Foreign Aid consists of military or economic assistance that one country gives to help another. Many countries give foreign aid, including Japan, Great Britain, and the United States. Foreign aid can take many forms, including donations of money, goods, services, and technical expertise. Foreign aid can be bilateral, which means it is given by one country to another. It can also be multilateral—that is, given by a group of countries. The term foreign aid is also sometimes used to describe assistance given to a country by a private organization in another country. Countries give foreign aid for humanitarian reasons and to advance their own foreign policy objectives. Countries provide money, food, and other services to help meet basic human needs such as feeding the poor, and assisting with economic development. Countries also give military and economic aid to provide better security for another country against external threats and to promote a closer working relationship with that country. The United States has been the largest contributor of foreign aid in the world since World War II ended in 1945. But in the 1990s political support for that aid diminished, and other countries may soon surpass the United States. The rest of this article focuses on foreign aid in the United States.
The United States gives many different types of bilateral foreign aid. It directs aid primarily to developing countries through projects aimed at agricultural and rural improvements, health care, population planning, child survival assistance, and business enterprise, among other activities. Such aid goes mainly to developing countries. The United States also gives aid through a special fund called the Economic Support Fund (ESF). The ESF directs aid toward countries with particular security needs that are closely tied to American interests. For example, a large share of the ESF goes to.......
