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Foreign aid funding -- does it matter?


 International affairs spending by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) amounts to 0.42% of 1% of the federal budget, an amount smaller (relatively) than that of any other industrialized nation, according to Secretary of State Madelaine Albright in her statement before the House International Relations Committee on February 11. Secretary Albright reminded the committee that developing countries around the world offer the fastest growing markets for American companies and urged that their reforms should be supported through bilateral development assistance and through multilateral development banks. She also warned that international cooperation was required for protecting the health and productivity of the global environment; ignoring global warming, pollution, deforestation, and loss of biodiversity would result in poor health, lost jobs, and a deteriorated quality of life. Of the $19.4 billion requested by President Clinton for programs in international affairs, USAID would manage $7.2 billion. U.S. exports to countries receiving USAID assistance increased by 98.7 billion from 1990 to 1995 and supported approximately 1.9 million jobs in the United States. Four out of five consumers will live in developing countries by the year 2000. Fiscal year 1998 funds will be used to: 1) help eradicate polio by the year 2000 (saving American taxpayers $230 million annually in domestic immunization costs); 2) help developing nations to open their markets to U.S. trade; 3) extend family planning services to more than 19 million couples who could not afford them otherwise; 4) provide assistance globally to millions of victims of flood, famine, and conflict; 5) combat worldwide environmental degradation; and 6) provide credit to hundreds of thousands of women microentrepreneurs who are starting new businesses.
