Fixing foreign aid

Wed, 07/22/2009 - 4:18pm

After many mumblings of foreign assistance reform in the works, some concrete signs came from today's Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing, "The Case for Reform: Foreign Aid and Development in a New Era."

That the Senate is holding such a hearing in the first place cause for applause. Once taboo, critiques of the U.S. aid system are now prolific -- coming from NGOs, academics, observers, and even the U.S. government itself. In fact, FP and Oxfam held a joint event to talk about just this last week. The flurry of discussion is clearly being noticed.

So what's wrong with aid? As Senator John Kerry put it in his statement,

[Experts] agree that too often decision-makers lack basic information about the actual impact of our development programs. They also agree that excessive bureaucracy and regulations and fragmented coordination are hampering our efforts to swiftly and effectively deliver assistance. And they agree that even as we plan for broad, fundamental reform, there are many steps we can take in the interim to dramatically improve the effectiveness of our foreign aid efforts."

Fixing all that is a tall order, especially with big domestic fish to fry (read: healthcare). But Afghanistan and Pakistan -- once again the first fronts on the war on terror -- bring these questions to the fore. There, the U.S. military is desperate to win hearts and minds, and helping out with roads, schools, hospitals -- in addition to security -- is one of the best ways to do just that. As the Counterinsurgency manual puts it, "military operations create temporary breathing space, but... long-term development and stabilization by civilian agencies are required to prevail."

So I, for one, am pleased that there are discussions ongoing -- and hopeful they'll be followed up with action. Read more about what the experts on the ground think needs fixing here.

ALI AL-SAADI/AFP/Getty Images

Elizabeth Dickinson | Permalink | | Comments? Login or register
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Not an easy fix

by Lure D. Lou on Wed, 07/22/2009 - 7:04pm

If you read the comments of the participants there is clearly no easy solution at hand...in fact very little in the way of solutions except a general call for reform. Foreign Aid morphed out of the cold war desire to buy and keep friends in the developing world while at the same time fattening the wallets of the friends of congress....it was never designed to actually help poor people improve their lot in life. If it was, then the beltway bandits wouldn't have become the billion dollar enterprises they have evolved into. However, I don't think the US system is any worse than the EU, whose paperwork requirements are downright Proustian.

If we simply dropped trade barriers, provided loans to small business people and sent over teachers to countries that treated their people decently we would get much further along then we are today.

Right now our foreign aid program is a make work scheme for liberal arts graduates who believe it is their mission to do good in the world and also live the yuppie life-style. But even our programs rise above those of the World Bank which are designed by less than competent patronage hires with no accountability and a taste for high living on expense accounts. (The cost of one business class air ticket to West Africa...the preferred flying method of the world bank ....is about 7 thousand dollars. How far could seven thousand dollars go in a country where people live on 2 dollars per day?) The math is so simple it's pathetic....unless the world bank consultant really believes he or she is making a difference with their incessant power pointing.

The whole rotten system on both the giver and receiver end has to go but I doubt whether Obama is the one who is going to give the first shove.

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Fixing our aid programs

by Eric C on Thu, 07/23/2009 - 3:58am

Fixing our aid programs should have been America's goal from day 1. Iraq and Afghanistan's high unemployment, lack of infrastructure (no running water or electricity) are the core issues that keep us from winning.

And like many problems we should have been working on for eight years now, we are too busy with other concerns.

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Day 1 of our aid program...

by DOR on Thu, 07/23/2009 - 4:44pm

was back in 1961, when the Foreign Assistance Act was passed. This is a long term problem with serious structural and political problems, least of which is the near 50 years of (and hundreds of pages) of legislation that constrains foreign assistance programs (Foreign Assistance Act: http://www.usaid.gov/policy/ads/faa.pdf).

Congress created the HELP commission to look into this a few years ago. A rather stellar cast of commissioners produced a ginormous report with several reform options, but the helpcommission.gov website no longer exists. There are a few Washington think tanks out their looking at foreign assistance reform. Center for Global Development and Stimson Center:

http://www.stimson.org/budgeting/?SN=SB200902231959
http://www.modernizingforeignassistance.net/
http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/15561
http://www.brookings.edu/topics/foreign-assistance-reform.aspx

Fixing foreign aid

by alokdelta78 on Fri, 07/24/2009 - 9:47am

many problems we should have been working on for eight years now, we are too busy with other concerns.

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