Foreign Aid and Sovereignty

Sovereignty has been an imperative feature of the evaluation of western strategy towards other global commons. Indeed, the aid relationship being quoted as an illustration of the decreasing importance of sovereignty and also indicate the disparity between aid practice within International Relations and third world realities. And Nepal is no exception in this phenomenon as our government has received foreign aid commitment worth Rs 222.74 billion from various development partners till the first 10 months of current fiscal 2016–17.

Based on practical implications, the cause and effect dimension of foreign aid in sovereign state can have multiple conclusions. Firstly the low economic development force nation states to rely on foreign aid firm bilateral and multilateral donors, which ultimately trigger foreign influence under nose of sovereignty. The magnitude of influence can be linked with the rigorous circumstance enforced on aid-beneficiary countries. It is found that, although foreign aid transparently benefits receiver countries in some ways, the donor’s too gain long term benefits. The foreign aid in sovereign state can mainly be explained on two basic: with what grand motive the donors open avenue for easy aid and the relevance of state sovereignty being shrinkage by aid dependency.

Similarly in case of the financial position of donor state in comparison to the dependent condition of the developing countries, the concept of sovereignty based on equilibrium remains under question. According to the World Bank study, foreign aid roughly covers seventy precent of national income in Africa, which indicate that government and administration are likely to be compromised and will fail to act accordingly with their sovereign interest. Issues connected to sovereignty and foreign aid are multifaceted — on one hand, aid encourage dependency and functions within a agenda of complex or unequal power relations; on the other, it’s a major source of income and funding for numerous humanitarian projects.

Likewise the debts burdens of developing nations have often been sustained by intentional reciprocity between donors are receivers; resulted thru foreign aid packages forced by richer countries plus international institutions and followed by corrupt politicians and welfare agencies in recipient nation. One of the clichés blames on foreign aid is the way it encourage rampant corruption as well as perpetuate vicious circle of red-tape in receiving nations. The financial circumstance that are literally established by aid bureaucracies has therefore constructed unproductive system which measure the output in term of money expended rather than service delivered. Beside foreign aid will completely segregate productive dimension of society by undermining the need for communities to progress themselves through collaboration and exchange system. At a glance, the larger economy based in foreign aid means that it becomes addiction for the Third World. On critical discourse the gullible idea of poverty alleviation and development assistance by foreign aid seems apocalyptic. Instead, it’s actually a different face of systematic Western imperialism which may ultimately reinvite same historical doom in new form.