by Connie K. Duckworth

Having worked on Wall Street for my entire career, I sure never knew where the “real money” was hiding. Most of the money for humanitarian assistance comes from the governments of developed countries. Actually, I’d guess that hundreds of billions get aimed each year at improving the lives of the citizens in developing countries around the world, by a whole cast of development organizations. Here are a just a couple of examples.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is our federal government agency responsible for allocating and distributing American foreign aid. Its stated objective is to “extend a helping hand to those people overseas struggling to make a better life, recover from a disaster or striving to live in a free and democratic country…” In 2009, Congress appropriated about $26 billion for USAID’s handshake. Assisting in the execution of this mission are the for-profit “Beltway bandits”, the private consulting companies circling Washington, DC along Interstate 495.