Our generous foreign aid

The world's richest nations greatly exaggerate their aid to poor countries – with the US, the worst offender, giving only 0.02% of its income in real assistance, says a study released today by ActionAid International.

The report, which can be downloaded at http://www.actionaidusa.org/Action Aid Real Aid.pdf says that some two-thirds of the money donated by the world’s wealthiest countries is in actuality “phantom aid” that is not genuinely available for poverty reduction in developing countries.

Phantom Aid is aid that is diverted from poor nations for other purposes within bureaucratic aid systems. This includes aid that is, among all G7 donations:

• not targeted for poverty reduction, estimated to be worth US$4.9 billion

• double counted as debt relief, totaling US$9.4 billion

• overpriced and ineffective- Technical Assistance, estimated at US$13.8 billion

• tied to goods and services from the donor country, estimated at US$2.7 billion

• poorly coordinated and with high transaction costs, estimated at US$9 billion

• too unpredictable to be useful to the recipient – lack of data prevents an estimate

• spent on immigration-related costs in the donor country; totaling US$1.5 billion

• spent on excess administration costs; totaling US$0.4 billion.

In total, says the study, at least 61% of all donor assistance from G7 nations is phantom aid, with real aid in 2003 accounting for just US$27 billion, or only 0.1% of combined donor income. Nearly 90% of all contributions coming from the United States and France are considered phantom aid.
  Reuters article

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.