DEVELOPMENT: Battle to Increase U.S. Aid

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jun 20 1999 (IPS) - The US administration and advocates of increased US foreign aid face a tough fight in the Republican- controlled Congress in coming months in their efforts to get more aid for developing countries.

In the first of a series of battles, the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee last week cleared 12.6 billion dollars for the 2000 foreign aid bill.That was 1.9 billion dollars less than what Clinton had requested and 600 million dollars below this year’s total.

The committee made huge cuts to Clinton’s requests for the soft- loan facilities of the African and Asian Development Banks and the Global Environment Facility (GEF), which provides grants to developing countries for projects designed to protect the global environment from threats such as ozone depletion and climate change.

Some U.N. specialised agencies also could be hit hard by proposed cuts in Washington’s voluntary contributions, despite the committee’s decision to include 25 million dollars for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) – which received nothing last year.

The latest bill, likely to be passed by the whole Senate next week, approved only 165 million dollars for international agencies out of a 293 million dollar request.

The complete foreign aid bill still has a long road to travel before it reaches the White House for President Bill Clinton’s signature, probably some time in October or November.

The House of Representatives has yet to begin work on its version which, however, is likely to include less money than the Senate’s.

Aid proponents tried not to be too pessimistic. “We’ve been in this situation before, and things turned out a lot better by the end,” said one key Senate aide this week.

But it will be tough. The Republican leadership in both houses of Congress has pledged to abide by “caps” set forth in budget resolutions passed earlier this year. Those limits, which must accomodate substantial increases in defence spending and a few other accounts, dictate that everything else be cut.

Senate appropriators have set a cap of 12.6 billion dollars for “foreign operations,” the basic foreign aid account. That account, however, does not include dues or arrears owed to the United Nations, its agencies, and some peacekeeping operations, all of which comes under the State Department’s budget.

The leadership in the House of Representatives have been even stricter. They have allocated only 10.4 billion dollars for foreign operations in 2000 which, if enacted, would mean an unprecedented 25 percent cut in foreign aid next year.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has denounced that limit as “disastrous” and warned that it would “gravely imperil immediate and long-term American interests,” although she also suggested that the administration could live only one billion dollars more than that.

Since 1998, the administration has succeeded in increasing foreign aid spending, ending a steady, 13-year decline which brought US assistance overseas to its lowest real level since World War Two and to the lowest level per citizen of the 21 richest western countries.

“An increase for a third year running would almost establish a trend, as well as encourage other countries to increase their aid budgets,” according to a World Bank official, who noted that aid to poor countries from all western natinos has fallen by a third since the end of the Cold War.

But prospects for such an achievement are not good, and the odds at this point are that US foreign assistance is likely to decline by at least five percent next year if the Senate gets its way.

“All indications are that the budget caps will remain in place,” says Ian Houston, a legislative analyst for InterAction, a coalition of more than 150 NGOs.

The African Development Fund, which provides grants to the region’s poorest countries, would suffer the deepest proportional cut under the Senate’s scheme. Clinton had requested 127 million dollars for the facility next year, but the appropriators approved none at all.

Similarly, the Asian Development Fund would be cut from 177 million dollars requested by Clinton to only 50 million dollars and the GEF, a favourite of Vice President Al Gore, would be cut from 143.3 million dollars to just 25 million dollars next year.

Congressional aides said the GEF is particularly problematic for Republicans who oppose Clinton’s commitment to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases that most scientists believe contribute to global warming. Funding projects designed to fight global warming is the GEF’s top priority.

Aid to the states of the former Soviet Union would also take a major hit: the appropriators cut 250 million dollars from Clinton’s billion-dollar request.

Anti-narcotics efforts would also be sharply cut – from 295 million dollars requested by Clinton to 215 million dollars, although House Republicans, who favour providing massive security assistance to Colombia, are expected to fight any cut at all.

Other programmes hit hard by the Senate action include refugee and resettlement aid, although Congress just approved a 1999 supplemental bill that should make up the difference between Clinton’s request and what the Senate committee approved, and even the perennially popular Peace Corps programme.

On the other hand, pro-aid forces were relieved that the committee approved almost all of Clinton’s 1.85 billion dollar request for bilateral development assistance, about half of which goes to Africa, as well as substantial increases in funding for fighting infectious diseases overseas.

The committee also approved 425 million dollars for population assistance, including the 25 million dollars for UNFPA which was approved by the House International Relations Committee earlier this year. It is not clear, however, whether that will survive action on the floor of the House where anti-abortion forces are especially strong.

The committee also approved 535 million dollars for reconstruction in the Balkans – about 30 percent more than was requested by Clinton.

The committee chairman, Sen. Mitch McConnell said that he based the total on European estimates of reconstruction needs and the assumption that Washington would bear between 15 and 20 percent of the costs.

Of the total, Kosovo would receive 150 million dollars.