belief system must be supplanted' if we are going to be of any use.

Alas, I don't have air-conditioning in my office. A first world problem, I know.

For Hasbeen:

"if the truth hurts, it is not much use sticking your fingers in your ears & running away, in an effort to avoid facing it ...

You can't hide from the truth mate. All you can do is correct the problems, of (sic) sink out of sight in the mess you create when you ignore it...

Yes it hurts like hell when you lance a boil, but it hurts a hell of a lot more if you just let it fester. Make your choice."

You have obviously festered, Hasbeen.