Humanitarian Chains : An Analysis of Foreign Aid to the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Abstract

The project aims to explore and analyze the decisions by the United States government to provide humanitarian aid to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which hosts the world’s largest United Nations peacekeeping operation and receives a significant amount of foreign aid. We will be exploring the type of aid given, how it was implemented, and how it was allocated throughout the country. In doing so, we will explore the complicated colonial history of the DRC as well as an overview of United States foreign policy as applied to humanitarian aid in Africa and other developing nations. The project will utilize both secondary and primary sources. All of this will be used to argue that the humanitarian aid given by the United States government is inefficient and unproductive, placing the DRC under more debt and forcing further dependency on international actors.