Is Foreign Aid a Scientific Question?

     As the challenge to end world poverty has entered center stage in recent years, it is still unclear how wealthy nations should act in order to help poor nations catch up to them.  As a political science major this frightening question makes me wonder how we have not yet scientifically proven what strategy will work.  Economists Jeffrey Sachs and William Easterly greatly disagree in opinion on this topic in their books The End of Poverty and The White Man’s Burden.  Sachs proposes raising foreign aid to nearly $200 billion in the next decade while Easterly bashes this “big idea,” claiming that growth needs to occur from the bottom up.

     Both political scientists use statistical evidence to prove their points, however, they also both noticeably pick and chose certain information to leave out.  Sachs, proposing more monetary aid to poverty-stricken countries, shows how money has perhaps raised a country’s wealth but not actually help raise those from extreme poverty out.  Easterly shows many figures demonstrating how Sachs’ plan to throw money at the big problems of the developing world has not necessarily worked in the past, with the exception of countries such as Taiwan. 

     While I am not personally convinced that money further damages the developing world’s potential for growth as Easterly argues in his book, I also cannot support his campaign for growth with no planning methods or set goals.  The role of science here is an unusual one because countries, and the populations of those countries do not act as natural science, that is, as a human race we do not have the most certain experimental results.  For this reason it is difficult to conclude how the United States or any other wealthy country should act to improve the lives of those born into the globe’s poorest nations.

The End of Poverty, Jeffrey Sachs

The White Man's Burden, William Easterly

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