The documentary. Poverty Inc., explores many issues surrounding poverty all over the world. The documentary revolves heavily around the topic of forgein aid and the hardships it causes. Throughout this documentary you learn the many factors within foreign aid. Foreign aid was established to jumpstart economies and promote development, but it did not achieve its intended goal. The system is basically tax dollars being spent on aid to send to developing countries and also providing NGO’s, charities, and other organizations who also use this money to help developing countries. These countries are receiving various goods at no cost creating floods within the market, making it impossible to create a successful and developing economy. This also only keeps people in poverty, there is no way for them to grow. This industry slowly changed from helping people in poverty to creating a poverty industry. The only people who are benefitting from this system are the wealthy, while making sure there is no way for people to overcome this.
This entire documentary provides insights that most people would and will never know. I think the entirety of the documentary is very informative and the examples of what is ruining their economy is extremely important to know. In Haiti there was an earthquake in 2010 that destroyed their economy, and the United States started providing aid. In the beginning, the United States was providing Haiti with needed products but the issue began when the aid did not stop. Before the aid came rice was a luxury to Haitians’ but they continued receiving aid they no longer needed. They continued to receive shipments of free rice 3 years after the hurricane. The issue within this is that the market becomes flooded when the United States continues to send free aid when they are capable of growing it themselves. The farmers are producing a good that is not needed within their economy therefore the aid was ruining their economy. In Haiti there was a man who created a solar panel company to be able to provide electricity in a cheaper and more efficient manner but this man’s business soon started to fail because they started receiving free solar panels as aid from other countries. Similar situations regarding aid went the same direction in several African countries. In Kenya, many shipments of secondhand clothes are sent to Kenyans. So much free clothes have been sent that there is no need to produce clothing, resulting in no need for cotton farms. There was a story told about a man in Africa who decided to make a chicken business and provide his village with eggs. After a genocide in the country, a church chose this village to send eggs to so they could help. This man ended up losing his business while the church continued to sell eggs for the next year. The church eventually stopped sending eggs but now there is no one or place providing eggs for the community. The solution we have to fix poverty isn’t actually fixing the issue at all. The system that is set in place doesn’t allow for any economic growth.
There are entrepreneurs who are from the west who profit from poverty in these countries for example, Blake Mycoskie, the founder of toms. He founded toms and decided every time he sells a shoe in America he will send free shoes to africa. This was all in good intent but now there is no market for shoes, his solution was to put factories in the country so there would be jobs. This just created more issues because there are few jobs available and most people don’t have transportation. The result of this was slums starting to develop near the factories. This is just one small example but this entrepreneur created so many issues within the society and it did so much more harm than good for the people. There was one example that really stood out to me but it was a different entrepreneur. This man worked for a company that had something to do with foreign aid. This man mentioned he bought his first house with profits he got from foreign aid. Entrepreneurs like these men do not seem to really understand the harm they are causing in the countries. They are profiting from these peoples’ poverty while they are unable to escape because of examples exactly like the ones I previously stated. The relationship between society and these examples of entrepreneurs is one sided and destructive. There are more examples of entrepreneurs in the documentary like the farmers and other workers who worked to create their own business but have been taken down by aid.
