American foreign assistance still valued abroad
Surya B. Prasai
January 31, 2008
American foreign assistance still valued abroad
BY SURYA B. PRASAI
In a review of the US government´s role in constantly shaping new directions in US foreign aid, US aid experts in 2008 continue fine tuning their overall strategy that helps reconcile conflicts between humanitarian and national security incentives. This is at a time when President George Bush has recently asked Congress to work with him to push forward the Economic Growth Package that bolsters business investment and consumer spending at the domestic level. By passing an effective growth package quickly, American can provide a shot in the arm to keep its fundamentally strong economy healthy and help keep away economic instability domestically, such as the housing and financial markets from more adversely affecting the overall economy. At the international level, it can also help free up more aid money that is crucially required to maintain US diplomacy and foreign assistance commitments, for which both large and small developing countries rely on for their own economic sustenance.
US foreign assistance in growing but now targeting the more needy countries. Recently, ranking minority member, Senator Richard G Lugar cited in a report prepared by the Republican staff of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee "The president should design a national foreign assistance strategy that explains both the national security requirement and the humanitarian imperative that drive our government´s investment in foreign aid". It goes on "the effort should be designed to put to rest lingering and out-of-date distrust between security advocates and those who focus on humanitarian concerns".
In 2006-2007, American foreign assistance grew to become a huge proportion of the American tax payers´ money from $14.9 billion in 2001 to a record request of $24.5 billion, in which, interestingly, the Pentagon´s share of bilateral aid has also grown from 7 percent of that total to about 22 per cent, a significant amount. In Honduras, for example, the defense cooperation budget is nearly as much as the total amount invested by State Department. In bridging the security and altruism gap, the Lugar report significantly noted that Congress repeatedly reduced President George W. Bush´s foreign assistance requests and that "insufficient funding for foreign assistance in the civilian agency budgets reinforced a migration of foreign assistance authorities and functions in the Department of Defense".
The Lugar report also made some criticism of the US State Department, in particular Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice´s establishment last year of a special unit for foreign assistance to centralize decision making which has resulted in a lack of transparency for aid staff working in the field and weeks of extra paperwork differing priorities between post and headquarters as well as ´inconsistent demands´ as stated by Lugar. However, these should be considered fair and balanced criticism given the evolving multi-dimensional outlay of US foreign assistance with a multiplying number of requests from the developing countries. Today the US State Department through the USAID organized programs that have far reaching consequences, from agriculture to conflict mitigation, community re-education on HIV/AIDS, launching unique Power Summits such as in Nepal or Brazil to promoting bio-technological infusion in agro research and monitoring quality tourism growth and promotion which is a back bone of many aspiring developing countries.
US foreign assistance today is getting to look more like other programs launched by the Western developed world to narrow the "development gaps" identified annually in the G-8 summit of industrialized countries. However in the US context, there is still the need to substantiate funding fully, sometimes resulting in lengthy administrative delays and timely auditing of programs. Not a cent can be spent without the US Congress´s approval. Thus, these days, USAID too faces transformational challenges in trying to be competitive and responsive to global development needs although its Administrator Ms. Henrietta Fore has been campaigning for sectoral reforms within USAID to meet the global demand for US foreign assistance and expertise. From Kathmandu to Lusaka to Bogota, there is increased focus among Washington watchers on what is given out and to whom and for what, which is also seen in the broader equation of setting new program investment trends in the G-8 meetings of the developed world.
The other converging factor is that today development and security go together for most of the developing world and Secretary Rice has fine tuned the process quite well. The Lugar Report stated that USAID had become the neglected step child among US agencies in Washington D.C., but in the field it still plays a significant role ´as the hitter or the indispensable in-fielder from the post´. In the common broaching of US foreign assistance where the US State Department plays the pre-dominant role, and the US ambassador assigned to a particular country, its rightful supervisor and guarantor, USAID has made some bold transformational steps. For instance, there is the Global Development Commons (GDC) concept, about which USAID Administrator Henrietta Fore comments that ´the fresh initiative has helped bring together the ground-breaking changes taking place in development with the rapid advancements in information technology and web communication". This is a new step creating a common development interaction space for global development actors to unite - physically and virtually - to gather and exchange ideas and services, communicate, and form partnerships. The GDC unites all those with a stake in development - from end-users and beneficiaries to governments, to partners, to citizens - into a seamless and accessible network, making it easier for developing countries and their citizens to find solutions and resources that match their development needs. Using the concept, USAID builds and improves on the existing development information architecture (websites, portals, blogs, chat rooms, conferences, gatherings, etc.) to create a comprehensive network that allows users to search for information, facilitate dialogue, and trade or exchange products and ideas. If enough people tap into it from the developing world, it will be a virtual endless realm for development communities to share and conceptualize multiple information inputs and sharing of views giving minimum delays.
