October marked the return to live debating at our Hove Venue, and a good turn-out of 20+ made the effort worthwhile.

The motion was:  Aid to developing countries encourages dependency.

The Proposer argued that aid does indeed encourage dependency by keeping bad governments in power and stopping governments of poor countries from being accountable to their citizens since they don’t have to depend on their taxes to raise funds. It also kills the local industries because the aid (especially food aid) is freely available. Aid is also used as a means of control and interference by donor countries.The aid system, I believe, creates jobs for the foreigners and not for the local people.

Fair trade is preferable to aid. Charity should begin at home. There are enough poor people in need at home, so let’s look after them first.In response the Opposer made strong and emotive points. Human nature is the same the world over. Enterprise ,ambition, pride etc makes dependency unattractive, agreed. However,  Aid agencies do conduct  research and cooperate with local institutions to ensure success and this includes establishing independency.   Internationalism is more important than ever, as the pandemic has shown and global warming reinforces.  In the long run we all depend on each other. This excellent debate secured an honourable draw. We meet again in November for the debate about  Justice in the age of social media.