Factors Responsible for Failure of Foreign Aids to Pakistan

Factors Responsible for Failure of Foreign Aids to Pakistan

Foreign aids give better strength or position to reduce poverty and improve infrastructure and heath sectors. This is directly proportion to the country development. Unfortunately, in Pakistan, the Foreign ads not giving positive results. It directly influencing the whole system and resulting poor performance. This negativity results going down day by day but the policy makers does not create strong policies which may fight against brutality like poverty and development in Pakistan. Pakistan, where the Almighty Allah bestowed natural resources like coal, minerals, forests, different weathers, mountains, superficial rock materials etc. but still the country depends on Foreign aids.

I summed up some important factors that why Foreign assistance in Pakistan almost failed in poverty reduction and in health and infrastructure sectors. These factors are corruption, inequality, un-justice, policy making, dirty politics (politician interests), role of multiple actors, bureaucracies, obfuscation environment, lack of coordination, international organizations, new technologies, and last but not the least is monitoring (check and balance). (Adams Jr, R. H.1998,Easterly, W. (2006), Radelet, S.2003).

History of Foreign aids

The developed countries like USA, Russia, UK, Saudi Arabia, etc. give aids to Pakistan for improving their economic, political, health and social life. ( Easterly, W. 2006).

Soon after independence, the United States has been providing economic assistance and military aid to Pakistan. In fact, between 1951 and 2011, the United States bonded almost $67 billion to Pakistan. The levels waxed year to year for decades as US geopolitical interests shifted in the region. But these aids were depending on United States interests. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have also religious ties. Saudi Arabia has paid 20 billion dollars to finance Pakistan’s development projects. Financial cooperation includes $3 billion in aid and loans of which $1.5 billion has been deposited in the central bank of Pakistan and $11 billion has been given for various economic expenses.

Corruption

The developed countries give aids to Pakistan for the purposes to improve economy and reduce poverty. In Pakistan, there are two ways of corruption, Internal and External. In Internal corruption, the politicians and section officers are involved. They use Foreign aid according to their interest and willingness. While in External corruption, the individuals do not pay their taxes properly. They also hid their property from the Government. Miscellaneous cause, miscellaneous income is a catch-all category for business purposes which includes varied sources of income not normally considered as income. Examples include Jury Service, Hobby Revenue, and Gambling Winnings. Due to these types of corruption, the aid is failing to achieve its goals and objectives.

Inequality

Firstly, unequal division of Foreign aids between provinces. Secondly, Foreign aid to poor states is a very difficult and risky business, as earlier noted that the causes of national poverty are many and that the proven successes are few. The rich peoples are becoming very rich and the poor goes down. The poverty ultimately rises and the poor person suffers.   

Un-Justice

It doesn’t make sense to push Foreign aid Government departments out of business as it raises the probability of blame for the remaining institutions. When a collusive arrangement is in effect, Government institutions cannot break the bargain by offering a greater volume of international assistance programs at a better cost. The unjustness is also a major fact of increasing poverty and worst condition in Pakistan.

Bad Policies

Bad policies mean that inability to distribute of powers, inability to commit and intimate links between development and change along with how political influence is distributed. The policies of our Governments and its representatives are not up to date.

Dirty Politics and Self-Interests

The main factor which is impeding the poverty reduction, economic growth and infrastructure development is dirty politics and the politician’s self-interest. The aid which comes from outside, they used it for their own interests. (Blair, G., Christine Fair, C., Malhotra, N., & Shapiro, J. N.2013)

Foreign Aid Bureaucracies

They create their own groups and bureaucracies plans. They get huge benefits from Foreign aid and don’t care about poor peoples.

Obfuscation Environments

It means unclear strategy. Aid agencies are likely to use acronyms, bureaucratize and misleading euphemisms (politeness) than other risky bureaucracies. (This argument is inspired by Pritchett’s model of why “it pays to be ignorant.” 2001).

Lack of coordination

Unfortunately in Pakistan there is a lack of coordination which puts negative effects on Pakistan development. In the current pandemic COVID-19, poor people are more affected due to sudden economic crises. These crises were more seen at health departments where ventilators and proper protection equipment were not available for doctors. Foreign aid from world health organization was utilized unplanned.

Aid Organizations

The World Bank, IMF, Asian Bank, etc. give massive funds but leaders and politicians utilized these funds on wrong places along with weak policies. But on the real term the regional bank, World Bank all involved to minimize the poverty and work for the country development sectors.(Dawn, 2003,2006,2009).

Monitoring

There is no system to check the funds utilization. Monitors don’t know whether to blame the international aid communities or the national recipient Government for bad policies. The fact is fact, these funds are going to the bureaucracies, leaders and politicians hands (corrupt) and they will used these funds for their own interest. (Research Paper on Pakistan Poverty reduction,check and balance by Imtaiz ali, the Institute of Southern Punjab).

Conclusion

Inequality, un-justice, policy making, dirty politics (politician interests), the role of multiple actors, bureaucracies, Obfuscation environment, lack of coordination, international organizations, new technologies, and last but not the least monitoring (check and balance ) are the main factors because of which the Foreign aids have failed to reduce poverty and improved well being in Pakistan.  

By: Mr. Abdullah

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