International aid causes more harm than good

That's the allegation by journalist Linda Polman who has written a new book called "The Crisis Caravan" which Polman previews in this Boston Globe story in today's paper. According to Polman, who spent several years reporting from Sierra Leone, the preconception that international aid is stolen by corrupt officials is more the rule than the exception. Here's the final question in the interview:

IDEAS: What is the worst example of abuse of aid that you saw?
POLMAN: In Sierra Leone, I realized that the rebel soldiers who had been hacking off people’s hands and feet, they actually could explain to me how to manipulate the aid system....They explained to me that for 10 years, all those years they were fighting and the West didn’t want to hear about their war. It was only after they started to amputate people, more people and more people, that the international community was taking notice of their war. Those simple rebel soldiers in Africa could explain to me how that aid system works. That alarmed me.
A Security Council report this year concluded that up to half of the World Food program money - $485 million per year - for Somalia is diverted from the people who actually need it, to a web of corrupt contractors, Islamic militants, and local UN staff members who are also involved in this scheme. We can shrug our shoulders about $245 million a year, but in Somalia, this is a lot of money and it is fueling conflict, and it is fueling the wrong people.

The question of whether foreign aid is more of a detriment was covered by Dambisa Moyo in this Opinion Journal piece and more extensively in her book "Dead Aid."