Executive Summary on Africa

As part of the UN’s Millennium Project to help eliminate poverty by 2015, Africa receives money as aid from countries all over the world. The sad truth is that fact of the matter is that this aid for the most part is not used effectively and not enough in the first place.
Most of the aid given to Africa is in the form of Phantom Aid. Phantom Aid is money that is given to support a cause, in this case lifting Africans from poverty and creating opportunities for them, but is not fully used in that caused. According to the packet, on a global scale, only about 40% of Official Aid given is “Real Aid”; that is, money that actually supports the intended cause. More than one forth of the total global aid goes to “Technical Assistance” which is basically paying people to decide what to do with the money. Technical Assistance amounts to about 47% of Official Aid given by the United States. The remaining 35 or so percent of global Official Aid goes to other things that don’t serve the cause. Regardless of how rich a country is or how much it gives, it is clear that money intended to help the poor is being wasted. In order to truly make progress in eliminating poverty, the world’s governments and people need to take the initiative to ensure aid is fully given as real aid, and to secure more to give.
As the richest country in the world, America has failed to effectively play its crucial role in helping to progress the Millennium Project. We allow a majority of the tiny amount we give to go to Phantom Aid. If the U.S. were to give .7% of its GDP as it pledged it would, to Real Aid then funds in Africa would be hugely increased. As a class we cannot dictate how aid money is dealt with. But we can take the initiative to raise awareness and outrage over how our government has dealt with aid. We can appeal to people of power to ensure that all money goes where it is intended, and we ourselves can donate and raise money to help bring an end to poverty in Africa and the world.