PIA 2501

Foreign Aid in the 21st Century

The Issue

Dealing with Donors and Coping with Donor Complexity

Discussion

Chinua Achebe, “Civil Peace” Nadine Gordimer, “Africa

Emergent” Jorge Luis Borges, “The Book of

Sand”

All in Solomon, Other Voices, Other Vistas

Discussion: Norman Rush

“Official Americans”

Instruments of Seduction”

Review: Who Gives Absolutely?

Where does the Money go?

Who Gives Per capita

The Foreign Aid Apparatus

Foreign aid created two new kinds of professionals, a donor official and a recipient program manager

Donor Officials Represent Their Home Country

The Problem

Program Managers have to work with the international Donor system and represent the LDC country where they work.

The International Donor Regime

Private Foundations vs. Government Donors

Official Development Assistance (ODA)

Bilateral Donors vs. Multilateral Assistance

Multilateral Organizations

United Nations Development Programmme

UN Specialized Agencies:

UNICEF ILO FAO UNESCO

FAO

UN System: Two Types

Funds and Programs- Report to Economic and Social Development Council

Specialized Agencies- Autonomous Boards

Basic Characteristics: UN System

Made up of components of all National Systems

Representative: Voting Reflects LDC majority (Except in Security Council0

Critics: Anarchy

Significant Patronage and Corruption

The World Bank System

International Monetary Fund: Bridging Loan Facility

International Bank for Reconstruction and Development- Infrastructure

International Development Association- Consessional

International Finance Corporation: Commercial Rates

Bank Headquarters- Washington D.C.

Characteristics of World Bank System

Block Voting

Dominated by Organization for Economic Construction and Development (OECD)

Debt Forgiveness Issue

Structural Adjustment Vehicle

Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Programs

Regional Banks

Asian Development Bank

African Development Bank

Inter-American Development Bank

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

U.S. Agencies U.S. Agency for International Development

Millennium Challenge Corporation

Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator

The President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)

State Department of Public Affairs

U.S. Agencies: Agriculture, Commerce, Labor

Defense Department (23% in 2013)

Foreign Aid

The People: 3,700In Government

1. Foreign Service Officer

2. Civil Service Officer

3. Personal Services Contract

4. Contractor/grant officer

PRT volunteers, Foreign Service Officers Glenn Guimond and Angela Gemza, outside the entrance of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, formerly the Republican Palace.

Pentagon

The People: Tens of Thousands in the Private and Non-Profit Sector

1. Project Coordinator2. Team Leader3. Contractor4. Grantee/Sub-Grantee5. Home Office Backup6. TDY- in the Field

The Complicated World of the Federal Government

Goal: Hide or avoid restrictions on Personnel Ceilings

Jack Anderson and the “Washington Merry Go Round”

Examine Interagency transfer/Cooperative Agreement as an example

A Case Study

Interagency Cooperation with each other and with for Profit and Non-Profit Sectors

Historical Perspective-2

General Agreement between Other Agencies and USAID

Agreement affirmed new partnership mechanisms to access USDA expertise:

Participating Agency Service Agreements (PASAs)

Resources Support Services Agreements (RSSAs)

The Spirit and Intent of RSSAs and PASAs

Within a USDA/USAID Partnership

Transfers can exist throughout the Federal Government

And between Agencies and Cooperants

Possible Foreign Aid RSSA Cooperants

Commonwealth Legacy

Colonial Development Corporation: 1929

Colombo Plan: 1955-1964

Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation

Department for International Development (DFID)

U.K. Foreign Aid

Commonwealth Donors

Canadian International Development Corporation (CIDA)- Bridges French and English Speaking Countries

Australia- Ausaid (Focus on Asia)

New Zealand Aid

Countries that are both Donors and Recipients

India

China

South Africa

Brazil

Portugal

European Colonial Legacy

Ministry for Cooperation, Development and Francophony

GTZ- German Technical Assistance and German Department of Cooperation and Development

Dutch, Italian and Belgium Technical Assistance

Scandinavia: “Soft Donors”

SIDA- Swedish International Development Association

DANIDA- Danish International Development Association

NORAD- Norwegian Agency for Development Coorporation

FINNAID-Finnish foreign aid and cooperation

Danish International Development Agency

Role of Soviet Block

Soviet Union- 1950s. About 8% of World Foreign Aid

1970s and 1980s- Support for Liberation Movements and Clients

1990s to Present- Became Recipients of Foreign Aid

The Donor System

Soft Vs. Hard Systems

Trade vs. Aid

Debt Reduction/Debt Forgiveness

Governance Reform vs. Interference

Information Technology

Multilateralism vs. Unilateralism

Goals: 2006

Ostensibly, the goals of foreign aid in 2013 remain what they were more than half a century ago. (Humanitarian, Governance and Economic and Social Development

However, Issues and Perceptions have changed and are Changing

Critics (The Dead AID Crowd) Say aid cannot address issues of poverty

Donors and program management

A weak and unstable LDC bureaucracy time and time again would come up against the donor community’s massive pool of well qualified people and complicated bureaucratic process

Donor Priorities

Particularly during the cold war, corrupt countries often seem to receive the lion’s share of foreign aid.

Donor Client relationships part of Dependency patterms

The Problem

Program Managers

Recipients often cannot say no to aid even when the recurrent maintenance revenue requirements cannot be met.

Foreign aid failure rates are disturbing.

Recipients need to say no.

USAID official Jerry Cashion (wearing hat) speaks to the class

Dealing with Donors

1. Understand the Donor Language

2. Understand the Donor’s Documents

3. Understand the Donor’s Rules4. Understand soft as well as

hard donors5. Understand the Sustainability

Problem

Coping with Expatriates

Understand the internal Organizational Imperative

Be Aggressive and a “Hard” Recipient

Understand hidden agendas, Italian Computers, Danish Bacon

Products and Foreign Aid

Qualifications in Mali

The project was designed to assist poor villages excluded most of the villages in Mali. When he asked how many micro-credit loans were available in one Mali village, the response was “None, the village does not qualify.”

In order to qualify for the credit, villages had to have village associations. Only the better off villages, he added, had village associations.

The lesson to be learned from this is that foreign aid often does not assist the poorest of the poor and sometimes makes matters worse for them.

Mali Village

Reference

John Madeley, When Aid is No Help: How Projects Fail and How They Could Succed (London: Intermediate Technology Publications, 1991).

Foreign Aid

The Light Side

Discussion