The Washington Post Examines The Current US Foreign Aid System

As I mentioned in brief over the weekend, the Washington Post currently has a story that examines the criticism the United States' foreign aid system has recently received from Congress and foreign aid groups. The main criticism is that rather than improving the system and implementing transparent processes, that the old "opaque" system has been replaced by another. So, what has been happening is that a small group of individuals have decided how the money is distributed, to which countries (i.e. the "priority" countries), and who controls the coffers.

After Andrew Natsios resigned as Administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in December 2005, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced that USAID would be absorbed more directly under her authority and a newly created Director of Foreign Assistance. Who was the choice for that newly minted position? Ambassador Randall L. Tobias, former CEO of Eli Lilly and Co., former head of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and major proponent of abstinence programming as a method of AIDS prevention.

Wait, why is that name familiar? Oh right.

So, clearly, the administration had its abstinence priorities straight!

Well, ironies aside, the article notes some more disconcerting things about the current foreign aid system. Of the $23 billion budgeted for foreign aid, the majority goes to a handful of "key countries," while the remaining $3 billion is left for 120 countries to fight over. Also mentioned is how India will be losing 35% of its aid in the coming year because foreign aid officials believe the country's fast-growing economy allows it to be a considered an "emerging" economy, justifying the reduction in aid. Sure, India has a fast-growing economy, but will that solve all its problems?

The article so mentions in addition to the corporate-style indicators implemented by Tobias and Rice, that:

Long-term development aid often directed by Congress was cut by almost $500 million, or 31 percent, in fiscal year 2008, while "economic support" accounts focused on short-term geopolitical aims and subject to greater administration control were boosted $865 million, or 35 percent.

This particular move was considered by some congressional officials to be nothing more than a power grab by the State Department. Additionally, the use of corporate-esque standards to measure objectives such as "peace and security" or "governing justly and democratically" for aid programs "shows how reducing poverty was not front and center in their minds" according to Center for Global Development senior fellow Steve Radelet. Furthermore, opinions from professionals who work in and with knowledge of the field were "all but ignored" and that the emphasis is falling on a more-centralized, Washington-based decision-making process.

So, what is this article foreshadowing? Most likely a debate over the administration's approach to foreign aid during tommorrow's confirmation hearings of Henrietta H. Fore to become the next Director of Foreign Assistance.

If I may interject some opinion, the current approach to foreign assistance appears to resemble very much the administration's approach to, well...everything. Everything is done with little to no transparency and requests for transparency are more often than not, shrugged off. When such a great amount of your tax dollars are being designated to foreign aid, you have every right to be able to know where it is going and if it is being used effectively and for a good purpose.