Inter Press Service - October 31, 2003
Emad Mekay

"In the aftermath of the Sep. 11 terrorist attacks, the administration has increasingly turned its attention to development assistance as a tool of the war on terrorism," says a report released by InterAction, an umbrella organisation of 160 advocacy and aid groups.

The body, the largest U.S. alliance of international development organisations, called on Washington to reverse that tendency as well as to fix red tape, improve transparency and achieve coherence between a mushrooming number of aid agencies.

In the report, 'Emerging Trends', the consortium referred to a major 2002 address in which Bush outlined foreign aid policy, saying that the United States was working for "prosperity and opportunity because they help defeat terror".

"Persistent poverty and oppression can lead to hopelessness and despair," said Bush. "And when governments fail to meet the most basic needs of their people, these failed states can become havens for terror."

After the attacks on New York's World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, the administration also created a 'National Security Strategy' uniting diplomacy, defence and development, in which aid was officially tied to the self-styled war on terror.

InterAction said that since then, it has seen other worrying changes in how foreign aid is handled.

Chief among them is that Washington's largest and most visible aid programmes are now in Afghanistan and Iraq, two countries attacked by the United States in the past two years.

As a result, the Defence Department now has unprecedented influence over humanitarian and development assistance in both countries.

The report also warned that this dramatically expanded role for the Pentagon in relief and reconstruction in conflict and post-conflict situations posed "particular operational challenges and security implications for humanitarian groups".

It calls on the administration to "examine the roles, responsibilities and resources of military and non-military entities involved in humanitarian relief and post-conflict reconstruction to ensure respect for the independence and impartiality, as well as the expertise and experience of humanitarian actors."

The Washington-based consortium cautioned that initial funding requests and projections of the ultimate cost and duration of the U.S. engagement in Iraq alone threaten to dwarf all other assistance programmes combined.

"While the administration has put forward a few potentially far-reaching development initiatives, the cost, complexity and controversy surrounding the high visibility programmes in Iraq and Afghanistan are diverting attention and support from the myriad challenges to development and growth in Africa, Latin America and other critical regions," said the report.

The group says that the U.S. government should be able to address a range of other issues, including trade, debt, equitable growth and development and gender.

Without such outside help, efforts by developing countries to reduce poverty and spur economic growth could be seriously undercut, it added.

InterAction also argues that judging aid results on the criteria of national security goals would impose "unrealistic indicators of success" and distort the long-term development work necessary to produce sustainable reform and growth.

The Bush administration's loudly trumpeted recent announcements of development aid hikes coupled with more money to fight HIV/AIDS globally will, contrary to what was originally believed, come at the expense of existing programmes, it added.

Bush had promised 15 billion dollars over five years to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic and an additional five billion dollars annually in development assistance by 2006 through the Millennium Challenge Account, which is designed to reward countries that spend on health and education and emphasise transparency.

"However, there is increasing concern that resources for these important initiatives will come at the expense of existing development and humanitarian programmes," said the report.

In fact, 350 million dollars were cut from other accounts to complete new programme funding in the White House budget request for next year, it adds.

Earlier this year, the Centre for Global Development in Washington, an independent think tank, said that under the Bush budget, development aid spending as a share of the economy would equal an estimated 0.123 percent in 2008, virtually the same as the 0.124 percent level forecast in 2004.

That means that for the next several years, aid as a share of the economy is likely to be lower than it ever was in the 50 years 1946-1996, and well below one-half the level of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) now provided by the typical donor country, estimated at around 0.30 percent.

InterAction, which includes groups like Bread for the World, Save the Children, World Vision International, Catholic Relief Services and Oxfam America, also faulted the Bush aid policy for fragmenting aid efforts and dividing work among too many government agencies.

For example, an independent entity, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, will administer a new foreign assistance programme, the Millennium Challenge Account, while the State Department will run the Middle East Partnership Initiative, a programme that provides aid for reforming education systems and promoting open economies.

Both activities traditionally would have been supported by a single entity, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The rush to create such new authorities scattered throughout the government will result in overlap in addressing crosscutting problems such as HIV/AIDS, the group warned in its report.

"Overall, InterAction is concerned that despite a commitment to create a more cohesive policy framework for foreign aid as an element of national security strategy, the administration is dispersing responsibilities and resources so widely that the delivery and impact of foreign aid may well fall far short of expectations, both in countries of strategic interest and on a global basis," the report said.

*****

+InterAction Report

(http://www.interaction.org/files.cgi/2287_EmergingTrendsElectronic10.29.03.pdf)

+Millennium Challenge Account (http://www.mca.gov/)

(END/IPS/NA/WD/IP/DV/EM/ML/03) .

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