By IPS Correspondents
NEW YORK, Jan 30 2006 (IPS)

Foreign affairs experts agree that the George W. Bush administration is quietly engineering the death of its traditional system for delivering foreign aid – and some of them think it’s not such a bad idea.

They point to the creation of the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) and the U.S. Global AIDS initiative outside the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where such programmes would normally be located.

As further evidence of a shift away from USAID’s traditional international development mandate, they cite the creation of a new democracy promotion apparatus within the State Department and the appointment of the current AIDS coordinator – who has no development experience – as the new USAID administrator.

The MCA was created in 2004 to provide assistance to countries that rule justly, invest in their people and encourage economic freedom. It has been criticised for the slow pace of its process for approving country applications.

A retired senior USAID official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told IPS, “This is simply another iteration of the longstanding power struggle between USAID and the State Department, which wants to use development money and leverage to further Pres. Bush’s political agenda, and make democracy promotion and the war on terrorism the centrepiece of America’s foreign aid efforts.”

But another retired diplomat echoed the sentiments of a number of other foreign aid experts interviewed by IPS. Ludwig Rudel, who spent more than 25 years with USAID, said, “My take on USAID is that it really makes no difference what is being proposed – except for humanitarian assistance and emergency relief, the agency has lost its effectiveness anyway.”

“During the Marshall Plan days (1947) and for about 10 years after, the USAID programme had a clear development focus. Now, the political types have full control of the funding and development work occasionally is a serendipitous byproduct. So what difference does it make if (US)AID gets absorbed into State?” Rudel asked.

Efforts to downgrade USAID are not new. Until 1999, the agency reported directly to the president. During the administration of President Bill Clinton (1993-2001), USAID was ordered to report to the secretary of state. There have also been sporadic efforts in Congress to totally absorb the aid agency into the State Department.

USAID works in more than 100 countries with a 14-billion-dollar annual budget. Its portfolio is massive, ranging from anti-poverty programmes, education, health and private sector development and export promotion, to policy reform and disaster and humanitarian relief.

The State Department now says that U.S. money should be used to empower developing countries to strengthen security, consolidate democracy and increase trade.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, outlining a plan she called “Transformational Diplomacy” last week, also said that Washington should further link its aid to defeat terrorist threats. She invoked the attacks of 9/11 and noted that the terrorists used the previously failed state of Afghanistan to launch their attacks.

“In the final analysis, we must now use our foreign assistance to help prevent future Afghanistans – and to make America and the world safer,” she said.

But some outside the government have warned that Rice’s proposals could result in a greater politicisation of foreign assistance. “We’re concerned that the same priority won’t be given to long-term development as resources are siphoned to support shorter-term diplomatic or military objectives,” said Jim Bishop, a senior officer of InterAction, the largest coalition of non-governmental U.S. aid groups.

Veteran foreign policy experts offer various other recipes to improve U.S. development assistance policy and delivery.

Dr. Jack N. Behrman, emeritus professor at the University of North Carolina who served as a senior official in the administration of President John F. Kennedy (1961-1963), told IPS, “USAID’s 30-plus programmes should be separated and put where the primary interest is.”

“For example, all assistance (Israel, Egypt) that is security-based should be put in the Defence Department, economic-private sector aid should be in the Department of Commerce, and should recruit volunteers to do its work, disaster and humanitarian aid should be in the State Department.”

“All efforts to ‘alleviate poverty’ should be terminated, since there is no evidence that USAID antipoverty funds have been effective anywhere,” Behrman said.

A founder of the MBA Enterprise Corps, a private organisation of volunteers with advanced business degrees and private sector work experience, Behrman added, “Assistance to democracy and institution-building should be in an independent agency, funded directly by Congress, to avoid the ‘smell’ of intervention. Programmes should be conducted largely with local NGOs assisted by American and European Union volunteers.”

But Samer Shehata, assistant professor of Arab Politics at the Centre for Contemporary Arab Studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, thinks the absorption of USAID into the State Department “certainly sounds problematic, if not simply a bad idea”.

He told IPS, “Most bilateral aid is certainly somewhat political and our USAID programme is not the exception by any means – in fact, it is much more political than the bilateral aid programmes of most European countries.”

“But absorbing USAID into State or making USAID the place of ‘democracy promotion’ – which is not so well thought of when it is the objective of the U.S. government in the Middle East – will only damage other less political USAID efforts and programmes.”

Prof. Shehata added, “It is one thing to declare democracy promotion a foreign policy goal, but it is quite another to come up with actual policies that promote democracy – effectively.”

But U.S. Foreign Service veteran Dr. Richard T. Arndt, president of Americans for UNESCO (the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) and author of “The First Resort of Kings: American Cultural Diplomacy in the 20th Century”, thinks the paramount issue is not government organisation but a continuing commitment to education through technical assistance and exchange programmes.

He told IPS, “In the post-Cold War world, educational-cultural issues matter more than ever in history. Nothing could be more useful than a totally coordinated and carefully calibrated programme of U.S. educational outreach around the world, carried on by strong government and private-sector leadership and targeting all levels of education, from K (kindergarten) through the universities, technical and professional schools, and in continuing education. ”

“The idea of the U.S. giant sharing its educational wealth with the world might help the world forget ‘shock and awe’ and begin refilling the reservoirs of goodwill that have been so fatally drained,” he said.

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