Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said America’s private sector has been a model for foreign assistance as opposed to taxpayer funded aid which has “been diverted to corrupt governments.”
For the fiscal year 2012, the federal government’s foreign aid budget totaled $47 billion.
Addressing an audience at the Clinton Global Initiative, which is run by former President Bill Clinton, Romney said “private enterprise” is “having a greater effect” on its own “in the developing world,” specifically citing the work of the John Deere company with African farmers.
For American foreign aid to become “more effective,” Romney said it has to “embrace the principles that you see in these global initiatives” including the “power of partnerships” with the private sector.