In another unique initiative, Fore from USAID recently mentioned on the need to build bridges of understanding to promote development and peace. For instance State Department used the occasion of Eid 2007 year to forge new understanding within the Middle East and between the people of that region and the United States. Faridah Pandit, a senior analyst with the US State Department and an expert on Muslim religious issues recently posted her piece in the US State Department´s blog website on how she celebrated Iftaar. For Pandit, born in Kashmir, India, religion has no boundaries; the concept goes to prove that development too can be conceived in a philosophical plane. Just as every religion preaches common celebration and harbors mutual respect and understanding for global peace, prosperity and harmony, USAID seeks common understanding through these new bridges to foster new levels of development enlightenment globally. In the world of international development today such partnerships are becoming critical to the realization of sustained, long-term national reconciliation in societies bridging ideological and social gaps. It is also at the heart of Secretary Rice's Transformational Diplomacy goal, the defining principle around which America has been restructuring the nation's foreign assistance programs.
In Secretary Rice´s concept of winning both hearts and mind through American public diplomacy, "Transformational diplomacy is rooted in partnership; not paternalism. In doing things with people, not for them, we seek to use America's diplomatic power to help foreign citizens better their own lives, build their own nations, and transform their own futures." In addition to defining what America does best given its diverse culture and economic prosperity, USAID´s global partnerships also define how it does it best the American way.
Traditionally USAID has worked very closely and effectively through partnerships with non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, and foundations to implement much of its programs. In man countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh and Sudan, USAID has a veritable partnership list going beyond the normal to encompass faraway rural community leaders who don´t even speak the national language, private voluntary organizations, women private sector entrepreneurs, users groups, environmentalists, even traditional healers! USAID also recognizes the growing influence, skill, and opportunity other actors bring to its work in these developing countries and the rest of the world. These include philanthropies, diaspora groups and the private sector. With the private sector, USAID is concentrating a great deal of its current and future efforts raising public-private initiatives to take full advantage of globalization and its benefits. This is particularly true for the Middle East and the globally burgeoning IT sector in general.
In the past three decades, resource flows from the United States to the developing world have shifted. Today, 85 percent of resources now come from non-government sources such as fixed capital investment, remittances, and various forms of private giving while 15% comes from government. USAID is further adopting new ways that will bring a profound and promising change in the way international development is viewed from Washington D.C., the way it is financed, conducted, implemented, delivered and monitored. USAID´s transitional and peace related initiatives for countries such as Nepal, for instance, are an inter-dependent flexible package to let the Nepali people decide on their own aspirations for peace, democracy, economic prosperity, and security and long term political stability. It is already bearing fruit as part of USAID´s transitional initiatives in Nepal for the past three years. Peace is no longer abstract; it is a Nepali reality embedded in its democratic future. It also very much compliments the sincere diplomatic outlook of the American ambassador who usually heads the American aid team along with the USAID Mission Director to help the Nepali people reach a new level of prosperity in the next few years. These kinds of partnerships are becoming popular for much of the Asia-Pacific region and the Arab states.
In the larger community of national and international development agencies, USAID has also started proving the world leader in engaging the private sector - mobilizing its ideas, resources, skills, innovation, and persevering technologies. Through the Global Development Alliance initiative, it has expanded its network in the for-profit world through more than 500 public-private alliances with over 1,800 partners. Currently, US foreign assistance is using $1.4 billion dollars of the American taxpayers' money to leverage $4.8 billion dollars in private money - and in the process, leveraging the imagination and energy of thousands of people who have not traditionally been engaged in critical development issues earlier. Thus, when an American visiting abroad reads the USAID logo ´from the American people´ on a project site, it is really true that the money does come from the American people´s heart. It truly represent the people to people level of generosity that USAID also emphasizes.
