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Poverty, Inc., directed by Michael Matheson Miller, is a documentary that reveals the negative effect foreign aid can have on a country, such as many African countries. Many people, when thinking about developing countries such as Haiti, think of impoverished places with little to no resources. They think of people who are in desperate need of our help, whether that be for food, water, clothing, education, etc. This film explores why this mindset is an issue and how we could finally end poverty in developing countries.
Before watching this film, I thought that places such as Haiti need all the help they can get through foreign aid. In the media, we are shown commercials of starving children and homes that have been destroyed while sad music plays in the background and a narrator says “Just a dollar a day can help a family in need". When we check out at the grocery store, we are sometimes met with a screen that says something along the lines of, “Would you like to donate $1 to feed a child in Africa?”. As the documentary mentioned, sometimes the message of giving to people in other countries even comes through our car radios. All of these messages create the urge to help because it is human nature to care about other struggling people. While the organizations who create these messages have good intent, it creates the mental image I described before where the people in developing countries are helpless and the people in developed countries are heroes. Like I mentioned previously, I too fell victim to this mindset.
When a country is being supplied with endless amounts of resources to live, its economy crumbles. They become reliant on these resources and stop production of their own. The documentary gave several examples of this, but one that I thought was simple yet effective was about an egg farmer. Let’s say a man just started an egg business and it is beginning to do well and flourish in the area. He can supply eggs to the community for a specific cost and in turn, he is making money for himself (typical business). Now, a nonprofit organization comes in with eggs by the ton which are free for anyone to take. The egg farmer’s customers then stop utilizing the egg farmer and instead get their eggs for free. This makes the egg farmer go out of business, so he sells his chickens. After some time, all of the free eggs from the nonprofit organization are gone and the farmer has sold his chickens because he couldn’t afford to keep his business. Thus, creating a lack of supply of eggs until another organization brings more or the cycle just repeats. This example can apply to many many different aspects from farming to textiles and on a large scale, can lead to the downfall of a country.
There is a saying that was briefly mentioned in Poverty, Inc., which I have heard all my life. That saying goes, “If you give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he’ll eat for the rest of his life.” Instead of simply giving these countries goods, developed countries should be teaching individuals how to start businesses and how to be self-sufficient. If we supply aid, it should be aid targeted at things like infrastructure and education. This way, citizens could learn how to make a way for themselves, and their country would ultimately leave impoverishment behind it. All of this is not to say that foreign aid is never needed. When a country is facing a natural disaster of some kind and needs assistance, it is important to come together to aid and assist. When that aid is never taken away though, a country loses its self-sufficiency and becomes dependent. While I agree with everything the documentary said about foreign aid, I don’t think it would be beneficial to cut off every kind of foreign aid to a country at once. Rather, I think that some already established NGOs and charities should change their mission from, for example, feeding poverty-stricken areas to sustaining agriculture in poverty-stricken areas.
In conclusion, charity is a short-term solution to a major problem (poverty). This documentary changed the way that I think about foreign aid and poverty-stricken places. I think that this knowledge about foreign aid isn’t very well known partly because of the media with things like commercials and music promoting the idea that developing countries are helpless (though that may not be the intent). For these countries to break free from the chains of poverty, they need to become self-sufficient. To do this, countries supplying free foreign goods should come to a steady halt.
Works Cited:
Miller, M. (Director). (2014). Poverty, Inc. [Film]. Action Institute.
