Hungry Mouths to Feed and No Proof of Success

The US has planned to nearly double the amount of money it gives to feed hungry children in poor countries: from $95.5 million to $175.5 million. Good in  a year when the economic crisis is projected to kill 400,000 children.  (Though USAID still needs to switch from commodities  - a system that props up US farmers - to cash.)

The money would feed 655,000 children in Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Niger and Uganda.

But will it do any good? 

There's a new book out about how aid to Africa has failed to help it develop, and I'm sure not the only one.  

Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo draws "sharp contrast between African countries that have rejected the aid route and prospered and others that have become aid-dependent and seen poverty increase." 

Which suggests that maybe we don't actually help people. 

Perhaps that is why Berlusconi has declined international aid for the recent earthquake to L'Aquila "Despite the fact that tents are running out and people are sleeping in their cars as temperatures drop to freezing."