On another plane, the US President´s National Security Strategy also places international development in line with defense and diplomacy as the third pillar of U.S. national security. In recognition of this significant responsibility, President George W. Bush has announced several international development initiatives that are implemented, in whole or in part, by USAID and the Defense Department. While the two current major focuses of the defense department are concentrated largely on Afghanistan and Iraq, the Defense Department also offers aid to other arenas.
For instance, there is the Pentagon anti-drug assistance fund originally authorized for Peru and Colombia but has now expanded to 14 countries. The President´s Emergency Fund for AIDS relief initiative crossing the US$ 15 billion figure encompasses a large number of countries in Africa and Asia where the AIDS pandemic has not subsided, despite a recently hurried recount by UNAIDS over previously overestimated figures. However President Bush has pleaded that the figure must double if America is to seriously contain the global AIDS pandemic and not let it be a security threat. Similarly, the Combatant Commander Initiative Funds originally limited to small public works programs in Iraq can now be used worldwide.
USAID which was once an independently functioning aid agency but is now part of the US State department has gained the overall appreciation from the Lugar report. It cites USAID as having played a highly useful role in contributing to international development and peace. For the poorer developing countries surrounded by poverty, ill health and lack of democratic governance, Amreican foreign assistance has played a crucial role and proven a great source of relief to local communities and those people particularly living below the poverty line defined at US$ 1 and below. Continuity in assisting the world´s poor through US public diplomacy and aid will help the US achieve a new level of development friendship marked by people to people level of interaction.
(The author is an internationally well known independent global strategic communications, media and international development consultant from Nepal currently based in Maryland, US .He is a cross-disciplinary authority on HIV/AIDS impact mitigation, protecting women and children´s health, curbing international illegal labor migration in the US and the Asia-Pacific region, and analyzing and promoting US and UN global environmental safeguards. He can be reached at just_1_idea@hotmail.com).
BY SURYA B. PRASAI
In a review of the US government´s role in constantly shaping new directions in US foreign aid, US aid experts in 2008 continue fine tuning their overall strategy that helps reconcile conflicts between humanitarian and national security incentives. This is at a time when President George Bush has recently asked Congress to work with him to push forward the Economic Growth Package that bolsters business investment and consumer spending at the domestic level. By passing an effective growth package quickly, American can provide a shot in the arm to keep its fundamentally strong economy healthy and help keep away economic instability domestically, such as the housing and financial markets from more adversely affecting the overall economy. At the international level, it can also help free up more aid money that is crucially required to maintain US diplomacy and foreign assistance commitments, for which both large and small developing countries rely on for their own economic sustenance.
US foreign assistance in growing but now targeting the more needy countries. Recently, ranking minority member, Senator Richard G Lugar cited in a report prepared by the Republican staff of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee "The president should design a national foreign assistance strategy that explains both the national security requirement and the humanitarian imperative that drive our government´s investment in foreign aid". It goes on "the effort should be designed to put to rest lingering and out-of-date distrust between security advocates and those who focus on humanitarian concerns".
In 2006-2007, American foreign assistance grew to become a huge proportion of the American tax payers´ money from $14.9 billion in 2001 to a record request of $24.5 billion, in which, interestingly, the Pentagon´s share of bilateral aid has also grown from 7 percent of that total to about 22 per cent, a significant amount. In Honduras, for example, the defense cooperation budget is nearly as much as the total amount invested by State Department. In bridging the security and altruism gap, the Lugar report significantly noted that Congress repeatedly reduced President George W. Bush´s foreign assistance requests and that "insufficient funding for foreign assistance in the civilian agency budgets reinforced a migration of foreign assistance authorities and functions in the Department of Defense".
