Seems to me that programs which offered something other than money have been tried: my brother served in the Peace Corps. There was also something called VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America). I believe there have been other such mentorship-related efforts over the years, but those mentioned are the only ones which readily come to mind. Now, I don't know much about the success/failure rates of these past (and/or present) programs, nor do I know cost/benefit ratios. However, if we don't want to throw too much money to the wind, we might try to figure out how to design and/or improve the delivery of hands-on assistance---if anyone even wants to work in third-world, poverty-stricken areas. Maybe that's why such helping-hand assistance fell out of favor? If such is the case, I have no other suggestions.

Many things have happened since 2018. As to the efficacy of foreign aid, I see little evidence. World population is growing, unsustainably, seems to me. An average person with an ounce of common sense knows that populations and densities are not infinitely supportable on this little blue planet. If over-crowding on land is not sutticiently indicative of this, one need only look at the non-biodegradable trash ending up in the seas....the amount of sea life lost because of said trash and oxygen depletion found in dead zones. Foreign aid is not helping. If anything,, it is, as this post suggests, making matters worse. No one needs a Phd in any related science to see this does not end well.

Nations are, more and more, adopting an 'us first' posture. Who can blame them? Scholars and others, advocating for global community and solidarity, must feel as though they are spitting into the wind. The gale is deafening.

希望你今年能提供一些新的东西?规则正在减少。真空袋，变冷了。

I would add Education to the Trade/Not Aid, Carbon Tax, and Block-Chain triumvirate. The most significant resources of developing nations are intellectual. Intelligence is relative to the social and environmental contexts in which it thrives. Education allows that intelligence to express value which builds prosperity.

对外援助的失败被夸大了。已故的汉斯·罗斯林的书《事实:我们对世界错误的十个原因——以及为什么事情比你想象的要好》让我不再悲观。蚊帐变成了塑料饲料。也许我们需要收取最低限度的费用，而不是免费分发这些物品。一个经济体的价值观不同之处并不容易被判断出来。

对外援助需要让人们自己思考，这就引出了中国的例子。这是一个糟糕的增长范例。那里的环境好在哪里?人权在哪里?竞争和放松管制并没有像分享/获取知识产权那样促进转型。毫无疑问，这将是一个排外中国的世纪，但不会是一个辉煌的世纪。他们有自己的“生命很重要”问题，需要改革。

The climate change bullet is too significant not to take a first and foremost place in the dispensing of Aid (Education could share primogeniture only to spread the learning.)

Debra and Ken did not explore the blockchain angle. John Wellborn needs to be asked back to explicate this in isolation. Blockchain has IP goodness, climate change badness (though there are energy-saving methods), and multicultural seedings that will strike back at the missteps of past Aid giving and development projects. Let’s hear John out on that.