Humanitarian work is intuitively selfless; it is an opportunity to positively impact a stranger’s life without any expectations that he will return the favor. Although this makes a certain amount of sense, the sentiment is not entirely true.

In fact, when federal government agencies such as the United States Agency for International Development invest to eliminate global poverty, they see huge economic returns. Global markets expand and jobs are created. Financial gain should not necessary be the sole motivation for aid, but humaneness and generosity are not always the federal government’s prime movers. Boosting the economy makes for a good supplement.

The process, from foreign aid to market expansion, works like an investment. The investor, the one providing the aid, is essentially buying consumers who will then in turn spend money on foreign goods.

“From an economic perspective, what happens in one country has ripple effects throughout the world,” says Christopher Policinski, the CEO of Land O’Lakes.

The ripple effects starts like this: a small investment is made in a poor overseas community. Maybe this money provides clean and accessible water, maybe it champions education, or maybe it funds electricity and energy projects. In every possibility, it begins to raise the community out of poverty, making consumerism more viable.

The working poor, for example, may have money for apples, soaps, toothpastes and wheat. Middle to upper classes may now have money for plane tickets, clothing, technologies and cars. These goods are purchased from the United States and from other industrialized countries, boosting their economies.

Current data backs this theory. Here are some statistics you will find on the Borgen Project website:

1.

One out of five U.S. jobs is export-based. This means that one out of five U.S. jobs relies on global markets to succeed. Investments in foreign, impoverished communities expand these markets by creating new buyers of U.S. products, bolstering U.S. export-based business.

2.

Developing nations receive 45 percent of our country’s exports. This is important because it shows how much the U.S. really does rely on foreign communities that are still “developing.” Aiding those people in those markets will likely produce strong economic benefits in the U.S.

3.

The list of the countries with the fastest growing gross domestic products (GDP,) according to their annual average GDP increase percentage, may be surprising. The list goes: Angola (11.1,) China (10.5,) Myanmar (10.3,) Nigeria (8.9,) Ethiopia (8.4,) Kazakhstan (8.2,) Chad (7.9,) Mozambique (7.9,) Cambodia (7.7) and Rwanda (7.6.) In comparison, the U.S. GDP growth rate in 2013 was 1.9 percent. Investing in countries like Angola is smart business.

History backs this theory as well.

“From Germany to South Korea, nearly all of the United States’ top trading partners were once recipients of U.S. foreign aid,” reads the Borgen Project’s “Global Poverty & U.S. Jobs” page.

There is a lot of reason to promote foreign aid for its economic benefits, but it is important not to forget that at its core it is a humanitarian act. People are not only consumers. If Congress needs to think otherwise to secure bipartisan support and increase generosity in development projects, which it could stand to do, then so be it. It could be for the best.

– Adam Kaminski 

Sources: The Borgen Project, Bloomberg Businessweek
Photo: Bloomberg Businessweek