The Lugar report also made some criticism of the US State Department, in particular Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice´s establishment last year of a special unit for foreign assistance to centralize decision making which has resulted in a lack of transparency for aid staff working in the field and weeks of extra paperwork differing priorities between post and headquarters as well as ´inconsistent demands´ as stated by Lugar. However, these should be considered fair and balanced criticism given the evolving multi-dimensional outlay of US foreign assistance with a multiplying number of requests from the developing countries. Today the US State Department through the USAID organized programs that have far reaching consequences, from agriculture to conflict mitigation, community re-education on HIV/AIDS, launching unique Power Summits such as in Nepal or Brazil to promoting bio-technological infusion in agro research and monitoring quality tourism growth and promotion which is a back bone of many aspiring developing countries.
US foreign assistance today is getting to look more like other programs launched by the Western developed world to narrow the "development gaps" identified annually in the G-8 summit of industrialized countries. However in the US context, there is still the need to substantiate funding fully, sometimes resulting in lengthy administrative delays and timely auditing of programs. Not a cent can be spent without the US Congress´s approval. Thus, these days, USAID too faces transformational challenges in trying to be competitive and responsive to global development needs although its Administrator Ms. Henrietta Fore has been campaigning for sectoral reforms within USAID to meet the global demand for US foreign assistance and expertise. From Kathmandu to Lusaka to Bogota, there is increased focus among Washington watchers on what is given out and to whom and for what, which is also seen in the broader equation of setting new program investment trends in the G-8 meetings of the developed world.
The other converging factor is that today development and security go together for most of the developing world and Secretary Rice has fine tuned the process quite well. The Lugar Report stated that USAID had become the neglected step child among US agencies in Washington D.C., but in the field it still plays a significant role ´as the hitter or the indispensable in-fielder from the post´. In the common broaching of US foreign assistance where the US State Department plays the pre-dominant role, and the US ambassador assigned to a particular country, its rightful supervisor and guarantor, USAID has made some bold transformational steps. For instance, there is the Global Development Commons (GDC) concept, about which USAID Administrator Henrietta Fore comments that ´the fresh initiative has helped bring together the ground-breaking changes taking place in development with the rapid advancements in information technology and web communication". This is a new step creating a common development interaction space for global development actors to unite - physically and virtually - to gather and exchange ideas and services, communicate, and form partnerships. The GDC unites all those with a stake in development - from end-users and beneficiaries to governments, to partners, to citizens - into a seamless and accessible network, making it easier for developing countries and their citizens to find solutions and resources that match their development needs. Using the concept, USAID builds and improves on the existing development information architecture (websites, portals, blogs, chat rooms, conferences, gatherings, etc.) to create a comprehensive network that allows users to search for information, facilitate dialogue, and trade or exchange products and ideas. If enough people tap into it from the developing world, it will be a virtual endless realm for development communities to share and conceptualize multiple information inputs and sharing of views giving minimum delays.
In another unique initiative, Fore from USAID recently mentioned on the need to build bridges of understanding to promote development and peace. For instance State Department used the occasion of Eid 2007 year to forge new understanding within the Middle East and between the people of that region and the United States. Faridah Pandit, a senior analyst with the US State Department and an expert on Muslim religious issues recently posted her piece in the US State Department´s blog website on how she celebrated Iftaar. For Pandit, born in Kashmir, India, religion has no boundaries; the concept goes to prove that development too can be conceived in a philosophical plane. Just as every religion preaches common celebration and harbors mutual respect and understanding for global peace, prosperity and harmony, USAID seeks common understanding through these new bridges to foster new levels of development enlightenment globally. In the world of international development today such partnerships are becoming critical to the realization of sustained, long-term national reconciliation in societies bridging ideological and social gaps. It is also at the heart of Secretary Rice's Transformational Diplomacy goal, the defining principle around which America has been restructuring the nation's foreign assistance programs.
In Secretary Rice´s concept of winning both hearts and mind through American public diplomacy, "Transformational diplomacy is rooted in partnership; not paternalism. In doing things with people, not for them, we seek to use America's diplomatic power to help foreign citizens better their own lives, build their own nations, and transform their own futures." In addition to defining what America does best given its diverse culture and economic prosperity, USAID´s global partnerships also define how it does it best the American way.
