Foreign aid may stifle or even prevent poor countries from developing. Researchers increasingly challenge aid effectiveness in developing countries. In the August 22 edition of the Wall Street Journal senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, Arvind Subramanian, discusses aid effectivness and suggests that the pop-culture icons who advocate foreign aid may be harming more than helping.

From the article:

"When celebrities such as Angelina Jolie or Bono highlight human tragedy to show that something can be done to alleviate it, the heart melts and the purse strings loosen. But the stars, alas, aren't up on the economic literature. Research is increasingly questioning the benefits of foreign aid."

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Huge kudos to CARE for taking a bold and reasoned stand on how best to deliver food aid to developing countries. Kudos as well to the New York Times for the front page coverage of the CARE decision—how remarkable to see food aid so prominently featured in the NYT!—and its other recent coverage (subscription required) of how U.S. policy affects poor African farmers. As the NYT reported:

CARE's decision is focused on the practice of selling tons of often heavily subsidized American farm products in African countries that in some cases, it says, compete with the crops of struggling local farmers. The charity says it will phase out its use of the practice by 2009...

"If someone wants to help you, they shouldn't do it by destroying the very thing that they're trying to promote," said George Odo, a CARE official who grew disillusioned with the practice while supervising the sale of American wheat and vegetable oil in Nairobi, Kenya's capital."