John F. Kennedy, founder of the United States Agency
for International Development (USAID), on November 3, 1961, presented with a
vision to bring evolution and modernization in developing countries. He
realized the need to bring together several existing foreign aid to
organizations and programs to provide assistance to foreign countries to promote
economic and social development. “The U.S.
Agency for International Development (USAID) was born out of a spirit of
progress, innovation and a reflection of American’s values, character and a
fundamental belief in doing the right thing.” The concept of providing aid for
international development was not started in 1961 but at the time of World War
II, where the Secretary of State, George C. Marshall provided a sufficient
amount of financial assistance to Europe to rebuild its infrastructure, to
regain economic strength and stabilize its state. This was called the Marshall
Plan and also known as the European Recovery Program.
In 1961 the concept of helping other countries by
giving aid but also effective programs such as short and long term development,
pursuing education at all levels, and emphasis on national and regional
development. This era was known as the “decade of development.”
A “New Direction” approach was established in the
Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) in 1973. Previously USAID primary focus was on
economic and development assistance but by the modification in this act which
is implied till date is now focused on many other major sectors such as food
and nutrition, population planning and health, education and human resources
development.
In the 1990s, sustainable development
and helping countries to improve their standard of living was the top priority
of USAID. In doing this it provided development assistance programs to
developing countries. Transitional countries received help in times of crisis
and those who received limited USAID were supported through nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs).
In the 2000s, Afghanistan and Iraq
war was struck and USAID was called for help to rebuild infrastructure,
government, society, health care and education in those two countries. Today
USAID is spread throughout the world, facilitating more than 100 countries with
the same approach that President Kennedy initially outlined 52 years ago-
“furthering America's foreign policy interests in expanding democracy and free
markets while also extending a helping hand to people struggling to make a
better life, recover from a disaster or striving to live in a free and
democratic country."
“The United States sees a prosperous, secure, and
stable Pakistan as vital to regional peace and security.” Not only has USAID
been helping Pakistan now, but going back into the 1960s during the time of
industrialization USAID had a vital role in numerous development projects
throughout Pakistan in the agricultural and industrial sector, food support and
humanitarian assistance. After September 2001, the relationship between
Pakistan and USAID shifted to antiterrorism programs. Since 2002, the USAID has provided over $5.1 billion in support for
health, economic growth, energy, education, earthquake reconstruction, good
governance, and flood relief and recovery. [5] U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID) has provided nearly $2 billion in assistance
since 2009. USAID has adopted a government to government model, in which the
majority of programs are implemented with the help of national and provincial
governments. USAID also works extensively with local contractors and other
indigenous institutions.
“U.S. support is helping strengthen Pakistan's
energy sector, increase the educational and economic opportunities available to
Pakistan's citizens, improve the provision of health care services, and meet
critical infrastructure needs in remote mountain areas”[4]
USAID is primarily helping in 5 key
areas: energy, education, health, stabilization and health. Following is the
discussion on various segments in which this agency has been operating
specifically in Pakistan:
ü
Energy: Energy
is essential to economic growth by increasing industrial and agricultural
production, creating jobs and by providing better quality of life. USAID Power
Distribution Program, began on September 2010 is a five- year program and
funded by USAID of 60 million USD. This program aimed at working jointly with
government owned electric power distribution companies (DISCO) in Pakistan to
improve governance and management, technologies for performance improvement,
Human Resource Management which will be assessed by a performance-based
evaluation system, training facilities, billing collection and revenue
management. Through this program, the United States Government provides
assistance and support to the Government of Pakistan in its efforts to improve
the power sector to end the current energy crisis. [6]
ü
Education:
Every child is born with a basic human right to education. It is inhumane
to take children out of schools and place them in factories, as is the trend
followed in the lower classes of Pakistan. USAID initiates many education
programs to help Pakistan overcome their illiteracy rate so that the people of
Pakistan can help themselves in the future using the portal of education. There
are many small projects that USAID conducts which include providing training
for many teachers and scholarships for many students that have graduated and
are looking for higher levels of studies. Areas that were hit by the floods and
earthquakes have been helped tremendously by USAID. Nearly 150 schools have
been repaired or rebuilt in Malakand so that children can be provided a place
to study. [7] USAID has vowed to
bring all countries that require help of any kind in almost any matter.
