DECEMBER 2004
In this section:
Branding Credits American People
Agency FY ’05 Budget $9b
$780m to Fight Afghan Opium
Branding Credits American People
USAID announced in November a branding campaign to ensure
that the American taxpayer receives full credit for funding
foreign assistance. This initiative is part of a larger effort
to revitalize U.S. public diplomacy and to increase the visibility
and value of U.S. aid.
A new brandmark with the tagline “From the American
People” will be required on all projects around the world
funded by the Agency, except for those with security or political
concerns such as Iraq.
The new branding makes it clear the assistance is not from
a charity, contractor, or NGO, but funded by the U.S. government.
The branding campaign coordinated by USAID Senior Advisor
Joanne Giordano also makes the familiar USAID logo, with the
clasped hands and Agency title, more readable and easier to
reproduce. The new branding appears for the first time above
the FrontLines banner on this page.
USAID will use the branding on all its internal and external
communications, as well as marking programs, projects, activities,
and public communications.
“We are building a global brand,” said Giordano,
a communications expert. “To do that we need to create
a consistent visual identity.”
“The U.S. government is not getting the credit it deserves
for the billions it spends overseas. We are about to change
that.”
Ordinary Americans not working in foreign affairs—and
even many of those who get U.S. food and other aid overseas—have
no idea the assistance comes from the U.S. government.
A proposed regulation that for the first time formally requires
NGOs and other recipients of grants and cooperative agreements
to mark all overseas assistance as coming from the American
taxpayer will be published soon for public comment in the
Federal Register. Interested parties will be notified and
should follow the published instructions for making comments.
Agency FY ’05 Budget $9b
Congress passed Nov. 20 the $19.7 billion FY 2005 foreign
operations appropriations bill (H.R. 4818), which includes
about $9 billion to be spent by USAID as foreign aid and operating
expenses.
President Bush was expected to sign the bill which was part
of an omnibus package of nine appropriations bills.
In a sign of the new prominence and acceptance foreign aid
is getting on Capitol Hill since 9/11, the foreign operations
bill was passed first, and the other spending bills were attached
to it. In the past, foreign aid bills were quietly added to
other, more popular bills.
The 2005 budget bill expands USAID authority for community-based
police assistance; authorizes the use of program funds to
hire up 25 personal service contractors; and allows the use
of $37 million in program funds per year until 2007 to convert
175 non-direct hire employees to foreign-service limited direct
hire status.
It also bars economic support funds to governments that have
not agreed to exempt U.S. citizens serving overseas from the
International Criminal Court. Ten countries potentially affected
by this are: Burundi, Cyprus, Ecuador, Ireland, Paraguay,
Peru, and South Africa.
The bill “earmarks” or sets aside $507 million
for trade capacity building and $400 million for basic education.
It also gives $404 million for Sudan, deletes the Special
Notification Requirement for the Congo, and provides $980
million for Afghanistan.
Elsewhere, the bill earmarks $85 million for Haiti and $441
million for international family planning.
The Millennium Challenge Account, managed outside of USAID,
was given $1.5 billion, $1 billion less than the president
requested for the new aid program for countries that are well
governed and that support health, education, and free markets.
Morocco was added last month to last year’s list of
16 eligible MCA countries.
The MCC also named six new countries to the list of “threshold
countries” eligible for a total of $120 million through
USAID in 2004 and 2005 to help them qualify for MCA funds:
Burkina Faso, Guyana, Malawi, Paraguay, Philippines, and Zambia.
They join seven countries selected for the threshold program
for FY 2004: Albania, East Timor, Kenya, São Tomé
and Principe, Tanzania, Uganda, and Yemen.
$780m to Fight Afghan Opium
 |
|
Bustling commerce in Kabul has taken
root in places that once saw nothing but warlord battles.
Ben Barber, USAID |
A $780 million U.S. effort to slow Afghanistan’s expanding
drug trade through eradication of opium poppies and helping
farmers develop alternate crops and livelihoods was announced
Nov. 17.
The antidrug plan comes as Afghan warlords, who often protect
and profit from the drug trade, are in a state of decline,
according to experts at a Washington meeting in November.
The success of the government of President Hamid Karzai in
persuading warlords to disarm their militias and join the
political process is closely linked with the fight against
drugs, which also fuel crime and corruption.
The antidrug plan, five months in the making and coordinated
with the Afghans, British, and others, includes highlighting
the dangers of drug use to growers and others; building the
justice infrastructure to bolster enforcement; providing alternative
livelihoods to encourage poppy growers to try new crops; increasing
interdiction efforts; and eradicating poppy fields.
USAID’s antinarcotics plan for alternate livelihoods
was funded at $10 million as a pilot program, but was expected
to rise to $130 million in the coming months.
Mark Ward, USAID’s Deputy Administrator for Asia and
the Near East, said Afghans would be offered development projects
and aid packages.
“The power of warlords is collapsing—it is just
a matter of time,” said Olivier Roy, a French expert
on Islam back from a visit to Afghanistan. At a Nov. 10 conference
at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington he
said Afghans support their new central government amid a flourishing
economic revival.
He and other experts warned eradication without helping create
alternative livelihoods could drive farmers to seek protection
from traffickers.
Since the warlords are respected because they defeated both
the Soviets and the Taliban, Karzai’s government decided
not to fight them and initially appointed them as governors
and leaders of their districts. But as the central government
gained legitimacy through keeping the peace and successful
October elections, Karzai has been replacing the warlords
or shifting them to regions where they lack a local power
base.
Polls by the International Republic Institute recently showed
that most Afghans said warlords were their chief concern.
With the Soviet and Taliban threats gone, there is little
support for warlords said Roy.
In northern Afghanistan, Roy said that he saw hardly any
men carrying weapons—a sign that public pressure has
turned against the militias.
New York University Afghan expert Barnett Rubin, an advisor
to the Bonn Conference that set up Afghanistan’s post-Taliban
government, called for “alternate livelihoods” programs—such
as those planned by USAID—to defeat the drug trade.
These programs promote crops other than poppy as well as
provision of credit, security, and market infrastructure.
“This means major state building, law enforcement, and
development efforts,” he said.
FrontLines is published
by the Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs
U.S. Agency for International Development
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