The Foreign Service Journal, April 2016

40 APRIL 2016 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL reach the people in villages and slums with development programs. In my experi- ence, Tanzanian government employees are often corrupt and undereducated. Yet they are the very people on whom conventional donors depend for the crucial “last mile” of aid program implementation. Many of these bureaucrats demand “sitting fees”—starting at five dollars a day for villagers and rising to hundreds of dollars a day for regional and district heads—just to participate in development projects. On top of that, far too much aid money is frittered away on new cars, the construction of new offices, stays in high- end hotels and generous per diem payments for government staff. I can always tell when nongovernmental organizations or government bodies are meeting in Dodoma, because fleets of new Toyota Land Cruisers and other sports utility vehicles dominate the city. I recall chatting one time with a Tanzanian at the bar in a high-end tourist hotel in Arusha. He worked for the highway-building division and was staying at this $250-per- night hotel on the government’s tab. (I couldn’t help thinking of my experience during the 1980s working for the state of Cali- fornia, with an economy bigger than all of sub-Saharan Africa’s. We stayed at $30-per-night hotels.) Africans outside these power loops rightly resent such misuse of money, which runs counter to donors’ development goals. But then failing to develop and remaining poor are, of course, the qualifications for more aid. In such an environment of self-feeding corruption it is nearly impossible to do effective development work. Build American Universities Unfortunately, while new colleges and universities are opening all over the African continent today, many of them are substandard institutions. Many instructors are unqualified, yet cannot be easily discharged. Lecturer absenteeism is alarm- ingly high, and many instructors make no effort to keep up in their fields despite the existence of free online resources geared to professionals. Many African college students pay bribes, very often instructor-elicited, to pass courses and graduate without being able to read or write well. Instead of trying to fix local schools, the United States should consider the establish- ment of U.S. universities in these countries, to set a stan- dard against which indigenous schools could challenge them- selves. Their faculties should be entirely American, because local hiring would poach good teachers from schools where they are needed so badly. We have a surfeit of people with doctoral degrees in the United States, at least some of whom would presumably welcome the opportunity to teach overseas. Accreditation of these institutions could be handled by a U.S.-based body, such as the Council for Higher Education Accreditation or the Association of American Colleges and Uni- versities. Relationships with organizations such as the Ameri- can Council on Education, as well as joint-degree programs with U.S. universities, could also be explored. (There was wel- come movement in this direction at an April 2015 conference on international joint and dual degrees, hosted by ACE’s Center for Internationalization and Global Engagement.) Similarly, a U.S. university consortium could take on the development and management of these schools. Although a host of historic American universities continue to serve the Middle East, they are not appropriate models for Africa. Those countries have much higher per capita incomes and can support private universities. Because Africa is at the opposite end of the income spectrum despite reports of rapid economic growth, these new facilities would simply be filled by students from elite families, who already have the wherewithal to go abroad for education. Meeting Critical Needs The students we want for these schools are the bright young people who are locked out of quality education and struggle through the dismal government schools. I have found them extraordinarily hungry to learn and excel. Once they no longer have to contend with widespread corruption and incompetence in the indigenous education system, they will be equipped to effect change from within their societies. As a bonus, these American university alumni may very well become their countries’ future leaders and prime movers. The undergraduate degree programs these American uni- versities offer should concentrate on meeting urgent needs: U.S. universities in these countries would set a standard against which indigenous schools could challenge themselves.