Well, first things first. Third world don't exist. Who would be communistic block?
I would claim that developing world doesn't exist either.
There are roughly:
* 1 billion people in high income countries like Germany, USA or Japan,
* 2.5 billion people in higher-middle income countries like China, Brazil, South Africa, Egypt,
* 2.5 billion people in lower-middle income countries like India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Nigeria,
* and finally 1 billion people in low income countries like Burma, Ethiopia, Congo Democratic or Niger.
Yes, surely foreign aid could and probably is rising inequality. Thus it should be focused on improving healthcare or education level. Just look at Rwanda, where some health indexes surpassed levels of Germany, Canada or USA. In the last 15 years death rate children below 5 years-old lowered twice and maternal death rate decreased three times.
It is somehow counter-intuitive, but giving heating oil for half price could be debilitating for poor. Despite best intentions.
Graph of inequality and foreign investment.
You can see that there are countries like Germany, with gigantic foreign investments and .
very low inequality. There countries without foreign investment and low inequality, like Pakistan. There are countries with large foreign investment and large inequality, like Bolivia, but also like South Africa with big differences in wealth and low level of foreign investment.
And there are countries like USA, or Nigeria in the middle.
You could argue that high exports decrease inequality:
Europe has lowest inequality and overall greatest exports. Americas opposite - great inequality and lowest exports levels. Middle East, South Asia and East Asia are in the middle, with Africa scattered al over the place.
You cannot blame multinational companies on inequality.
Only reasonable correlation I could find is between HIV infected population and inequality, but I'm afraid it is without causation.
