How does a country give "aid" to another?
score:6
It depends entirely on circumstances. It can be any of the following:
Grants (You get money)
Prior loan forgiveness.
This is EXTRA big deal since when you forgive a loan, it's not just the monetary value of the loan+interest that the recipient country essentially gets for free.
The country also removes the risk of defaulting on that loan which - if it happened - would have ruined your credit rating and made it extremely more costly to borrow in the future.
Regular loans (You borrow money you have to repay later with interest).
This is mostly business as usual, EXCEPT that they frequently go to countries that wouldn't have been able to borrow money on capital markets AT ALL due to high risk of default.
Low interest loans (You borrow money you have to repay later but at ABSURDLY low interest rates compared to the rates you'd be paying had you tried to borrow the money yourself given your lack of collateral and low credit rating).
In essence, you are gifted the interest you did NOT have to pay for free, which is a very large amount.
Investment into local economy.
Equipment grant. Either civilian or military.
Also, any of the above methods may have different strings attached:
No string attached.
Some strings attached as far as how you distribute the money
Some strings attached as far as what you SPEND the money on (e.g. "no weapons" or "food only" or "weapons from US only")
Some strings attached as far as your behavior. Usually means enacting some sort of economic or political reforms (eliminate corruption, privatization etc...).
As an example, Israeli defense industry was forced (By USA) to cancel many extremely lucrative weapons contracts with other countries (e.g. China) with US military aid being used as a leverage. The reasons ranged from US not wanting specific technologies going to China, to US wanting to get a competing military-industrial industry out of a market.
As totally unrelated example, a lot of Western aid is predicated on passing "anti-corruption" laws etc...
Quid Pro Quo. You get money, you vote for my interests in UN etc...
China seems to be doing some of that, especially in Africa.
"I mean if it's the latter 2, why it's called aid? It looks like bizs as usual to me"
As noted above, loans are usually on extremely good conditions. As in, if you count interest, you could be getting 2x-10x more money compared to obtaining that loan on capital markets.
As for weapons, it's part business as usual.
Upvote:2
Sometimes it means: US lend $1 billion check to Pakistan at some rate. But Pakistan must buy US weapon for these money, must hire US consultants to use it for its own money, at prices set by US, do this-and-this on the borders, arrest such and such people and so on.
Usually the agreement is not so blatant, but they are only plans. Reality is much worse. I had once seen the ways of Humanity Help from Germany to Germans in USSR in 1990. All money went to local authorities in places where USSR Germans lived and to the civil servants from Germany. The sum was about $200 mill. Not a single normal citizen got anything. I was acquainted with one factory owner from Germany who was outraged with this situation (he gave a large sum in this help fund personally) and promised me ( I was in the counsil of the Moscow German Society then) to do something or at least to get some info or raise a scandal. Result=0.
The corruption in the world is on such level, that I am afraid, sums under 1000 mill. simply disappear in the pockets of the civil servants on both sides. While returning the Russian debt to Czechs in 2001 2/3 of it ($1200mill) disappeared. Officially.
Of course, while it is known, that all the aid will be stolen, the giver could demand something on the civil servants of the state-taker. And somethin will be get. But not much. They love to steal, but they hate to pay.
Upvote:4
Aid takes many forms. And yes sometimes it's money, sometimes it's equipment worth $X, etc. Sometimes there are so many strings attached it's not really very beneficial (but sorta better than nothing), sometimes it's bad for the country overall, but good for some people, etc.
More post
- 📝 Did modern soldiers try to miss their shots?
- 📝 Cabin space on the Nadezhda
- 📝 Can anyone identify this uniform, the rank and if possible the date?
- 📝 Were there opium dens in Russia during the 19th century?
- 📝 Did French people in 19th century not bathe every day?
- 📝 What is the difference between the Middle Ages and the Dark Ages?
- 📝 Why did Argentina invade the Falklands when they did, rather than wait for the pending sale of the UK aircraft carriers to complete first?
