I live in such a country, where news of foreign handouts happen multiple times a year, $X hundred million for agriculture, $Y billion over Z years for education, etc. Then you see local consultants taking in millions to manage the funds, or construction companies taking millions to design and build school projects, and then you start seeing schools that take years to build, that realistically cost 1% of what was spent, and don't even have bathrooms. Of course you can check the "did build school" box, or "did plant some potatoes" box, but let's not pretend this is where the money went.

Foreign aid helps hide the holes in incompetent/corrupt governments, so the economy takes a bit longer to crash, people a bit longer to notice, and people get reelected, rinse and repeat.

In my country, near elections, inflation rates nosedive, everything becomes cheaper, but government does not have all the money to do that because we import almost everything and our currency is weak. They use foreign aid money for some of this. After elections, rates skyrocket. Are people really better off just because they ate for 3 months longer?