Foreign aid helps lift families out of poverty

Jul 14 2011

Britain's cutting of foreign assistance "is not … just a game of percentages; or a simple set of myths that can be countered to decide whether we spend 0.7 or 0.44 or even 0.01 percent of our national income on 'aid,'" Joe Cerrell, director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Europe office, writes in a "Foundation Blog" post. "So far, no one has found the winning formula for success across disparate countries and economies. But for every argument against aid there are further examples of new ideas, new tools and aid investments which have been successful, which have shown progress is happening, demonstrated that it is possible for a family or a community to go from poverty to live a fulfilling life," he writes (7/12).