Redesigning U.S. Foreign Aid

REDESIGNING U.S. FOREIGN AID GaryPosz,Brucejanigian, andjongjun JLhe Clinton administration plans to redesign the Agency for International Development (aid) along less bureaucratic lines as part ofits effortto "reinvent" government The administrator ofaid has volunteered the agency to serve as a laboratory for transforming government The faltering agency, a favorite political whipping boy in Washington, is in sore need ofreform. At the same time, die administration proposes to reorient foreign assistance to conform to its overall foreign policy goals: support ofdemocracy and human rights and promotion of open, free-market economies. The scope and complexity of challenges to these goals are daunting—solving them is clearly beyond the capability ofany unilateral American effortand traditionally conceived international aid programs. To promote diese goals dirough foreign assistance, die United States will have to build—widi aid in die pivotal role—an international coalition in support of nation building and economic reconstruction. To lead diis global effort successfully, aid will have to reframe the foreign aid policymaking process. AlD will have to address the lack of broad support for foreign aid in the United States as well as in recipient countries—a factor that has led to the failure of many assistance projects. It must design its programs so they function well despite rising ethnic and religious conflict in many recipient countries. It also must reform its top-down process ofprogram Gary Posz is a retired U.S. Foreign Service officer and a former associate professor at the University of Alaska. Bruce Janigian is a professor of international law at the McGeorge School of Law and a former attorney advisor to the U.S. Agency for International Development. Jong Jun is a professor of public administration and director of the Institute for Governmental Research and Training at California State University at Hayward. 159 160SAIS ReviewSUMMER-FALL 1994 design to improve the effectiveness of its programs. Designing effective programs will specifically require that aid engage all relevant groups—such as administrators and technical advisors, host government officials, professional experts, ethnic groups, and especially local citizens—in die program development process. Ultimately, aid must move beyond its roots as a centralized agency of die New Deal and its historical role as an instrument of strategic policy in the era ofsuperpower confrontation. A Hai/-Century ofAmerican Foreign Aid Now in dieir second half-century, America's foreign assistance programs have evolved along lines dictated by strategic imperatives, first in World War II, then in die Cold War. The policies and structures supporting die programs are no longer sufficient or appropriate for the tasks foreign aid must accomplish in the post-Cold War world. Since its establishment the foreign aid program has been an integral part ofU.S. global policy; an instrument ofdiplomacy "by other means." The program assumed diverse forms to accomplish many tasks: development assistance to eliminate poverty and underdevelopment, the seedbeds of Marxist -Leninistideology and insurgency; security, military, and economic assistance to pro-Western governments thought to be directly direatened by communist expansion; and humanitarian assistance, directly and through private volunteer organizations, to help victims ofwar and natural disaster and thereby promote stability. Origins of the foreign aid program can be traced to 1942 when the United States initiated social and economic programs in LatinAmerica to attack poverty and underdevelopment The Institute of Inter-American Affairs (iiaa) was established after the diird Allied foreign ministers' meeting at Rio de Janeiro in 1942. Attached to the U.S. Department ofState, the iiaa sponsored a wide range ofsocial and economic programs in cooperation with other U.S. agencies and with governments of Latin American countries.1 In 1947 Secretary of State George C. Marshall, seeking to rebuild Europe and create a postwar alliance to counter the newly emerging Soviet threat, called for a comprehensive economic assistance program for Europe. 1 Granzert, Frederick W., "The IIAA: Background of Point 4 in Latin America," World A/fairs, vol. 1 16, no. 1 (Spring, 1953). The IIAA is the forebear of die current AID Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean. REDESIGNING U.S. FOREIGN AID l6l More popularly known as the Marshall Plan, the European Recovery Program served as the economic foundation ofdie North Adantic Treaty Organization. President...