Foreign Aid and Its Relationship to Ongoing Conflict

Foreign aid, despite its supposedly altruistic and noble intentions, has come under international scrutiny in recent years. High-income nations choose to participate in the aid process through their donations of money, services, and goods, which are allocated to countries perceived as ‘underdeveloped’, unstable, or experiencing hardship. With the case of Sri Lanka as a recent example of a country that has received mass amounts of this aid, this paper investigates the foreign aid industry and its priorities. In doing so, it demonstrates the contradiction that lies within what factors actually make aid effective. Following this, it discusses the multidude of ways that this aid can and has been detrimental to its recipients. Using this analysis, the paper provides a critique of the foreign aid process and the actors involved, demonstrating that foreign aid practices often work to disadvantage those that it is meant to save.