The Foreign Service Journal, June 2006

staff are needed, and the more the giant consultant databases can be made to cough up chiefs of party and project specialists. There are also more formal entry doors into the U.S. aid structure than ever before. Many young idealistic Americans have always aspired to meaning- ful work that promises to improve the world, and they now have many options to prepare themselves for such a career: the Peace Corps, professional graduate-degree programs, work with NGOs — and especially work in the newly formed foundations of the young (and rich) entrepreneurs of the dot-com age. The appearance of a number of youngish, new-money philanthropists is a significant new phenomenon in the history of U.S. development assis- tance. Money talks. Yet while most donors say they want only to do things that are effec- tive, if you suggest that it might be more effective to spend $2 million on banking reform than to spend $100 million on the direct provision of microcredit, they are likely to be skeptical. In conclusion, the forces arrayed against change are pow- erful. Under their sway, ideas that do not cost a lot of money, that do not lead to large con- tracts, and that do not involve vehicles, computers, office equipment, furniture, travel allowances or hardship pay are unlikely to gain much trac- tion. The stakes in keeping things pretty much the way they have been (cosmetic changes notwithstanding) are as high as ever. For the time being, U.S. foreign aid policy (still) pack- ages the same old wine in new bottles. F O C U S 34 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U N E 2 0 0 6 Whatever potential the American NGO world might have had to act as a critical counterpoint to the official aid bureaucracy has been dissipated, if not entirely lost. T HE R EMINGTON