http://www.nl-aid.org/continent/glob...ign-influence/ 
Foreign aid is at the very least a form of influence, and at most a form of intervention by the donor in shaping the policies of the aid recipient. It is also a way to keep the aid donor?s defense industry thriving. If the price to pay for maintaining a strong national defense industry and influencing the policies of the aid recipient and/or intervention is that the aid recipient is ruled by a corrupt dictator who becomes very wealthy, well, that is just part of the process and it is to be expected when the donor is buying influence/intervention.
Foreign aid (guaranteed loans and/or grants) and trade have always been used as a form of exerting influence by the aid donor on the aid recipient?s financial, economic, trade, investment, labor, military and foreign policies; in short in order to maintain a patron-client relationship between aid donor and aid recipient, aid, trade and loans must be the catalyst. After the end of WWII, the US and UN used foreign aid to win political-military-economic allies to the nascent Western bloc, while the USSR did exactly the same with the Eastern bloc that Stalin was determined to keep under Moscow?s control.