- 📝 Was the Bosnian Crisis the trigger to WWI and not the assassination?
- 📝 When did Socrates die?
- 📝 Did people on the Bridge of Death in Pripyat actually die?
- 📝 Were iconic structures intentionally destroyed in 20th century wars?
- 📝 Why did Hawaii become a dependent state of USA after USA was born 300 years ago?
- 📝 Did the RMS Carpathia have enough lifeboat capacity for its passengers?
- 📝 Do NKVD files say that during WWII, Soviet leadership knew about the rape of Soviet women liberated from labour camps and did nothing to stop it?
- 📝 Is Benedict XVI the first pope emeritus?
- 📝 What were The Troubles in Northern Ireland really about?
- 📝 Why are the police never responsible for guarding the Head of the State?
- 📝 What's paradoxical about British free trade in 20th century partitioning of Africa?
- 📝 Was World War I a war of liberals against authoritarians?
- 📝 How is the "Blitzkrieg" different from the "glubokaya operatsiya"
- 📝 The practice of translating foreign monarch's or noble's name
- 📝 How fortified was Cyprus during WW2?
- 📝 In which year of the post-WWII Occupation of Japan was the Imperial Rescript on Education repealed?
- 📝 What was the role of Nikita Khrushchev during the battle of Stalingrad?
- 📝 Did the MDC draw support from former ZAPU voters and politicians?
- 📝 Did the Vatican punish France for rejecting Tordesillas?
- 📝 How did Porfirio Diaz leave Mexico for Europe?
- 📝 Were high wages the root cause of the industrial revolution?
- 📝 How to translate runic text not knowing the origin?
- 📝 Why were harvest times in Cyrenaica earlier than in Greece in antiquity?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 How does a country give "aid" to another?
- 📝 Does any country have an official celebration for the annexation of foreign territory?
- 📝 Did active frontiersmen really eat 20,000 calories a day? How does this compare to other highly-active people in recorded history?
- 📝 Were there occasions when a sovereign country voluntarily joined another country?
- 📝 Where does the name of the country "Belarus" come from?
- 📝 How likely it is that a nobleman of the eighteenth century would give written instructions to his maids?
- 📝 How does this bird trap work?
- 📝 Does the number of legs in the air of a horse statue indicate how its rider died?
- 📝 How does Göbekli Tepe fit into the current picture of society development?
- 📝 What historical reasons did the Nazis give for hating the Jews? How did they identify non-practicing Jews?
- 📝 Has a foreign power ever sought to compel another country to abide by international law by means of that country's internal judiciary?
- 📝 Does a reputation for cruelty to PoWs give a tactical advantage?
- 📝 How long does it take to craft the kinds of armour worn by typical medieval warriors in europe?
- 📝 How does the amount of equipment carried by various historical infantries compare?
- 📝 How does one wash with sand?
- 📝 How did residents of Estonia and Latvia prove that their family settled in the country prior to 1940, in order to become citizens in 1989?
- 📝 How can I properly learn the history of a country whose language I don't speak or read?
- 📝 How does Nigeria stay together?
- 📝 How old does an event have to be to be considered 'History'?
- 📝 When was the last time a country acquired territory by buying land from another country?
- 📝 How does Louise Bryant's assessment of how the Soviet Union would fall hold up at the beginning of the 21st century?
- 📝 How many proofs does History require?
- 📝 How did the king give land to new barons without taking it from the old ones?
- 📝 Has there ever been a case where a country adopted the currency of another country with a smaller economy?
- 📝 How does a runic alphabet work?
- 📝 How does finding a Franklin ship change what we know about the expedition?
- 📝 Why and how did George V give titles to his generals over lands that he did not possess?
- 📝 WW1 Uniform - Which country does this uniform belong to?
- 📝 How does Upton Sinclair's The Jungle contribute to Historiography?
- 📝 What was the first scientific article to give a recognisably "modern" citation to another article?