I have no real opinion on the this program, though in general I feel anything that encourages one group of people to help another group of less fortunate people is a net positive. So in that light I'm not going to rail against something that might not be the "best" general solution as there is no guarantee in general that money spent by people for this program would be spent on a "better" or different program if this did not exist.

When studying the economics of charitable giving it is important to consider what a variety of programs can do for the total amount of such gifts. In the general case given more options more people will buy in and more dollars will be invested. This is true for gifts to the poor as it is for general non-profits. That is why large non-profits org's that survive primarily on donations tend to offer many ways to give. And why there is over lap in the services such organizations provide.

As for encouraging foreign investment into underdeveloped nations, that is what this type of charity is; it is a direct investment into the education of such people. It is unfortunate but much of the direct foreign investment into such nations by developed nations in the form of business investment comes at a net cost to the indigenous people. These costs come from exploitation of natural resources and underdeveloped employment laws and regulations, etc. What would tend to show the greatest benefit would be investment into such nations infrastructures, health and education systems, pushing the governments to a more open economic system with better regulation and controls, and the removal of foreign trade barriers.

It is important to note that many underdeveloped nations do have indigenous industries that can already produce goods for export that often suffer because of trade barriers erected by the developed world. The US and the EU among others all have local industries that benefit from some form of government protection that inadvertently hurts under developed nations.

Anyway this is longer then I intended already; to sum it up I think encouraging economic growth in under developed nations is not a very straight forward endeavor and it is probably a good thing to try a variety of approaches.