They still get a lot of development aid from foreign countries. Germany approved new €765.02 million in 2018.

That's hard to explain.

India announced a $1 billion line of credit (concessional loans) for the development of the resource-rich Far East region of Russia on Thursday. Explain this.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/india-goes-from-ta...

yeah you can, pretty much every measure to mitigate poverty costs money, housing first, dietary education, food stamps, etc

There are poor people in every country. Can you name a country where every single citizen has housing, enough to eat, and good health? According to you all countries must stop all spending on space programs, since the money could be used for housing, food or health.

The reality is that the amount of money spent on science is relatively miniscule, and no country can hope to advance without investing anything in science.

Out of 195 countries it will be only the 4th country to do this shit. So it must be doing some things right. Poverty is one of the problems it is still working on.