Former President Bill Clinton has flayed the United States Administration for not giving out more foreign aid and asserted that such assistance would help bring down the number of terrorists and be cheaper than going to war.
US foreign assistances are worth around US$ 10 billion and a little more if the funding for AIDS initiative is taken into account, the former President, who heads the Clinton Global Initiative, told CNN's special programme The Poverty Trap.
This aid is exclusive of what Washington gives to Israel and Egypt under the Camp David Accords, he said, adding: "We should be giving about $60 billion a year. And in a budget that is over $2 trillion, it is no money, really."
"And it is much cheaper than going to war. We have already spent over $300 billion in Iraq alone. So to build a partnership with more people and fewer terrorists and more possibility for growth and prosperity for Americans is a very inexpensive thing to do if you do it well," he said.
Explaining the difference between aid given during the Cold War and what is being dispensed currently, he said, "In the Cold War, we gave less farm aid because we spent more on umbrella defense on the rest of the world. So we provide the defense and other countries provided the assistance."
"But now that the world is much more complicated, we need to do our part. And we ought to hit that 0.7% aid target, knowing that we know how to do it now and we would not just be wasting the money. I believe that, you know, most Americans would support that," the former President said.
"Most Americans believe we spend far more of our federal budget and far more of our national income on foreign assistance than we do. If Americans knew how much we spent and knew that we could get good value per dollar, I think they would strongly support this," Clinton argued.
Asked why foreign aid worked in nations like Thailand, Chile or Korea but not in sub-Saharan Africa, he said, "Sometimes it is corrupt governments, sometimes it is the lack of capacity in the government, sometimes we have not spent the money in the right way. A lot of the aid we spent in the Cold War, we spent for political reasons to try to build allies."
"But the good news is, we know a lot more than we ever have about what does work. We know a lot more than we ever have about how to work with local people, how to tailor projects to local needs and possibilities. And we know that we have to empower people and we know we cannot tolerate government that is not honest," Clinton said.
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