Traditionally USAID has worked very closely and effectively through partnerships with non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, and foundations to implement much of its programs. In man countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh and Sudan, USAID has a veritable partnership list going beyond the normal to encompass faraway rural community leaders who don´t even speak the national language, private voluntary organizations, women private sector entrepreneurs, users groups, environmentalists, even traditional healers! USAID also recognizes the growing influence, skill, and opportunity other actors bring to its work in these developing countries and the rest of the world. These include philanthropies, diaspora groups and the private sector. With the private sector, USAID is concentrating a great deal of its current and future efforts raising public-private initiatives to take full advantage of globalization and its benefits. This is particularly true for the Middle East and the globally burgeoning IT sector in general.
In the past three decades, resource flows from the United States to the developing world have shifted. Today, 85 percent of resources now come from non-government sources such as fixed capital investment, remittances, and various forms of private giving while 15% comes from government. USAID is further adopting new ways that will bring a profound and promising change in the way international development is viewed from Washington D.C., the way it is financed, conducted, implemented, delivered and monitored. USAID´s transitional and peace related initiatives for countries such as Nepal, for instance, are an inter-dependent flexible package to let the Nepali people decide on their own aspirations for peace, democracy, economic prosperity, and security and long term political stability. It is already bearing fruit as part of USAID´s transitional initiatives in Nepal for the past three years. Peace is no longer abstract; it is a Nepali reality embedded in its democratic future. It also very much compliments the sincere diplomatic outlook of the American ambassador who usually heads the American aid team along with the USAID Mission Director to help the Nepali people reach a new level of prosperity in the next few years. These kinds of partnerships are becoming popular for much of the Asia-Pacific region and the Arab states.
In the larger community of national and international development agencies, USAID has also started proving the world leader in engaging the private sector - mobilizing its ideas, resources, skills, innovation, and persevering technologies. Through the Global Development Alliance initiative, it has expanded its network in the for-profit world through more than 500 public-private alliances with over 1,800 partners. Currently, US foreign assistance is using $1.4 billion dollars of the American taxpayers' money to leverage $4.8 billion dollars in private money - and in the process, leveraging the imagination and energy of thousands of people who have not traditionally been engaged in critical development issues earlier. Thus, when an American visiting abroad reads the USAID logo ´from the American people´ on a project site, it is really true that the money does come from the American people´s heart. It truly represent the people to people level of generosity that USAID also emphasizes.
On another plane, the US President´s National Security Strategy also places international development in line with defense and diplomacy as the third pillar of U.S. national security. In recognition of this significant responsibility, President George W. Bush has announced several international development initiatives that are implemented, in whole or in part, by USAID and the Defense Department. While the two current major focuses of the defense department are concentrated largely on Afghanistan and Iraq, the Defense Department also offers aid to other arenas.
For instance, there is the Pentagon anti-drug assistance fund originally authorized for Peru and Colombia but has now expanded to 14 countries. The President´s Emergency Fund for AIDS relief initiative crossing the US$ 15 billion figure encompasses a large number of countries in Africa and Asia where the AIDS pandemic has not subsided, despite a recently hurried recount by UNAIDS over previously overestimated figures. However President Bush has pleaded that the figure must double if America is to seriously contain the global AIDS pandemic and not let it be a security threat. Similarly, the Combatant Commander Initiative Funds originally limited to small public works programs in Iraq can now be used worldwide.
USAID which was once an independently functioning aid agency but is now part of the US State department has gained the overall appreciation from the Lugar report. It cites USAID as having played a highly useful role in contributing to international development and peace. For the poorer developing countries surrounded by poverty, ill health and lack of democratic governance, Amreican foreign assistance has played a crucial role and proven a great source of relief to local communities and those people particularly living below the poverty line defined at US$ 1 and below. Continuity in assisting the world´s poor through US public diplomacy and aid will help the US achieve a new level of development friendship marked by people to people level of interaction.
(The author is an internationally well known independent global strategic communications, media and international development consultant from Nepal currently based in Maryland, US .He is a cross-disciplinary authority on HIV/AIDS impact mitigation, protecting women and children´s health, curbing international illegal labor migration in the US and the Asia-Pacific region, and analyzing and promoting US and UN global environmental safeguards. He can be reached at just_1_idea@hotmail.com).