No, 90 Percent of Aid Is Not Skimmed Off Before Reaching Target Communities
A viral claim, spread and amplified by Elon Musk, suggests that only 10 percent of USAID money reaches its intended beneficiaries. This is a wildly incorrect and misleading interpretation of a different statistic—that 10 percent of USAID payments are made directly to organizations in the developing world. The remaining 90 percent includes all the goods and services that USAID, American companies, and faith-based organizations deliver in kind, from HIV drugs to emergency food aid, malaria bed nets, and treatment for acute malnutrition. And it is absolutely crucial to debunk this false claim because it is being used as part of the pretext to (illegally) dissolve USAID in its entirety.
