A woman in Bangladesh, a single mother to six children, sews shirts by the hour. Surrounded by hundreds of her peers, she repeats this process for years, for little more than a pittance. A farmer toils away in the hot sun to pluck bananas from a tree and have them taken and shipped away. He is paid what amounts to pocket change. A child, starving and suffering from kwashiorkor, begs on the streets of a city that cares not a whim for them. These situations are faced by hundreds of millions of people in what the West deems as "The Poor South." People in these countries were left in chaos and ruin after colonisation to provide for themselves with barely any money, all while puppet governments squandered the resources for the poor. Supposedly, Development Aid is a method of assistance whereby richer countries provide money in Aid to those nations that need it, often proclaiming their generosity in this act. I wish to dissect the reasons behind Development Aid and whom it benefits.

While we may be able to avoid some conflicts through Aid, more lives are lost as we wallow in the profit machine that is capitalism. Recipient country governments that control the influx of money are often debilitatingly corrupt. They know that Aid money will only flow in if the country stays poor and so crippled it remains; the leaders swallow cash to line their pockets, money that would otherwise go to infrastructural development such as health services or famine relief. They do this knowing my people - our people - suffer. We suffer and bleed and perish on the whims of a few rich cretins, burdensome leeches who see nothing of value in the vibrant spark of our lives. The wealthy, first-world business owners, and their cronies in poorer countries, measure our worth not on the vibrancy of our spirit but our value as profit-producing cogs in a machine. If we fall, stutter, and starve, so be it. They'll take our children instead. 

Yes, Aid helps some, but the hurt so casually inflicted upon those in the "Third World" is disgraceful. Donor countries have their own intentions and often provide Aid simply for their own benefit. Sometimes, they deliver what they call Tied Aid - merely a fancy name that covers the exploitative nature of the conditions they place upon it. Alternatively, the donor country will use the recipient country as a pawn on the global stage, forcing it to support power plays or keep the country poor on the threat of Aid withdrawal. They pressure the recipient country into a situation where the extra money would have been a boon when purchasing common goods but now is a curse when applied to the hiked-up rates of a prosperous economy. The sick, twisted lie we call Aid is another tool of the obscenely opulent colonial imperial complex to manipulate the working class to do their bidding. 

When you think of throwing money at countries in some half-baked scheme to assuage some hidden guilt of yours, do you not think of the pain you are causing? The malicious, ill-willed people you empower? I do; I must. I walk these streets, and I see their hurt. I see that hurt in my grandfather's eyes, a man who starved and worked for scraps for most of his youth. My family has suffered under this system just as any other; if you are reading this, yours most likely has too. Yet why do so many deny it, going so far as to defend their oppressors? An enslaved person calling the whip their saviour would be lunacy, even more so the person who holds it. I see the hurt in the countries that have birthed me, not just the poorer ones but also the rich ones. I see this hurt in us all. And in it, I see the centuries of oppression we must overcome.

In assessing the effectiveness of Development Aid, I have come to believe it does so much more harm than good. The political misbehaviour and flippant use of Aid money actively remove opportunities for economic improvement; the manipulation aid enables also contributes to this cycle of harm. Development Aid is a method not for true altruists to help those in need but a way to further the horrific exploitation of the poor. It is the bloodied axe of an executioner, dressed up in a bow to cover the stains. To help ourselves, to help each other, we must tear down the system that condemned us initially. Capitalism, in which 1% of the population controls the means of production while also prioritising profit over human lives, is faulty. We, the people, the soul of the market, the workers; we must own the means of production, lest we continue as pawns of those who care nothing for our lives.