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This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
DECEMBER 2005
In this section:
Natsios to Leave Agency after Five Years at Helm
Iraq Chief Says $5.1 Bil Share of Aid Complete
Quake Help Racing Snows
Natsios to Leave Agency after Five Years at Helm
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Administrator Andrew S. Natsios and Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice at USAID headquarters in Washington,
D.C. Natsios announced he would leave on Jan. 12, 2006,
after leading the Agency for five years.
USAID |
USAID Administrator Andrew S. Natsios announced he is stepping
down Jan. 12 and will take a position at his alma mater, Georgetown
University, teaching diplomacy and development.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Natsios announced
the move Dec. 2 to senior staff at USAID in the morning, and
then to reporters at the State Department.
Deputy Administrator Fred Schieck will become interim chief
of the Agency during the search for a replacement for Natsios.
“This is very bittersweet for me personally and for
the United States government.…He has worked on the frontlines
of development and democratization for [many] years, five
of it for the Bush Administration,” Rice said at the
State Department. “From my point of view, I wish he’d
gone on for another three and a-half.”
“The United States government respects enormously the
mission of AID and the way that they have discharged it,”
Rice added, citing tasks “that we had not had to do for
a very, very long time, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and in other
places.”
Natsios said, “the decision to leave USAID was not
an easy one for me to make.
“But after years of nearly constant motion, I have decided
that the opportunity to pause and reflect on my experiences
with USAID through writing and teaching is the right course
for me at this time.”
“When I started,” he added, “we were going
to focus on internal reform, systemic reform, fragile states,
business model changes.…We did not know that 9/11 was
going to take place; that we would be fighting a war in Afghanistan,
a war in Iraq; that there would be a genocide in Darfur; that
there would be a peace agreement signed between North and
South Sudan.”
Natsios presided over USAID during a massive increase in
the U.S. foreign aid budget, from $8 billion to about $20
billion, as the United States moved to combat terrorism, rebuild
Afghanistan and Iraq, battle AIDS, prepare for possible avian
influenza, and cope with the 2004 Asian tsunami and the 2005
Pakistan earthquake.
“We reorganized the Agency to align strategy and policy
with budget, abolish poorly performing central programs, better
organize our technical experts, and adapt to a reformed intellectual
framework,” he said.
“We began modernizing our business systems and have
created a new business model for development, using alliances
with nontraditional partners such as foundations, corporations,
and faith-based groups through the Global Development Alliance.
“We appointed outreach officers and developed mission
communication strategies to better tell our story, and we
launched a global branding campaign to ensure the American
people receive credit for the foreign assistance they finance.”
“It’s been an honor and privilege for me to serve
and I want to thank the president, once again, for allowing
me to be in his administrations for almost five years now,”
Natsios added.
“Most of all, I want to salute the men and women of
USAID who bring hope to millions of people everyday on the
frontlines of development.”
A Massachusetts state legislator for 12 years, Natsios served
at USAID as director of the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance
from 1989 to 1991 and then as assistant administrator for
the Bureau for Food and Humanitarian Assistance from 1991
to January 1993.
He also served as vice president of the relief agency World
Vision and head of Boston’s Central Artery/Tunnel Project,
or “Big Dig.”
Former USAID chief Peter McPherson said in an interview
that Natsios “has done an outstanding job. He is extraordinarily
committed to better lives for poor people and has approached
this very innovatively.”
“Andrew has tremendous energy,” McPherson added.
“He came to the job with enormous knowledge about development.
He spent enormous amounts of time on Africa and supported
agriculture production and markets. He has done a good job
in Afghanistan and Iraq, even though by the nature of it they
are going to be criticized.”
“His capacity to work in the White House and within
the administration was very important. He’s going to
go down as a very strong administrator. He protected AID many
times,” said McPherson, who was head of USAID from 1981
to 1987.
Iraq Chief Says $5.1 Bil Share of Aid Complete
The chief of the USAID mission in Baghdad, Dawn Liberi, said
during a visit to Washington headquarters Nov. 2 that USAID
had largely succeeded in carrying out its $5.1 billion share
of the $20 billion in U.S. aid to Iraq reconstruction.
USAID projects included:
• $2.5 billion for infrastructure such as power,
water, and communications.
• $887 million for humanitarian activities
• $842 for governance
• $462 million for economic assistance, such as private
sector, economic governance.
• $318 million to health, education, and social services.
“USAID generally does not do infrastructure anymore,”
said Liberi. However, since operations began in Iraq in summer
of 2003, the Agency hired a contractor to dredge the port
at Umm Qasr, repair power plants, rebuild water treatment
plants, fix sewerage systems, and undertake other infrastructure.
In addition, USAID has rebuilt schools and clinics, begun
construction of a hospital in Basra, trained teachers, helped
establish and improve local and national government offices
and ministries, and tackled many other tasks both large and
small, including support for national elections.
