Aid payments are dwarfed by what’s lost to spurious debts, profit extraction, and dodgy invoicing, but help to feed a narrative of the industriousness and benevolence of developed countries.
“What this means is that the usual development narrative has it backwards. Aid is effectively flowing in reverse. Rich countries aren’t developing poor countries; poor countries are developing rich ones.”
“In other words, for every $1 of aid that developing countries receive, they lose $24 in net outflows“