Us Aid Money Abuse

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XXXX XXXXX

Professor XXXX

ENC 1101 – 675XX

1 February 20XX

Aid Funding – Were Does It Really Go?

Being a true believer in helping others I always feel compelled to know where my hard earned money is going. With the recent tragedies to strike Haiti and the millions of dollars sent to help with the recovery operation, how do we know if our personal donations are really reaching the people that need it? Two things over the course of my life had lead me to believe that my hard earned dollars aren’t seeing their way to where I intended and may just be getting sucked up into administration costs.

While serving in Afghanistan I observed the US Military spend over $25 million dollars towards the health and wellbeing of the locals in the Zabul Province. However, they didn’t even have electricity or running water! Over the course of my tour there, I had a lot of time to converse with the interpreters and many of the locals in various villages throughout the countryside. It quickly became apparent that a lot of money was being wasted. I would estimate approximately 30-40 percent of the cost of a project was spent by contractors for bribes to Afghan Officials and other untrustworthy political leaders. But this seemed the norm’ and was accepted as the way of life there.

During some much needed vacation time in Africa, I met a few aid workers. They worked for a variety of the worlds top aid agencies; World Vision, Water Aid and Oxfam to name a few. Each of these people were living in their own separate mansion style houses. All of which had maids, groundskeepers and personal security

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at a minimum, not to mention they were all driving brand new trucks to conduct their operations. It did however seem as though many of the locals appreciated the presence of these agencies as it gave them a sense of hope for their future. Even a few of the more educated locals were given opportunities with jobs as assistants. But was that really what...