The Foreign Service Journal, October 2011

lure of the Taliban in Afghanistan and militant groups in Iraq. USAID employees, as well as State Department Foreign Service general- ists and specialists, willingly went by the thousands to the conflict areas and shared the risks of U.S. soldiers. Civil- ians lived and worked on Provincial Reconstruction Team bases and went daily into countrysides riddled with hostile forces. Many still do so. In some places, building schools and distributing blankets and medicine attracted enemy fighters who each night killed those who accepted aid or burned the schools. In parts of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, U.S. aid of- ficials were targeted for death and could not leave embassy compounds. Instead, many projects were imple- mented by Pakistani NGOs and con- tractors. And even if schools were properly built, teachers often could not be found because the militants threat- ened to kill them. Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf told me in 2009, a year after he left power, that the only way for U.S. aid to be effective in these areas is to give the funds to local officials and local NGOs. But this risks corrupt use of the funds, and leaves aid officials at the mercy of the “counter-bureau- cracy.” This, along with threats of at- tack, may well explain why, although the Kerry-Lugar bill granted $7 billion over five years beginning in 2009 to Pakistan, as of August this year only $500 million had been spent. So the answer to question three — Can aid be delivered during conflict? — is once again: Yes, sometimes. Where conflict has died down and lo- cals are sympathetic to U.S. assistance, such as in the ethnic Tajik and Hazara areas of northern and central Afghani- stan, U.S. aid workers can travel with- out escorts and set up well-designed and monitored programs, working with local officials and experts. But where al-Qaida and other militant or terrorist groups are prepared to kill and be killed to halt U.S. aid, such as in south- ern and eastern Afghanistan, aid can only be delivered half-heartedly through local surrogates, who them- selves are subject to attacks. Turf Battles The final question to be answered is the extent to which the role of the U.S. Agency for International Devel- opment has been commandeered by rival agencies and lobbies. This has been a problem since at least the mid- 1990s. Conservatives, who tend to see aid workers as bleeding-heart lefties and old hippies, have sought to funnel aid to promote more “conservative” values such as free markets and busi- nesses, and use health programs to weaken the focus on women’s repro- ductive rights and family planning. Yet a recent United Nations report warns that the world population will soar to O C T O B E R 2 0 1 1 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 49