When we hear about development aid, it is usually spewing from the mouth of an isolationist politician. While the conclusion “too many of our tax dollars are funding poor people in other countries” seems logical on the surface, it is flawed. Money does flow from developed nations to developing ones, but it’s barely a drop in the bucket for many wealthy superpowers - even after spending on domestic social programs. 

In 2013, $125.6 billion of aid was allocated globally. If that sounds like a lot, it’s really not - at all. 

That’s only an average of 0.26% of the hundreds of trillions of dollars that wealthy countries collected as annual income. The United Nations suggest just 0.7% of this income could eradicate poverty by 2030. Yet, convincing countries to ‘donate’ less than 1% of their income is a harder sell than you may think.

Despite some infamous failings, aid has produced some of the greatest success stories in human history.

1. Nearly a sixth of humanity has been lifted out of extreme poverty since 1990

In case you’re terrible at math like I am, one sixth of humanity amounts to slightly less than 1 billion people. In 1990, half the population in developing countries was living on less than $1.25 a day. By 2010 that number had dropped to 22%.

Thirty years prior to the height of the East-West conflict, soon-to-be President Herbert Hoover asked Congress to send food aid to Bolshevik Russia in response to the devastating 1921 Russian Famine which killed an estimated 6 million people. Even though the United States and Russia were at odds over their political and economic differences, America extended an olive branch to a desperate Russia - saving countless lives. 

In the two and a half decades since the World Health Organization, UNICEF and Rotary International declared war against polio in 1988, we’ve seen a 99.9% reduction. This success is the greatest example of what multilateral aid and international organizations can achieve, but don’t jump for joy quite yet - polio continues to be endemic in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria.

Most people are familiar with the Marshall Plan, the American aid program (and its Canadian counterpart) which gave $13 billion in monetary and manufacturing aid to European nations ravaged by World War II. Although imperfect, the success of the legislation created our modern understanding of aid and influenced the creation of institutions that we rely on today to allocate it, such as the World Bank, the IMF and even the United Nations.

Since its creation, the Global Fund has identified and treated nearly 10 million cases of TB, delivered HIV counseling and treatment to over 250 million people, and provided over 300 million insecticide treated bed nets to protect against malaria. Not to mention the Global Fund is bankrolled by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, who have serious cash ($78.8 billion to be exact). 

India had been an incubator for polio accounting for nearly half of all polio cases in the 1980s. But by 2005 the country was vaccinating nearly half a million Indian children per year. All the work paid off- the country was declared polio free by the World Health Organization in March 2014. 

Say what you want about US President George W. Bush, but even his former arch nemesis Secretary of State John Kerry exalts the former president for his creation of PEPFAR. Created in 2003, the United States’ $15 billion, multi-year commitment to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa was unprecedented in scope and scale. 

The ‘Green Revolution’ was ignited when biologist Norman Borlaug (pictured above) discovered how to shrink wheat and rice stalks preventing them from collapsing under their own weight. The innovation funded by the Ford Foundation and developed at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines prevented the death of millions of people from starvation.

Waterborne diseases are just a few of the many important reasons why clean water is so important. Cholera, for example, has killed hundreds of millions of people and is one of the most rapid fatal illnesses known to man, killing its victims in less than 12 hours. The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ECOSOC) takes clean water so seriously it made access to it a basic human right in 2010.

Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are a group of 17 Wes Craven-terrifying infections, the majority of which are caused by contaminated water. Thankfully, treating and preventing NTDs is inexpensive: a child can be treated for ‘snail fever’ for just 20 cents per year. Sierra Leone has treated over 5 million of the country’s total population of 6 million through 22,000 local health volunteers - an incredible achievement for one of West Africa’s poorest countries.

Standard antiretroviral therapy (ART) consists of the combination of at least three antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to maximally suppress the HIV virus. A record 9.7 million people living with HIV were accessing treatment in 2012 compared to just over 8.1 million in 2011––an increase of 1.6 million in one year alone.

Once, American Paul Farmer was just your average Harvard medical student, attending class during the week and traveling to Haiti every weekend to establish medical clinics (bet you feel just as much an underachiever as I do). Partners in Health was founded on the innovative - yet blatantly obvious - idea to train local community members to be health care practitioners rather than import medical staff from developed nations. The organization has remained true to its commitment and now has 15,000 employees - less than 150 of which are Americans. 

While the world (read: Washington) was trying to sort out its beef with Cuba, the Caribbean nation was providing more health care personnel to developing nations than all the G8 countries combined. If Cuban medical internationalism is meant as a true showing of altruism or as another thorn in the side of the United States is still up for debate. What is undeniable is the success the program, with over 30,000 healthcare workers operating in over 100 countries the program is one of the most respected humanitarian medical programs in the world.

35 years since 8 big industrialized countries (known as the G8) signed a UN pledge committing to 0.7% of their gross national income to aid, the United Kingdom became the first one of them to make good on the pledge. While Scandinavian countries still give more than the UK and the US is the biggest donor thanks to size of its economy, the British commitment sends an important message to the rest of the world about the value the Brits place on aid. 

This one speaks for itself: by 2010, there were 43 million more African kids in primary school than there were in 1999. But primary education only guarantees education up to the age of 11, and 57 million kids around the world still lack access to education - so we still have a lot of work to do. 

For me, measles is the disease my grandmother spoke about when she referenced the ‘old country’. Thanks to global vaccination efforts, endemic measles is a thing of the past in many developed nations. From 2.6 million childhood deaths in 1980, measles now accounts for just 100,000 deaths - which is amazing.

A decrease in infant mortality is something we can all rally around. Seriously, everyone loves a cute baby picture - so the more the merrier right? Between 1970 and 2000 the infant mortality rate fell from 96 to 56 per 1000 births. Moms are healthier too. There has been a 47% decrease in maternal mortality and more than 80% of moms are receiving prenatal care. 

When the WHO declared smallpox eradicated in 1980 it was the first (and still the only) infectious disease that affects humans to be eradicated. For a disease which killed 35% of its victims and blinded or severely scarred survivors, the news continues to be welcomed. 

Turns out Beyoncé (alias: Queen Bee) was onto something when she posed the important philosophical question “Who run this motha?”

Women now hold some historically “male” positions such as Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff, former US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, President of South Korea Park Geun-hye, and Director of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde.

And of course Yoncé, Queen of the World. Though very few men have been queen of the world. But still.

The fact that you’re even reading this article is a testament to the globalization revolution. Global awareness of issues facing the developed and developing worlds and the connection between the two has (thankfully) instilled a sense of agency in millions of people across the globe. Taking action in support of programs intended to help those in need has never before been so easily accessible to billions of people. Good going, Millennials! 

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Ryan Bacci