It is widely accepted that foreign aid provided by wealthy nations during the past five decades has failed to reverse global patterns of poverty and inequality (Ovaska, 2003).

“Illicit financial flows and corruption are inhibiting African development by draining foreign exchange, reducing domestic resources, stifling trade and macroeconomic stability and worsening poverty and inequality. These illicit flows rob Africa and its people of their prospects, undermining transparency and accountability and eroding trust in African institutions. Faced with high capital flight, tax avoidance and a marked dependence on corporate income taxes, African Governments face significant constraints to widening their tax base. The UNCTAD Economic Development in Africa Report 2020 shows that the large financing gap for the Sustainable Development Goals cannot be closed solely through government revenues. Tackling illicit financial flows, however, will open the door to releasing much needed investments in education, health and productive sectors. African Governments – in concert with Africa’s private sector actors – should take the lead in strengthening stolen asset recovery, setting new standards for avoiding illicit flows and committing to more concerted actions to combat the negative impact of illicit financial flows on African economies.” Mukhisa Kituyi Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD, 2020).

Carlos M. Palacios wrote a paper aiming to contribute to the public and academic debate on the appropriateness of young Westerners’ participation in projects of volunteer tourism conducted in developing countries (Palacios, 2010). The results illustrate that such projects can produce similar benefits to other educational initiatives of international volunteering and service (IVS) in terms of global engagement, career development, intercultural competence, and psychological support. However, the author claims that these projects need to harmonise personal and institutional expectations with real volunteer capacities. Thus, until IVS programs in the university context distance themselves from a development aid discourse, they will potentially fall under the umbrella of “neo-colonialism”. The research provides a model of impact analysis and raises challenging questions for universities or similar organizations involved with short-term group placements of volunteer tourism. Palcios concluded that in the 1960s, when the boom of international volunteering for young Americans started through the Peace Corps program, it was clear that there were political and colonial-like intentions involved. However, the current literature about international volunteering and service (IVS) rarely comments on the political interests of the donor nations sponsoring IVS agencies. Instead, charges of neo-colonialism are currently placed on the volunteers themselves and on the “voluntourism” industry. Thus, it is important to understand that the recent comments about colonialism, have less to do with elaborated critical theories of development, and more to do with “ineffectiveness” and practical concerns. In reality, what has been at stake in most debates about volunteer tourism is not whether the help of Westerners has any relevance in the development of poor nations, but whether these Westerners possess the necessary capacities and motivations to produce effective help. Evidence of this can be found in the conclusions of many authors when they suggest that the projects have a low impact in the local communities because the young volunteers do not have enough knowledge, reflection capacity, appropriate skills or qualifications, volunteering, and international experience, time to get involved with the locals or altruistic intentions.

*Neocolonialism: the use of economic, political, cultural, or other pressures to control or influence other countries, especially former dependencies.