HodgBlog

Transparency International (TI) is a well-regarded organization that works to reduce government corruption world-wide. They define corruption as "the misuse of entrusted power for private gain". Every year, they compile the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), which measures how corrupt countries around the world are perceived to be by experts in those countries.

In my earlier Where We Send Money post, I collected some facts about where the US government is sending aid, but didn't say too much about those facts. Here are a few thoughts.

I went to see a great documentary film last night at the Seattle International Film Festival called Maquilapolis. It was made in collaboration with a group of women who work in the factories ("maquiladoras" in Spanish) near the US-Mexican border in Tijuana. In it, they tell their story of environmental problems and exploitation, which are made worse by the Mexican government's choice not to enforce their own laws in that region, due to NAFTA. See it!

Much of the assistance money that the US government sends out to the world goes through an agency called USAID. Their web site has a wealth of information on who we are sending money to, and why. Here are some interesting facts. Note that I have used the abbreviation M for millions, and G for billions (i.e. metric abbreviation for Giga, or 10 to the 9th power), and the numbers in [brackets] are references (see list below).

My main reason for starting this blog was to collect some thoughts and facts about foreign aid, though I will probably put some unrelated posts in the blog as well.