‘The U.S. Cannot Solve All the World’s Problems’ : Nicholas Kristof / NYTimes

Article shared by Robert Cohen and Kul Gautam, Comments by Kul Gautam


A must-read column by Nick Kristof. He offers fitting answers to critics of foreign aid who blame it as wasteful & ineffective, and why we must redirect those funds to tackle domestic problems in the US & Europe.

It's not either/or, we can & must do both.

Kristof laments the agonizing decisions that UN agencies are having to make because of the huge cuts in US foreign aid. He recalls, “One of the greatest figures of the last century was James P. Grant, an American who led UNICEF and ,with American funding, saved tens of millions of lives…”.
Yes, like USAID, many UN agencies need prudent reforms & restructuring but not dismantling.
Kul

Click here for the article

Summary
Nicholas Kristof defends U.S. humanitarian aid as both morally imperative and highly cost-effective. Critics argue that America cannot fix global suffering and should focus inward, but Kristof rebuts that even modest interventions—like Plumpy’Nut for malnourished children or prenatal vitamins—can save lives at low cost. 

He highlights dysfunction following the dismantling of USAID, including warehouses full of unused nutritional aid, and counters claims that aid is futile or misdirected by pointing to dramatic declines in global child mortality since 1950. Kristof acknowledges past problems in aid delivery but insists the real tragedy is abandoning effective, life-saving programs for ideological reasons.

Quotes
• “A starving child on the brink of death can be brought back with a specialty peanut paste, Plumpy’Nut, costing just $1 a day.”
• “We cannot save every dying child... But our inability to save all lives does not imply that we should save none.”
• “USAID may have saved more lives per billion dollars spent than any agency in government.”
• “It is true that USAID was endlessly bureaucratic, but what it needed was reform; what it got was demolition.”
• “In 1950, 27 percent of children worldwide died before the age of five; now about 4 percent do.”