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International Aid

Taxpayer-funded international aid can be critical to help resource-poor countries, especially when facing crisis and situations of war or natural disasters. However, aid is frequently used to pursue foreign policy objectives and support domestic interests, such as those of US agribusinesses in the case of food aid.

Overview

International aid is critical to save lives, protect livelihoods, and help reconstruction in communities debilitated by war or natural disasters. It constitutes a critical element of solidarity between peoples, across races, borders, religions, and cultures, contributing towards a more equitable society.

However, while it is generally seen as an instrument of development for the poorest countries, aid is frequently provided by donors in a manner that supports their own economic interests or foreign policy agendas. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) candidly states, “The principal beneficiary of America's foreign assistance programs has always been the United States… Foreign assistance programs have helped create major markets for agricultural goods, created new markets for American industrial exports and meant hundreds of thousands of jobs for Americans.” This pattern is particularly evident in the provision of US food aid when supplied from the US to be shipped overseas often at the expense of local farmers.

International aid may also be conditioned on policy and regulatory changes that recipient governments must undertake. International financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and individual donor countries have a long history of leveraging countries into privatization and market liberalization — typically at the expense of local communities and to the benefit of multinational corporations.

What we are doing about it

Working with partners around the world, the Oakland Institute monitors and studies international aid practices as well as specific projects. This research guides our advocacy to promote good practices and denounce flaws and wrongdoings.

Publications

Report cover

Stealth Game: "Community" Conservancies Devastate Land & Lives in Northern Kenya

Stealth Game: “Community” Conservancies Devastate Land & Lives in Northern Kenya — reveals the devastating impact of privatized and neo-colonial wildlife conservation and safari tourism on Indigenous pastoralist communities. Although terms like “participatory,” “community driven,” and “local empowerment” are extensively used, the report exposes how the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) and...

Highest Bidder report cover

The Highest Bidder Takes It All: The World Bank’s Scheme to Privatize the Commons

The Highest Bidder Takes It All: The World Bank’s Scheme to Privatize the Commons details how the Bank’s prescribes reforms, via a new land indicator in the Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA) project, promotes large-scale land acquisitions and the expansion of agribusinesses in the developing world. This new indicator is now a key element of the larger EBA project, which dictates pro-business reforms that governments should...

Report cover: Rainforest Action Network, CC BY-NC 2.0

Indonesia: The World Bank's Failed East Asian Miracle

Indonesia: The World Bank's Failed East Asian Miracle details how Bank-backed policy reforms have led to the displacement, criminalization, and even murder of smallholder farmers and indigenous defenders to make way for mega-agricultural projects. While Indonesia's rapidly expanding palm oil sector has been heralded as a boon for the economy, its price tag includes massive deforestation, widespread loss of indigenous land, rapidly increasing...

Unjust Enrichment: How the IFC Profits from Land Grabbing in Africa

Unjust Enrichment: How the IFC Profits from Land Grabbing in Africa

Unjust Enrichment: How the IFC Profits from Land Grabbing in Africa , released by Inclusive Development International, Bank Information Center, Accountability Counsel, Urgewald and the Oakland Institute shows how the World Bank Group has indirectly financed some of Africa’s most notorious land grabs. The World Bank’s private-sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), is enabling and profiting from these projects by...

Down on the Seed Cover: Enabling the Business of Agriculture Enables Corporate Takeover

Down on the Seed: The World Bank Enables Corporate Takeover of Seeds

Only six multinationals currently control over two-thirds of the industrial seed sales, and pending agro-industry mergers stand to further consolidate this oligopoly . Further market expansion for these corporations depends on the shrinking of farmer-managed seed systems, which currently provide 80 to 90 percent of the seed supply in developing countries through on-farm seed saving and farmer-to-farmer seed exchange. Enabling the Business of...

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Blog

Humorous graphic showing of World Bank and corporate characters

Be Ready to Further Corporate Exploitation - World Bank Resuscitates Defunct Doing Business Project

Thursday, July 13, 2023 Frederic Mousseau

World Bank's latest Business Ready or B-Ready project, announced on May 1, 2023, resuscitates the defunct Doing Business Report (DBR). Since its creation two decades ago, the DBR has been used to drive policy and regulatory changes that favor businesses and corporations at the expense of the people and the planet.

African Development Bank Vice President Dr. Beth Dunford

The African Development Bank Must Work for Africans, Not Agrochemical Corporations

Thursday, September 15, 2022 Frederic Mousseau and Andy Currier

Instead of doubling down on failed models, now is the time to support solutions that African farmers are calling for across the continent.

Samburu communities in Nantudu, Olidonyiro fearing evictions from community lands.

Protecting Human Rights is Essential to Conserving Nature

Thursday, December 9, 2021 Ben Reicher

So-called “conservation” — in the guise of tourism dollars as a development strategy — is denying basic rights for Indigenous pastoralists in Northern Kenya

SAL palm nursery

Who pays the price of King Leopold’s Bugatti?

Friday, September 4, 2020 Frederic Mousseau

On September 5, 2020, a private collection of some of the world’s fanciest cars, belonging to Hubert Fabri, a Belgian millionaire, will be auctioned at a sale at the Hampton Court Palace in London.

A seed fair in Democratic Republic of Congo. Credit: Alexa Reynolds, ACF DR Congo

Emperor Has No New Clothes

Thursday, January 30, 2020

The EBA program was not created to help farmers. The Bank's claims to support farmers via the EBA is inherently contradictory to the own raison d'être of the program. The best way for the World Bank to assist farmers would be to disband the EBA program altogether.

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