Foreign Aid Mindlessness
This month the U.S. government’s foreign aid agency (USAID) intends to complete a new mission statement based on polling some 1500 of its staff members.
Here is the draft of Dec 11th,
“We partner to end extreme poverty and enable thriving democratic societies to realize their potential while advancing American security, prosperity and values.”
Does anyone see any problems with this? Any incongruities? Intellectual flabbiness? Contradictions? I’ve been working in international development for forty-five years and I’ve rarely seen as mindless a statement coming from any entity devoted to promoting development (n.b., USAID stands for the “U.S. Agency for International Development”).
Let’s start with “ending extreme poverty.” To talk about this without reference to the means to do so leaves wide open the chance that we’ll continue to do what’s been done for years to little effect, and that is alleviate the symptoms of poverty without dealing with its underlying causes. For a long time now USAID has been promoting familiar and popular programs that work directly with the poor, feeding them, training them to grow better crops, helping them get microcredit, and saving lives through inoculations and health programs. Such projects are relatively easy to do, can be measured (caloric intake, infant mortality, etc.) and make us feel virtuous. But they have little to do with long term development, and research has shown that while they may take the edge off extreme poverty (defined as living on less than $1.25 per day) they do not move people much further than that (is getting to $1.75 or $2.00 per day really success?) Simply, they do not sustainably reduce, much less really eliminate, poverty.
Virtually all the intelligent discussion of foreign aid to developing nations has for years converged around a view that ending poverty in a sustainable way depends on changes in the institutions of a society — institutions that embody and enforce the rule of law, ensure property rights, and policies that bolster stability and broaden opportunities for economic participation.
Two generations ago the U.S. seems to have understood this. Take a look at the U.S. government’s mission statement at the very beginning of our modern foreign aid apparatus — President Truman’s “Point Four Program” which was codified in the 1950 Act for International Development.
“It is declared to be the policy of the United States to aid the efforts of economically underdeveloped areas to develop their resources and improve their working and living conditions by encouraging the exchange of technical knowledge and skills and the flow of investment capital.”
While it was not perfect, missed much and was a bit naive, it was clear, un-muddled, and believe it or not, sincere. It focused on capacity and capital; on skills, knowledge and investment — a formula that, while incomplete, still makes some sense (see China’s success in moving hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty). That is what can promote enterprise and jobs, and through that economic growth.
Of course in the 1950 statement there was no mention of our prosperity, security or values; we did not then talk about combining aid to developing areas with the advancement of American security, prosperity and values. We did not for a simple reason — they don’t fit well together. If the current phrasing — “partner” and “realizing their potential” — suggests we want to help others develop in tandem with them; on their terms (at least partly); then our values, our prosperity, our security may not be what gets advanced. Almost by definition what should advance is their prosperity, their values and their security. And if the Truman era mission statement seemed implicitly in favor of our values (a too unquestioned belief in ‘technical knowledge and skills’) at least it did not get caught in a blatant effort to have your cake and eat it too, which is what the current draft statement tries to do.
Finally, where are those “thriving democracies” that we want ‘to enable to realize their potential?’ I can name a few democracies, but few are “thriving,” and when I look at the 100 or so nations and territories receiving some sort of official U.S. aid, at best there are ten percent that come even close to being both thriving and democratic and on both counts there are reasons to be doubtful (Mexico, Mongolia, Panama, Indonesia, India, Georgia, Belarus, Botswana, Montenegro????). As for the other 90% (e.g., Haiti, South Africa, Rwanda, Kenya, Nigeria, Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Malawi, Philippines, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Guinea, Burma….the list is long…) well, let’s just say it’s a stretch to put any of them into either of the two categories. And anyway, if a country is a thriving democracy, it is then by all accounts well on the path to prosperity and does not really need much of our development aid.
So what then is the purpose of this participatory, time-consuming, and basically un-rigorous effort to encase U.S. foreign aid in a new Vision and Mission? Do we cynically chalk it up to mere political posturing — a hope that no one will pay much attention other than to its good intentions? Is this an anodyne attempt to seem like we are doing something meaningful, and if so who is the audience? And if they read it carefully are they likely to believe it? Or is it just a way to kid ourselves?
