Flawed System of Aid

What strikes me the most about the issue of foreign aid and disaster relief is the amount of discretion taken before a nation or body decides to react. In the presentations last week, a diagram which gave a visual representation of the amount of money given to relief after Hurricane Katrina, the Haiti earthquake, September 11th, the Asian tsunami and the Japan earthquake/tsunami.

Of all of the disasters, Hurricane Katrina received the most aid in the first seven days. This is unsettling because the United States is one of the richest countries in the world, however, monetary support came in waves (no pun intended). Juxtaposition that with the aid that was sent to Haiti in the first 7 days. Sure Haiti ranks number two on the list of receiving aid, but if one actually takes a look at the monetary values, what he or she will notice is that Hurricane Katrina received almost twice as much aid as Haiti. Haiti is much poorer than the United States. Haiti does not have the resources with its country necessary to combat such an event as the United States does.

In my personal belief, the apprehension to donate is political. The United States has certain allies. Because of this, it is in their interest to provide the US with money in order to secure their relationship. As far as Haiti, because the country is very poor and even corrupt, its number of allies is very small and so they did not receive as much relief as they could have in those first few days.

Although I have tried to compare the United States and Haiti, the article's focus is on the dismal amount of foreign aid that Japan received. I feel that it is important to hone in on this issue as well. The earthquake was a 9 on the Richter scale, whereas Haiti was a 7. The earthquake in Japan was more powerful than that in Haiti, yet the amount of aid doled out was not proportional to the disaster. The only justification that I can produce for this amount of disparity is the fact that because Haiti is far poorer than Japan, the country was devastated more. The country was also less prepared for such an event. For this reason, countries that provided aid knew that Haiti needed it more. Unfortunately, this points to systematic issues in our society which stem from imperialism.