ABSTRACT
The situation in 1990 reflects US preoccupation within Southwest Asia and North Africa. Although Israel hardly qualifies on grounds of underdevelopment, in 1990 it received about 4.4 billion dollars of US assistance, while Egypt received almost 5 billion dollars. In contrast, Bangladesh, with twenty times as many inhabitants as Israel, and far poorer, received a mere 140-80 million a year between 1986 and 1990, while India received nothing, and the whole of Africa, excluding Egypt, about 1.8 billion. Even without further detail it is evident that US government foreign grants and credits are not targeted specifically at the poorest countries of the world. The USA is under no obligation, other than a moral or philanthropic one, to provide any assistance at all
outside its own borders, but it is transparently clear that political as well as economic considerations determine the placing of the modest amount it does disburse. The same could be said of EU and Japanese assistance and also of that from countries of Eastern Europe and from the USSR before their efforts virtually ceased. Central Europe and the former USSR are now hoping to be net receivers of assistance rather than net donors, thereby diverting part of the traditional flows from developed to developing countries, which is bad news for the latter.
