How Not to Win Hearts and Minds : USAID, Corruption & NYAMA
On 8/17/10, ANDRE DEGEORGES <xyz> wrote:
David:
Nothing new to me - was the same in Africa, the Caribbean - your
organization - foreign aid like war is big business - just an extension of
the military-industrial complex - corrupt & immoral - and I should know - I
was inside the bowels of the "BEAST" - the devil incarnate - and our Africa
book brings much of this out. To call "AID" "Aid" and to link it to
"Development" - now that's laughable I see Iraq is on the verge of collapse
as the U.S. pulls out - government split, bombings, SECTARIAN VIOLENCE, etc.
Patreus is a politicians in a uniform - I don't see how he can fool us much
longer in Iraq or Afghanistan. On C-Span yesterday maybe 2 out of 10-15
people supported these wars - the rest said let's take care of our own
country. We need a good street sweeping in Washington and at the Pentagon
- but I am not sure the American people know how - the corruption is so
entrenched linked to Wall Street & Big Business! Karzai is a choir boy
compared to our political elite - including your "military-politicians"!
On a lighter note - went up to my cousin's who has groundhog/wood chuck
problems and managed to shoot one with my scoped handgun at about 50 yards.
A very small target keeping low to the ground. Missed the first time.
Skinned it out and have it soaking in salt water. Mom and I will eat it
tonight - invited Bubba and he turned me down - can't understand why -
should go real well with red wine. In Africa I remember this strawberry
professor from U. Mass - a AAA Fellow - who accompanied me on an evaluation
of a USAID project in Zambia. He told me over and over how rural Africans
loved wildlife - I didn't say anything except I agreed but that they loved
it in a way that was much different than his idea. So I said - each time we
go to a village we will ask the people what they think of wildlife and each
and every time - they would hesitate for a moment, then their eyes would
light up, a big smile would come on their face and they would say, "Nyama,
nyama" "Meat, meat" and so in my African tradition - no nyama will go to
waste - we will eat it, and groundhog eats what cows eat - grass - so I
think it will taste just fine. By the way in eastern Zambia and Malawi -
they have large outbreaks of mice - a major source of protein unrecorded by
FAO. I have seen them sold on skewers - roasted along the roadside. Now I
have eaten monkey, iguana, frog and am prepared to eat snake and now
groundhog - don't know about mice or rats - but if I was hungry enough - no
problem. Don't like the idea of stewed nyama, but roast it over a fire or
fry it so it is crispy - most nyama tastes the same!!
Andre
Easterly WSJ Aug 16 2010 How Not to Win Hearts and Minds In a UN
survey 52 percent of Afghans said foreign aid organizations are
corrupt and are in the country just to get rich.
How Not to Win Hearts and Minds
In a U.N. survey, 52% of Afghans said foreign aid organizations 'are
corrupt and are in the country just to get rich.'
http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB10001424052748703999304575399422302747074.html
By WILLIAM EASTERLY
Aug 16 2010
In June, this newspaper broke the story of how Afghan officials were
literally stuffing suitcases with aid money and flying out of the
country. As a result, the House foreign aid appropriations
subcommittee voted to cut $4.5 billion from the U.S. aid program to
Afghanistan.
The situation in Afghanistan is not unique. Indeed, the United States
Agency for International Development (USAID) has long been plagued by
accusations of corruption and lack of transparency. But foreign aid
bureaucracies traditionally have two contradictory mandates: 1) We
must not give aid to corrupt recipients; and 2) We must spend the
entire aid budget. No. 2 usually beats No. 1. Aid agencies put a
glossy face on this outcome, which makes the victory of corruption
even more likely.
An Afghan government report in 2008 (the "Kazimi report") detailed
abundant corruption and suggested that aid inflows contributed to it.
USAID's own report in 2009 said "corruption is now at an unprecedented
scope in the country's history" and that the "tremendous size . . .
[of] development assistance . . . increase[s] Afghanistan's
vulnerability to corruption." According to Transparency International,
Afghanistan went from the 42nd most corrupt country in the world in
2005 to the second most corrupt in 2009 (Somalia was first).
The 2009 USAID report noted that domestic Afghan anticorruption
efforts fail because "often the officials and agencies that are
supposed to be part of the solution to corruption are instead a
critical part of the corruption syndrome." Yet it recommends providing
more "resources" to these same corrupt anticorruption fighters.
The report correctly noted that part of the solution to corruption is
"transparency and accountability." True, but USAID itself lacks
transparency and accountability. The report fails to mention a single
USAID program that has suffered from corruption.
I run a blog called Aid Watch together with Laura Freschi at New York
University. When we contacted USAID after its 2009 report was released
to ask how this could be so, we started informative discussions with
the Afghan country desk. Unfortunately, the USAID Press Office quickly
intervened, saying that any response had to come from them. Then they
failed to provide any such response.
Others have had similar experiences. Till Bruckner, a field-based
researcher on corruption in the Republic of Georgia, asked USAID for
information on the budgets of the NGOs they funded there. When USAID
refused, he filed a Freedom of Information Act request in May 2009.
After months of stonewalling, USAID finally responded last month, with
copies of NGO budgetsâ€â€but much of the key information blacked out.
Why such impunity? Discussion about corruption in aid has been
abundant since then World Bank President James Wolfensohn broke a
longstanding taboo on the subject in a speech condemning corruption in
1996. Yet the share of the most corrupt recipients in foreign aid is
actually higher today than it was in 1996.
Aid recipients understand unconditional conditions all too well.
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai knows that USAID will have to spend
its Afghanistan budget no matter what, so he makes some token
commitment, does nothing, and indeed the aid keeps flowing.
I can certainly understand why USAID would prefer not to talk about
this unsavory equilibrium. But the stakes are far higher in
Afghanistan than in the usual aid recipient.
As the war there drags on, we have to ask the following question: Is
U.S. aid winning hearts and minds? A U.N. survey taken in January
found that 52% of Afghans believe aid organizations "are corrupt and
are in the country just to get rich." I don't know much about waging a
counterinsurgency, but it seems to me that we're getting very little
for our money.
Mr. Easterly is a professor of economics at NYU and author of "The
White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done
So Much Ill and So Little Good" (Penguin, 2007).
--
Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear
of punishment and hope of reward after death." --
Albert Einstein !!!
http://www.scribd.com/doc/22151765/History-of-Pakistan-Army-from-1757-to-1971
http://www.scribd.com/doc/21686885/TALIBAN-WAR-IN-AFGHANISTAN
http://www.scribd.com/doc/22455178/Letters-to-Command-and-Staff-College-Quetta-Citadel-Journal
http://www.scribd.com/doc/23150027/Pakistan-Army-through-eyes-of-Pakistani-Generals
http://www.scribd.com/doc/23701412/War-of-Independence-of-1857
http://www.scribd.com/doc/22457862/Pakistan-Army-Journal-The-Citadel
http://www.scribd.com/doc/21952758/1971-India-Pakistan-War
http://www.scribd.com/doc/25171703/BOOK-REVIEWS-BY-AGHA-H-AMIN