ü
Health:
There is a great need to provide the citizens of Pakistan a proper health care facility
in which they can seek proper assistance for all of their health-related
problems. The USAID programs that are based on health help to provide people
from underdeveloped areas of Pakistan with many healthcare facilities. Nearly
11,000 health care providers were trained by USAID professionals since 2003.
126 ambulances were also introduced and nearly 89 healthcare facilities were
upgraded and equipped with state of the art gadgets. 32 million children within
Pakistan have been provided with vaccinations for Polio. [8] The USAID sought
out nearly 26 target areas in which neonatal mortality was at an abnormally
high level. Their mental and child health care programs proved very beneficial.
They helped to decrease the neonatal mortality rate in these target areas by
nearly 23%. USAID employed experienced nurses and doctors that had foreign and
national training that could help to counsel the under-educated families in
providing a better environment for their unborn child. Their current projects
are a well diversified portfolio of services within the health care sector.
These services and projects can be categorized as follows:
- § Maternal and child health (May 2012-2017);
- § Child survival (October 2012-September 2016);
- § Demographic health survey February 2011-2013);
- § Health Care Management (January 2011-January 2014);
- § Field Epidemiology (August 2009-September 2013);
- § TB Survey Program (July 2009-September 2012);
- § Hepatitis Prevention (September 2011-September 2013);
- § Polio Vaccination (Annually since 2003).
No matter what, apparently significant contributions
for Energy, Economic Growth, and Stabilization, Health facilities and
Education in Pakistan has made by USAID. It’s seen that major economic benefits
have been derived by such relations with the US as it can be observed through
the actual benefits taken. Aid assisted to boost the GDP; the matter of fact is
that decrease in GDP in some of the past years haven’t been due to the aid but
one should agree that aid was not utilized well to achieve the economic growth.
It can be observed that aid has been increased after 9/11 for the structural
transformation of the economy so that economic stability can be achieved and
sustained. No one can deny the fact that inflow of funds to Pakistan is due to
the war against terrorism and then subsequently merged into its market and it
was Musharraf’s era when wealth circulated at massive rate.
Over the years, agricultural and industrial sectors
have been also benefit a lot due to the overall increase in the economic
activity resulting in increase in operational activities. Policy advice,
technical assistance and modern technology availability have all been the
reward that the USAID has brought and will persist to deliver if properly
allocated to all sectors. Consequently, the economic image of Pakistan would
surely get cemented with time. Decrease in the budget deficits and the BOP
(balance of payments) deficits are also another economic impact that USAID has
brought.
Due to lack of good governance and proper allocation
of resources Pakistan lacked the amount which is needed to maintain the
infrastructure projects .Till now the revenue collection by government is not
up to the mark which can meet the requirements to promote social development
projects and for that reason the government is dependent on any sort of aid.
Among all the other aids USAID has major chunk in
the area of development projects. Dependency on aid then allows manipulation of
country (Pakistan) by the super powers which then redeem the aid card for their
own national purpose by intervening in the policies, and the countries who
accept that aid become mere puppets Kerry –Lugar Bill is one of the examples
where there was a big trade off, Pakistan has to compromise the atomic program,
under the clause military being under the control of US with no power to attack
India and Afghanistan without the permission of US. Even the intelligence is
under the possession of US, with better much permission of American military in
Pakistan.
Besides different sectors which are playing vital
role in the progress of Pakistan USAID has also played a tremendous role in
ensuring democracy in Pakistan by strengthening the morale of women in Pakistan
by educating them to vote and USAID through UNDP assisted the Election
Commission of Pakistan to train its polling officials in an effort to ensure
the credibility of the polling process and increase public confidence for the
May 11 general elections.
It is very much clear that this multilateral Aid
agency is very much vital for the prosperous and advanced future of Pakistan,
but alone with that it also had some demerits. Following are some demerits:
§ The
structure and operations as far as USAID’s are impeccable. The fault lies when
the operations and jobs are further delegated to the nationals of this country.
The corrupt departments and illegitimate government activities can never be
recorded or be questioned as there is no accountability system in place. Even
if there was an accountability system in place, the people responsible for the
embezzlement of funds would still get away with it as these are people in the
high-up offices who can manipulate records.
