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FINANCE: U.S. Public Backs More Humanitarian Aid

Emad Mekay

WASHINGTON, Apr 10 2006 (IPS) - Despite a U.S. decision to halt assistance to the Palestinian Authority and likely congressional cuts in the White House’s foreign aid requests, a majority of U.S. citizens still believe that foreign assistance can be successful in improving their country’s image abroad and enhancing national security.

According to a new poll by Zogby International, 83 percent of people here say they support U.S. humanitarian and development assistance to other countries and trust development groups to do so.

The poll was released to coincide with the aid and advocacy group InterAction’s annual meeting in Washington Monday attended by hundreds of humanitarian organisations, development activists and officials, including former Pres. Bill Clinton (1993-2001) and Randall Tobias, the newly appointed administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the main government aid agency here.

U.S. foreign assistance has been a hot issue in Washington since Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced plans to overhaul U.S. aid programmes in January. The debate has revolved around the size and direction of U.S. aid, its effectiveness and the growing link between the military and humanitarian relief.

The Zogby poll found that nearly nine in 10 U.S. citizens (87 percent) think that their country should give foreign aid in the event of emergencies like drought, famine, floods or other natural disasters. About 69 percent say the government should also give aid to reduce poverty and widen access to education, among other humanitarian goals.

A majority preferred that their aid dollars be distributed by U.S.-based non-profit organisations. Only 13 percent liked the idea of giving the money to U.S. businesses operating in the recipient country.

By a margin of more than five to one, respondents said effective foreign assistance could help boost the U.S. image abroad and make the country more secure. About 46 percent strongly agreed with this statement.

The findings could be particularly relevant in light of Rice’s newly announced “transformational diplomacy” initiative, which would further link foreign aid dollars, U.S. security, democracy and development overseas.

Secretary Rice said the aid restructuring would be part of an initiative to post more diplomats in poor countries and crisis zones, focus on teaching more languages used in the developing world, and ensuring that the State Department can evolve to face security threats in a post-Cold War world.

But this agenda has stirred concerns among activists that aid will be, more than ever, driven by military and political priorities rather than the need to fight poverty and hunger.

Recent USAID figures vindicate these concerns, showing strong links between the U.S. military posture in many parts of the world and development aid, especially after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Last year, U.S. development assistance hit a record high of 27.5 billion dollars, up from 19.7 billion dollars the year before and 11.4 billion dollars in 2001, says USAID.

However, the increases were targeted to only a few countries, primarily Iraq, where aid tripled to more than 10 billion dollars. Aid to Afghanistan nearly doubled to 1.5 billion dollars, while aid to the rest of the world remained flat except for a boost in aid to Africa of about half a billion dollars.

In February, the Bush administration asked for 23.7 billion dollars for the 2007 foreign aid budget, a 14.25 percent increase over fiscal year 2006, which will end in September. This does not include supplemental appropriations. But the total is still the equivalent of what Washington spends in less than five months in Iraq alone.

To make matters more complicated, Congressional leaders, faced with a shrinking budget and soaring deficit, have signaled their intention to turn down the administration’s requests, citing plans to cut 56 billion dollars for domestic programmes in areas such as education, agriculture, science and health care over the next five years.

The Bush administration was also planning aid cuts elsewhere. On Friday, it announced that it will cut or freeze up to 306 million dollars in U.S. aid and development funds to the Palestinian Authority to protest the election of Hamas to the government.

“As major stakeholders of U.S. foreign assistance, we are very concerned that the interests of the world’s poorest remain paramount in the planning process,” said Mohammad Akhter, president and CEO of InterAction.

Earlier this year, InterAction, an umbrella grouping of 165 humanitarian organisations, half of which are funded by USAID and the State Department, backed a five-billion-dollar increase for 2007 on top of the amount passed in 2006.

The group says the money will help address development and humanitarian assistance programmes such as child survival and health, development, disaster and refugee aid, and international organisations.

However, a growing number of experts have been calling for a reevaluation of the usefulness of foreign aid, saying monetary increases are not always the best answer to global poverty and hunger, as many non-governmental organisations advocate.

Former World Bank official William Easterly, now a professor at New York University and a non-resident fellow at the Centre for Global Development in Washington, said late last month that what development assistance lacks is independent evaluation and not necessarily more funding.

He noted that after five decades of foreign aid that saw billions of dollars going to former Western colonies, children are still dying in the hundreds of thousands, even in countries touted as success stories, like Ghana.