Does India really need foreign aid to solve its social problems?

[ajay_ijn]

India has ambitions to become an Asian power. we regularly provide financial and other forms aid to Nepal, Burma, Sri Lanka and a lot to Afghanistan. we have ambitions to build ballistic missile submarines, aircraft carriers, already operate one of the world largest armed forces, manned space missions and also becoming keep up with other countries on technological front.

but yet we need foreign aid from western countries,UN, WB etc to eradicate poverty, solve health problems.

nobody provides us financial aid to build our military force and fight wars, but then why aid to solve our own social problems?

Govt already provides a lot in terms of poverty eradication programs, education, health. Is that still not enough?

 

[S.A.T.A]

Any and every overarching entity with vast organizational responsibilities requires access to vast sums of resource.This is true in all cases whether its a commercial entity or a state.No govt will or should say no to aid.

However when it comes to international aid, which are administered through many of these western funded financial institution,the problem has never been with saying 'No' but as what strings would be tagged to an 'Yes'.In the 60's through to the 80's(before the globalization)these aides came with very sensitive strings attached to them from the aiding nations,like opening up crucial domestic markets,political realignments.. etc.

Several developing countries,esp those in the Central and Latin America paid a heavy price as a result.Infact flawed economic policies dictated by aiding institutions were often the main reasons why Central & South America and many African countries witnessed ravaging socio-economic instability and the resultant coups and revolutions.

Now i'm not suggesting that all aides have ulterior motives riding on them.India,despite being a major aide recipient over the past decades,has more or less successfully avoided the down effect, largely because we analyzed the strings carefully and accepted them only as long as they did not seriously compromise our economic interest.While we may have done a mistake somewhere or been too cautious elsewhere,generally the policy has been to be 'safe than be sorry'.

In this decade and century i think India is in a far better position to negotiate financial terms in return for aid and once our any concerns are alleviated should welcome any aide.

But we should always remember than in the world of economics,there is no free lunch.Just be aware how much free is going to cost you

 

[Yusuf]

India has stopped taking any aid quite some time back. Loans yes but no begging bowl. It has become a donor country. We refused any aid even when there was Tsunami. Infact sent quite a bit to other countries.

 

[duhastmish]

hmm yeh i think govt. havent taken no foreign aid , but i think we do still take lot of aid from other organisation. directly and we do need them, we are a poor country where many still sleep hungry and naked on road.

I think we can go for some aid if someone wants to help poor, but the aid have to start from within which is more important, i like to help poor and do my share for being an integral part of my country. But no time havent come for us to stop takign any help infact we need this help more than many other country.

 

[NSG_Blackcats]

We are living in a hostile environment so we have to spend a lot of money on our defense. But we can't ignore that vast amount of our population still lives below poverty line. When the Govt. is borrowing a lot of money from open sources for different social and infrastructure program it is not a good sign. It will only increase the rate of interest and leave less liquidity in the market for private borrowers. So we need soft loans/add from multilateral agency to support our social programs. Just take an example after 62 years of independence millions of homes in rural India have no electricity.

 

[ajay_ijn]

may be yusuf is right, i did a bit of googling. we do not get much of humanitarian aid except for tiny figures from UN for development of underdeveloped states. Even US aid to India has fallen drastically, may EU some aid but they are still small figures disbursed over many years.

US slashes aid to India by 35%

now something ironic about the 'loans' India takes from WB and ADB for infrastructure projects.

India to get USD 9.2 bn funding from ADB for 100 different projects
ChennaiOnline News : India to get USD 9.2 bn ADB fund during 2008-10: Chidambaram

World Bank Plans $14 Billion India Lending Program
World Bank Plans $14 Billion India Lending Program (Update1) - Bloomberg.com

and now this
India is likely to provide $14 billion to IMF to increase voting share
At $14 bn, India goes generous with IMF- Finance-Economy-News-The Economic Times

we request loans from WB, ADB and donate IMF to increase its share in the organisation.

 

[Energon]

"Does India really need foreign aid to solve its social problems?"

Up to a certain extent at least in the foreseeable future, I'd say yes, and the primary reason IMO is access to capital.

While its common to assume that as a nation gets "richer" so do the coffers for all its social projects, that isn't always true. An overwhelming majority of India's poor live in agrarian-rural areas, but since the opening up of the economy in 1991 there has actually been a flight of capital from under developed rural areas to urban areas that offer far greater and better returns.

In the history of most developed nations (who went on to provide the entire world with the current financial model) the major objective was always to get money from the idle rich and make it available to the industrious poor. Unfortunately, in India there is a third highly swollen category of "categorically impoverished and destitute" who really aren't deemed worthy of anything. Despite some efforts by the government to initiate programs promoting employment etc to boost up index numbers, the overall allure to divert capital to this sector is virtually nil. It is only natural for the proponents of these social development programs to seek funding elsewhere including foreign grants and loans.

India despite its recent economic gains is still an extremely capital starved nation (partly because of the lack of it and partly because of an inability to proliferate it adequately) and it is going to take some time, sustained growth and hopefully the development of a sophisticated indigenous financial system that enables access to capital on fair terms to as many Indians as possible to eliminate the need for foreign donations.

** I'm not taking any particular political/philosophical stance on this matter. I don't think anybody in particular is to "blame" for this phenomenon.

 

[p2prada]

India accepts aid only from the G-8 IMO. The money involved is very small too. But, loans are accepted from G-8 and the banks. Japan gave a loan only last year for our freight corridor project.