The quality of aid matters as much as the quantity
Maimonides, a 12th-century rabbi and philosopher, argued that it is better to give anonymously, like the sages who secretly placed coins under the doors of the poor, than to flaunt your generosity. Better still, he said, to pool your charity—by contributing to a tzedakah box, for example—so that neither the poor nor their benefactor know the other's identity.
The club of 22 governments who dominate foreign aid would not rate very highly by the Torah's reckoning. This week they met in Paris to measure progress on two big commitments made in 2005. In July of that year, those world leaders who gathered for the G8 summit in Gleneagles in Scotland promised to increase aid to $130 billion, and double aid to Africa, by 2010.
But giving freely only gets you past the lowest rank of benefactors in Maimonides' scheme. An earlier pledge, made in Paris four months before, would have impressed him more. Donors promised to be more self-effacing in their charity, to “harmonise” their efforts with other benefactors, and “align” them with the priorities of governments they were trying to help.
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