Whether rich countries owe assistance to the developing world divides opinion. I completely agree that they carry this responsibility, both because their prosperity is historically entangled with poorer nations and because helping them is in everyone’s long-term interest.
The moral case rests on how today’s wealth was built. Many rich economies industrialised while extracting resources and labour from colonies, and they continue to shape a global system — trade rules, debt terms, patent regimes — that often works against the poorest countries. They are also responsible for the overwhelming share of historical carbon emissions, while nations that emitted least now suffer the worst droughts and floods. Having profited from these arrangements, wealthy states cannot reasonably claim that the resulting poverty is none of their concern. Assistance, in this light, is less charity than partial repayment.
Beyond morality, self-interest points the same way. Poverty is the soil in which pandemics, extremism and forced migration grow, and none of these respects borders. Money spent vaccinating children abroad or stabilising fragile economies is far cheaper than coping with the crises that neglect eventually exports. History offers proof that well-designed help works: the eradication of smallpox and the near-elimination of polio were funded largely by rich countries, yet the benefits — healthier populations and stronger trading partners — flowed back to donors as well. Aid done properly is an investment, not a gift.
In conclusion, I fully agree that wealthy nations have a duty to help poorer ones develop. Their riches were partly built through an unequal global system, and their own security and prosperity depend on a world with less desperation in it. The obligation is both a debt to the past and an insurance policy for the future.