§ USAID
is not working with the prime motive of welfare. The main aim and goal of the
organization is to promote the US in Pakistan to make the people indebted
towards them and to project an image in the minds of the country men that favor
the US giving it a cushion when it does something unacceptable by the people.
It can be said that USAID is an imperialistic tool of the US which it uses not
only to plough back the funding being spent in the country but also to gain
acceptance in the perception and views of the people in this country. (For
instance, they have their own contractors who are provided with work and
ultimately the aid goes back to US. In case of FCCU, Aid is provided. LG
computers are bought, Microsoft licensed software’s are installed and money directly
transfers out of the system as soon as it arrives.) As its communication
strategy states, “The health program already has a strong media outreach
component. We will be more aggressively promoting U.S. Government health
assistance by co-marking all branding with the U.S. flag and expanding from
print media to more radio and TV. This will help the Pakistani public better
understand that the assistance being received is from the American people.”
§ Political
interference by the US and a dictatorial approach by the USAID and other
agencies resulted in the creation of significant resentment in the developing
countries against it. Under the name of “aid”, actually US want to snatch
Pakistan’s sovereignty. Very sharply, USAID gives aid to the Pakistani sectors
but the tenders are given to American companies in order to take their money
back to their home country. This gives the impression that US spends generously
in Pakistan for its development but actually they are sharp enough to
pressurize the people of Pakistan to accept its policies and interference.
- Serving one nation’s interests – One can see the picture of children below who are holding books with the cover printed with the American flag and the name of USAID. It’s a step taken by US government to penetrate in the minds of our present generation and thus they lose their self-reliance and start living under the influence of US.
- Over 600,000 presiding officers, assistant presiding officers, and polling officers were trained who was engaged throughout the country in Election Day but another perspective call for a number of questions on the credibility of Election Commission of Pakistan. This is one of the examples to analyze influence of USAID on Pakistan. An organization which is not supposed to be biased by any party is actually enjoyed the favors from super powers in the election of 2007. USAID again offered the sum of 75 million for the elections of May 11, 2013 under Kerry Lugar Law but ECP rejects the offer and decided to defray the expenses from national income.
§ Sometimes
“Imperialism” is referred as the highest state of capitalism. One of its
examples is US who works for its national interests at the expense of other
nation’s integrity and sovereignty. USAID is not given to Pakistan without any
national benefits of US. It’s a reward that we as a silent nation gets for
allowing US drone attacks.
§ Other
major problems include the lack of consultations on area of developments with
credible organizations and most of employees at higher posts are foreigners who
are not aware of in depth problems of Pakistan; thus, cannot reach to the roots
of the issue and lacks in formulating the solution to the problem of the
nation.
We must say that USAID need to be
reformed to make effective use of the available opportunities. Following are
some of the key recommendations followed by some policy recommendations:
In order to transform USAID into an
institution whose contribution is far more beneficial for the global economy,
those reforms could be in the form of change in philosophy, governance
structure, policies, programs and the area of usage of human/ financial
resources etc.
Firstly, we need to declare USAID
as a “World Agency of International Development” (WAID) instead of “USAID”.
Once this is declared as a World agency then it will have a right to raise
funds from governments all across the world; which will ultimately result in
more findings and it will also have more access to the markets to be served. The
major obstacle that is in the way of USAID from playing a beneficial and more
productive role is its philosophy. Every organization has a philosophy to
operate which offers the organization with direction and guidelines to deal
with the various issues. For instance, the future success and prosperity of
Pakistan and Pakistani people depends on decisions. Pakistan is now in need to
be a welfare state not the warrior state. USAID needs to decide whether it will
keep on aiding Pakistani people even if Pakistan is not serving the interest of
US. In this regard, we believe that your philosophy should have reflection of
the environment in which you are operating, as no ideology is better than the
one illustrated by the founding fathers of a country. USAID must serve only the
people of the areas wherever they are operating, instead of just serving one
nation’s interests. By changing its philosophy, USAID will be able to
understand what it stands for and how should it contribute to the global welfare.
