Message-ID: <0004E679.1273@ifrc.org> Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 10:13:08 +0200 From: Nick Cater <mailto:cater@IFRC.ORG> Subject: Re: Foreign Aid and Sovereignty To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
One question and a couple of thoughts:Q: How has the structure of foreign aid "changed significantly" since the end of the cold war?
T1: Annual official development assistance is maybe $50 billion and falling fast (down 17% 92-96); foreign direct investment is maybe $250 billion; trade is worth many $billions more than investment (anyone got figures?); financial flows are in the many $trillions (ditto?). Is aid so marginal now that its impact on sovereignty is far outweighed by the combined impact of investment, trade and financial flows?
T2: "The US exporting its political structure." In global terms, are there any other political-economic structures being exported or imported?
T3: It's certainly true that as aid has been integrated into foreign policy and made to deliver measurable performance - see the forthcoming World Disasters Report 1998, Oxford University Press, http://www.ifrc.org - it serves a short OECD agenda.
T4: But more fundamentally, since when did sovereignty mean much on a privatised planet, in particular for those developing countries which are either failed or "frayed" - government controls the capital, the periphery does its own thing - states? And does anyone care - it's only been around for a couple of hundred years, and maybe it's time for a change: why should we want to save The State?
Regards
Nick Cater