The Foreign Service Journal, October 2011

46 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / O C T O B E R 2 0 1 1 oreign aid has long been a tripwire in America. Such assistance is widely popu- lar in times of disaster, famine, flood and epidemics — especially when the “CNN effect” places these tragedies on our tele- vision screens. But when the U.S. econ- omy turns sour, many Americans ask why we send precious tax dollars overseas. Polls showmany Americans believe foreign aid constitutes 25 percent of the U.S. budget. (In reality, the figure is less than 1 percent.) And some see any assistance as money thrown down a “rathole” (in the words of the late Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C.), serving only to curry political favor with dic- tators and corrupt leaders. Since 2002 thousands of U.S. aid workers have operated in war zones such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Yemen and Pak- istan. The American public wonders why they need to risk their lives in countries where they are targeted by militants and terrorists and where the United States is not even very well liked. This is an old story. I recently came across a newspaper cartoon from 1950 showing an impoverished and threadbare Uncle Sam turning out his empty pockets as ships laden with U.S. wheat and machinery headed off to aid European re- covery after World War II. Yet we now recall with pride the $14 billion in Marshall Plan aid that helped Europe recover from the war and re- build healthy economies. Indeed, that U.S. aid helped launch the European Union, starting six decades of peace in a region long accustomed to settling differences through war. In 1961, after Europe had been stabilized and the Mar- shall Plan ended, President John F. Kennedy sought to help the poor countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America by set- ting up the U.S. Agency for International Development. Dozens of former European colonies were gaining inde- pendence but lacked the skills, tools and resources to grow food, fight disease, build roads and establish productive and peaceful economies. USAID grew to about 17,000 employees during the Viet- namWar and operated in more than 100 countries. After the socialist bloc collapsed in 1989, USAID staff fell to 1,000 For- eign Service and 1,000 Civil Service officers. Yet the budget for foreign aid climbed from $10 billion in 2000 to $22 billion a decade later, as cash flowed into reconstruction projects in Iraq and Afghanistan. Timely Questions Today the United States is clawing its way out of the worst recession since the Great Depression. The rationale for con- F IXING F OREIGN A ID U.S. FOREIGN ASSISTANCE BADLY NEEDS AN OVERHAUL . S ADLY , IT IS PRETTY FAR DOWN THE LIST COMPARED TO OTHER ISSUES ON W ASHINGTON ’ S AGENDA . B Y B EN B ARBER Ben Barber writes about the developing world for McClatchy Newspapers, and has also contributed to Newsday , the Lon- don Observer , the Christian Science Monitor , Foreign Af- fairs , the Washington Times , USA Today and Salon.com. From 2003 to 2010, he was a senior writer at the U.S. Agency for International Development. His photojournalism book, Ground Truth: Work, Play and Conflict in The Third World , is to be published this fall by Demo.org. F