A Breakdown of Foreign Aid Obligations-2023-12-08
Less than 1% of U.S. federal budget goes towards foreign aid.
Pinker’s Chapter 6 supplement — aid can entrench rulers or save lives, depending on mechanism
Pinker presents two different causal pathways. Fungible funds routed through predatory governments can act like a resource rent, helping rulers evade accountability or finance coercion—a “poisoned chalice” rather than development. Targeted public-health assistance during war can instead reduce indirect mortality even when fighting continues. His examples from the Child Survival Revolution include insecticide-treated nets and antimalarials, antibiotics, water purification, oral rehydration therapy, vaccination, breastfeeding support, and ready-to-use therapeutic food.
Pinker reports that childhood vaccination coverage rose from about 5% in 1974 to 75% by the period he was describing and attributes roughly 20 million saved lives to the wider campaign. Those are claims and values in a 2011 synthesis, not current aid totals or an evaluation of every program. The policy question is therefore not simply “aid or no aid,” but which channel, recipient, incentive, and measurable outcome. Chapter 6 synthesis · Resource rents, weak governance, and aid, PDF pp. 438–439 (file not included in this release) · Public-health aid and wartime mortality, PDF pp. 449–450 (file not included in this release)
Domestic affordability and foreign assistance
El-Sayed - AE-004 - USAID Restoration and Domestic Affordability tests the use of domestic opportunity costs against foreign military assistance while supporting civilian aid. El-Sayed - Israel and USAID Funding Comparison - FY2016-FY2025 supplies the FY2016–FY2025 official data, the original chart, and the limits of the comparison.