Restructuring US Foreign Aid: A Practioner’s View

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has been the primary organization managing American government foreign assistance until very recently.  With mounting evidence of widespread financial abuse, misappropriation, and even fraud, the Trump administration is in the process of dismantling it.  Nonetheless, the U.S. continues to have an urgent need to pursue its foreign policy objectives through non-lethal means like foreign assistance.  Major reconstruction projects are looming in Ukraine and the Middle East, as President Trump’s recent trip to the region has highlighted.  With USAID off the playing field and its functions absorbed into the State Department, what opportunities could lie in the restructuring of the international development effort?

A Ground-level Perspective

As a 20-plus-year practitioner of international development projects under USAID contracts, I have lived and worked in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Eastern Europe.  My perspective is very much skewed by my focus on energy and infrastructure projects.  However, in every host country, I have worked side-by-side with USAID’s full range of projects and have picked up valuable knowledge from the contractors on those projects and from the management of the country’s USAID mission.  Consequently, I am biased toward practical, concrete aid projects that extensively involve the private sector, and I am also ground-level knowledgeable of USAID’s complete portfolio of activities.

Humanitarian Relief

Humanitarian relief is quite different from international development aid in its goals, skills, and structure.  It should be organized and executed as its own separate office. 

“Hard” and “Soft” International Development

Having set humanitarian relief aside in a separate organization, we can now categorize the remaining international development activities into “Hard” and “Soft.”

“Hard” International Development Projects: These are projects that directly support economic growth.  They often require engineering or technical solutions.  For example, to support USAID’s infrastructure portfolio in Iraq (power, water, roads/bridges, and telecommunications) the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers assigned 22 personnel to our project staff.  Private-sector companies like engineering and construction firms, large trading companies, law firms, and agribusiness companies are often hired as consultants to these projects.

Typical projects here are in energy, transportation, buildings and facilities, communication systems, occupational training, trade facilitation, efficient government, health care, and agriculture productivity.  Combination projects are also possible, like creation of the Laura Bush Pediatric Hospital in Basra, Iraq, which included building construction, medical equipment purchase and maintenance, and caregiver training.

“Soft” International Development Projects: These projects are targeted at social or political change in the host country.  Skills required to execute are more social science or political science degrees.  Expertise from global non-governmental organizations (NGOs) is often sought here.

Most recently, typical projects might be gender equality & social inclusion (GESI), climate change, education, fair elections, global community, LGBTQ+ rights education, and “combatting misinformation” campaigns.

It is important to separate these project types because their intrinsic characteristics have a direct effect on the acceptance and value of the U.S.’s foreign aid efforts.

One of the most outstanding examples of a “Hard” project was re-energizing the electric grid in Monrovia with the Liberia Electricity Corporation, which led to turning on streetlights downtown for the first time in four years.  This was the start of Pres. Sirleaf’s “Small Light Today, Big Light Tomorrow” campaign.  In talking to a peanut vendor on Baker Street, I found out she had felt secure enough to extend her hours into the evening.  The extra income from this allowed her to pay fher daughter’s school fees.  Her statement was, “The lights — they are hope.”

I observed the questionable results of a “Soft” project in Kampala, Uganda, while walking to church early one Sunday morning.  New banners had been hung on poles along the main boulevard on Saturday.  They were all the same, saying something like, “Got a big date tonight?  Don’t forget this!” with a picture of a dressed-up smiling Ugandan dude waving a condom over his shoulder.  Each banner had the USAID logo at the bottom.  As an American taxpayer I face-palmed, and I can’t imagine that Ugandans much appreciated being lectured about their social conventions, either.

Conclusions

Why not concentrate all our foreign development dollars on “Hard” projects?  From experience, these can have a major impact on the economic prosperity of host countries, are eagerly accepted by host governments and populations, and are easily explainable and justifiable to U.S. taxpayers.  They also offer ample opportunity to employ world-class American businesses and expertise.

“Soft” projects, on the other hand, are problematic.  They are difficult to explain and justify to the American public and Congress and are often received reluctantly by host governments.  Rather than influencing, we often offend with “Soft” projects.  There are many international NGOs that do this sort of work.  If a host government wants that sort of work, we can always provide a list of relevant NGOs.  But let’s focus U.S. government efforts on projects that lead to economic prosperity for all the citizens of a country and offer business and trade opportunities for the U.S. private sector.

Organizationally, the remaining USAID core staff residing in the State Department can be reconfigured with “Hard” project technical experts and contract managers.  At the secretary of state’s directive, this staff can offer a host country a high-impact, well defined pallet of economy-boosting projects, to meet the individual country’s most pressing needs.

Rick Whitaker is a Harvard- and West Point–educated international developer.  He has managed large, successful USAID-financed infrastructure and energy programs in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Liberia, Uganda, Ukraine, and Sri Lanka over the last 20-plus years.  rick.whitaker@vivagovsolutions.com

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