In addition, the management of
USAID must have significant representation of the countries in which they have
been operating. We need to provide those countries with the voting rights, because
of the fact that the developing countries of the world like Pakistan are being
denied their due say in decisions that affect the developing world (countries
like Pakistan) more than the developed world; therefore, the most significant improvement
that needs to be implemented is to increase the voting powers of the developing
countries in such a way so that countries which are being aided have a strong
say in the decisions that are taken at USAID. Especially the third world
countries should be allowed to influence the decision making significantly so
that the interests of the developing countries are protected against the
interests of the powerful countries. In order to achieve this, we need to have
a much stronger Administrator at USAID who shall be extremely diplomatic to convince
the developed countries especially the USA to increase the voting rights of the
developing countries and hence reduce their interests by reducing their own interests.
Currently, none of the USAID’s regional bureaus have top political leader to
control their activities. The current representation is likely to serve the
interest of people of US instead of serving the interests of the less developed
world. We need to develop a consensus between the developed and the developing
world to create a balance of interest through the balance in the voting rights
(to choose the representation). Moreover, they also need to work in
collaboration with the local well reputed NGOs such as Care, Sahara etc.; so
that the lack of expertise or the problem of affiliation with the culture and
the overall environment will be eliminated. The aid given to Pakistan should be
given through civil organizations and NGO’s that can be said to be more
credible than the machinery running this country. Even there they need to have
presence in the system till the very end. If USAID really wants the welfare of
the people of Pakistan, they would’ve acted in ways and devised their policies
in such a manner as to make Pakistan a self sufficient country rather than
drowning it in aid and then claiming credit for it.
Another proposed reform is to have
a trusted USAID official present till the end of the chain of the distribution
channel used for funds. Since the embezzlement is done at an official level,
there is a need for monitoring of the imbursement of the funds. A very recent
example is of the flood relief funds received from all over the world and the
USAID during the floods that devastated Pakistan during the last tenure of the
Pakistan Peoples’ Party’s government. The clothes and other items sent for the
relief of the people were seen for sale in the markets or were picked up by
high officials in whole lots and consignments. The spreading out of these funds
needs restructuring of the organization as to root presence deeply into
distribution process.
Furthermore, USAID has adopted a
dictatorial approach over the past few decades. These less developed countries
having weak economic and political power internationally are expected to
completely comply and are not expected to pitch in with their own suggestions
about the usage of money. Any sort of a non – compliance puts the particular
country at significant risk of getting not getting the grants. This dictatorial
approach has over time created a lot of resentment and frustration in the
people of the developing countries and these countries are not able to
implement home grown solutions to their problems, therefore USAID need to develop
an effective consultative approach. Beggars are never choosers; nonetheless
allowing these aided countries their due share of sovereignty would help that
particular country to reduce the level of resentment found in the developing
world for the US and the people of US.
Our major policy recommendations
firstly take into consideration an internal control development system to
monitor the inflow and outflow of funds with regard to these institutions.
Another step would be to measure success/failure of different development
projects these institutions are involved in. This would as serve both internal
and external check on the ongoing operations. Moreover, Aids and grants must
only be taken for developmental projects and non-developmental projects such as
military expenditure and debt servicing etc should not be aided. According to
various codes of corporate governances (including Pakistani code of corporate
governance, British code of corporate governance and Sarbanes Oxley act),
having conflict of interest is unethical as long as it is not disclosed;
therefore that kind of aid and grants with policies of subordination and threat
to the aided country’s sovereignty should also not be considered because if
this is the case then that essentially means that you are working for the
interest of one country and not serving the interest for which the organization
was formed. Self sustainability should be encouraged by USAID in policy making
which means that instead of providing just a grant, the ultimate focus should be
on aiding for the exploration of country’s own resources.
The facts in our report illustrate that the role of
USAID has been much positive over the years along with this some very much
important insights about the demerits also exist due to some operations. In our
opinion, the structural adjustments are needed in USAID. Currently, nearly
every representative in USAID no matter it’s in US, in Pakistan or in
Afghanistan is pleasing the interest of only one nation. There is a need of
significant reforms which include:
ü Declaring
USAID as WAID which should serve the less developed countries ad should act as
an independent organization;
ü An
appropriate representation of developing and under developed countries in the
administration through voting rights, so that the interests of the less
developed countries will be listening carefully;
ü Need
to work in collaboration with the local well reputed NGOs such as Care, Sahara
etc. so that the lack of expertise will be eliminated;
ü Human
resources need to be diversified.
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