Ive been taking a foreign aid course this semester. Its interesting to learn about how much money the US spends on foreign aid and how a lot of the time it does more harm than good. Most foreign aid comes with strings attached and might be required to have some American company come in and do a project (only after said company makes generous political donations of course). Or it might be in the form of some sort of military assistance.
Very rarely does the US just hand over money to a country for a project of their choosing.
Probably the most controversial foreign aid agent is the IMF.
The IMF is pretty much a way for the powerful countries (mainly the US) to prey on countries with unstable/weak economies. A great example is Jamaica, whose agricultural industry has been completely run out of business after they took IMF loans to avoid defaulting. When a country takes IMF loans there are forced to change their economic policies so that they have free trade with no tariffs. This means that foreign companies can move in and basically drive all the local businesses out because the prices are so much cheaper. Also, the the IMFs requirements cause currency devaluation, decreasing the populations buying power.
The US is the largest IMF shareholder at about 18%, about another 65% comes from western Europe..... pretty much the equivalent of modern day economic imperialism.