Readers of the blog know that I am not a real big fan of the war in Afghanistan. That being said, the House appropriation’s subcommittee on foreign affairs decision to cut $4 billion in aid to Afghanistan, but not cut the $110 billion military funding request is both hypocritical and ineffective. I am not sure which angers me more. The subcommittee claims they want to cut aid to reduce corruption, yet because aid is such a small part of the budget for Afghanistan and because most of the corruption comes from military spending, cutting aid will have a negligible effect on corruption.
If the subcommittee really cared about ensuring US taxpayer funds don’t fuel corruption in Afghanistan, it would cut defense appropriations. The DOD’s response would likely be that “corruption is a part of doing business in Afghanistan, so we can’t fight the war without bribing people.” This is exactly the point and it seems a little unfair to single out USAID for wasting taxpayers’ money there. The US is in Afghanistan because the Taliban poses a national security threat to the US (according to the US Government), yet the Government in Afghanistan it is trying to build is very corrupt. How does raking USAID over the coals help fix this problem? (Banging head on desk.)
FWIW, I don’t think aid to Afghanistan will be cut because DOD wants these projects.
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The solution to too much bureaucracy is less bureaucracy, not more bureaucracy.
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Yet another example of why the development first theory is wrong:
Take Inderaw Mohammed Siraj, a 60-year-old Ethiopian opposition candidate who lost a finger after being beaten by ruling-party cadres in 2008. Last year, he says, he was kicked out of a food-aid program funded by the U.S., the World Bank, and the European Union when a local official from his village in a remote corner of northeast Ethiopia told him: “We will not feed opposition members.”
With virtually no opposition representation in Parliament, the independent press and local human-rights groups now closed or under attack, and the prospect of his children begging for food, he has realized life would be easier if he gave up politics.
I have no doubt that the development firsters will go away anytime soon, but it’s good to have examples of why they are wrong – especially from Ethiopia because this country is often one of their main examples.
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It is a bit ironic for the branch of government that makes the bureaucracy to criticize its own creation. If Congress doesn’t like the excessive bureaucracy in the executive branch, it could, you know, do something about it. I guess its just easier (and more fun!) to complain.
PS: It’s not all our fault.
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Aid Watchers is unimpressed with the World Ban’s defense of lending money to the Government of Ethiopia:
…any horrible tyrant can be supported under the assumption that this tyrant is merely a temporary stage in a country “in transition to democracy,” part of an “innate tendency” towards “building institutions.”
Ha! Nice take down!
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Today is the 2nd day of the Parliamentary Staff Institute, focusing on the development and strengthening of parliamentary research services. The Institute’s meeting is part of the Commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Frost-Solomon Task Force, which provided assistance from the U.S. Congress to new parliaments in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union from 1990 to 1996. The events started on June 7. NDI has more info.
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While this will probably lead to higher budgets, it also will make clear that US foreign aid is not a tool of US foreign policy, but national security. Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan are the new normal.
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