Browsing articles tagged with " USAID"
Development DG Program Foreign Aid North America U.S. Foreign Policy
Aug 16, 2010
Barak
5 Comments

USAID’s self-inflicted wounds

MA in Democracy and Governance student Elizabeth Cutler has a very insightful post on the constellation of forces within the USG that seek to undermine the work of USAID and their reasons for doing so at Budget Insight. She left out an important part of the problem: she blames everyone in the USG except USAID. Part of the agency’s problem is that it does a terrible job of justifying its own existence. USAID does not operate as a single agency, but is more like an umbrella organization for lots of different development projects (health, education, environment, democracy/governance, etc.). USAID has been unable to frame why it exists, so others have chosen to do so – to the detriment of USAID.

Development Foreign Aid Middle East North America
Aug 5, 2010
Barak
No Comments

Don’t blame USAID

Joshua Foust at Registan argues that USAID projects are undermining the war in Afghanistan and that the Department of Defense ought to take control of development projects. I think Faust is missing the point a bit. USAID is in Afghanistan because the DOD largely wants it there. I suspect that if DOD were to take over all of USAID’s projects in Afghanistan, the same types of problems would occur. After all, it was not USAID, but DOD that argued spending $200 million per month to provide electricity to Kandahar was a good idea.

Foreign Aid Middle East North America
Jul 6, 2010
Barak
No Comments

Corruption in Afghanistan

Don’t blame USAID alone. At least that’s what I argue at Budget Insight.

Foreign Aid Middle East North America U.S. Foreign Policy
Jul 2, 2010
Barak
No Comments

Nita Lowey is still a hypocrite

What’s missing from this press release? It says nothing about military spending in Afghanistan even though it is about 30 times greater than foreign aid and there is massive corruption involved with it. Lowey’s continued refusal to acknowledge that military spending is a major source of the problem is really unfair to USAID.

Foreign Aid Middle East North America
Jul 2, 2010
Barak
No Comments

Kunduz attack shows Lowey’s hypocrisy

Today’s attack on the DAI compound in Kunduz is as an excellent example of the hypocrisy Rep. Nita Lowey (D-Hypocrisyville) demonstrated in her (unsuccessful) efforts to cut USAID funding to Afghanistan, but not military funding. The attack on the compound shows that aid workers are as much on the front lines of the war as is the military. Moreover, if it were not for the war, DAI would not be working in Kunduz. Lowey’s attack on USAID was not only hypocritical, it was demeaning to all of the people who are putting their lives at risk implementing USAID projects. Perhaps Lowey can reflect on this over the long weekend.

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Founded in 2004, Democracy and Society is a biannual print journal published by the Center for Democracy and Civil Society at Georgetown University. The D&S Blog provides web-only content, including special reports and investigative series, on issues relating to democracy and development.

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