The mission director said the Agency has hired over 200
staff who manage 10,000 projects. Grants or contracts have
been made to contractors working in all 18 provinces.
USAID has used $1.5 billion on electricity, revamping neglected
power systems strained by rising demand for power. “By
March, 2006, we will have put in over half of the planned
1,700 new megawatts of power,” said Liberi.
The mission also undertook 200 water projects, and expects
to provide treated drinking water to 9 million Iraqis by next
March.
“We did airports. We rehabilitated or built one-third
of Iraq’s schools,” said Liberi.
“We will have significantly moved the ball forward—this
is information that is not getting out in most newspapers.”
For example, at the request of the ministry of education,
USAID helped revise the school curriculum, provided 8.6 million
new textbooks, and is currently training 133,000 teachers.
USAID programs have benefited one-third of all Iraqi educators.
This was aimed at halting the 25-year degradation of educational
levels under Saddam Hussein.
About 3.64 million of the nearly 10 million school-aged
children are not in school due to the degraded educational
system, said Liberi.
The mission also provided training for primary healthcare
workers.
And to support the new democratic institutions, the Agency
worked with the National Assembly to expose parliamentarians
to democratic systems around the world. Training also went
to members of all 18 provincial councils, whose members had
little experience with the duties of elected or appointed
officials.
To help Iraqis organize charity, monitoring, advocacy, and
other groups, the mission established four civil society centers
“so civil society has a voice,” said Liberi.
To show how much the new civil society has come to mean
to Iraqis, she told about a group of NGO members who were
arrested by police for being out after curfew while returning
from a village.
“At the station, the police realized the NGOs were
educating people about civil rights, and they gave their beds
to them to spend the night,” said Liberi. “The police
said ‘we will sleep the cells. Your work is so important.’”
Despite the huge amount of work completed, Liberi said “the
job is not done—we need to continue to be there for development
as well as security.”
“We’re at the point where it is their [the Iraqis’]
process, and we only help them carry things forward.”
She noted that security costs are on average 22 percent
of project costs because “we work in a war zone and have
to have security, which is expensive.” She also said
USAID works closely with the military, which has its own budget
for assistance projects. For example, the Office of Transition
Initiatives hired 2,500 youngsters to clean out drainage systems,
and then the military linked the systems to individual houses.
Next steps for the mission are to work on moving from short-term
to long-term employment and to set up banking systems that
can extend credit to small business owners.
The mission and the U.S. Embassy are also considering creating
provincial reconstruction teams of troops and civilian aid
workers in 15 provinces to help deliver aid in insecure situations.
Quake Help Racing Snows
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Injured Pakistanis are transported to Chaklala, Pakistan,
for medical help Oct. 14 aboard a U.S. Navy MH-53E Sea
Dragon helicopter.
U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Timothy Smith |
Providing food and shelter to more than 1 million Pakistanis
affected by the Oct. 8 earthquake has become top priority,
as winter sets in to the devastated region and relief efforts
give way to reconstruction.
U.S. pledges to the crisis rose to $510 million on Nov.
19, as donors worldwide promised overall $5.8 billion.
President Bush announced that an advisory committee of corporate
CEOs and other officials has established the South Asia Earthquake
Relief Fund to raise and distribute money and supplies to
groups helping earthquake victims. Leading the group are the
heads of General Electric, Pfizer, Xerox, and Citigroup; the
former chairman of UPS; Administrator Andrew S. Natsios; and
former Pakistani Prime Minister Moeen Qureshi.
Heading into the second month after the magnitude 7.6 earthquake
struck parts of Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan, worries
are mounting over how earthquake survivors will manage through
the next several months.
The U.S. Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) is continuing
to deliver relief supplies under difficult circumstances.
Lisa Chiles, USAID/Pakistan’s mission director, said
that “the transition from relief to reconstruction will
be challenging, given the large number of displaced persons,
loss of livelihoods, and the near onset of winter… To
meet this challenge, the mission is working closely with USAID’s
DART and U.S. military counterparts to develop coping scenarios
for shelter and is undertaking need assessments for food,
water supply, sanitation, and building materials. These relationships
will continue through the winter months.”
More than 73,000 people died in Pakistan and 69,000 were
injured. The quake and its aftershocks destroyed homes, schools,
shops, hospitals, and many other buildings. In India, 1,300
died, 6,600 were injured, and about 150,000 were left homeless.
U.N. officials are warning that a second wave of deaths
could come as the brutal Himalayan winter descends on the
region. Some roads remain nearly impassable, making delivering
relief supplies a monumental challenge.
About 1 million people are in need of food aid in the hardest
hit regions of South Asia, according to the World Food Program
(WFP).
USAID has given the WFP $3.4 million to distribute cooking
oil and food. Delivering 175,000 winterized tents is also
a priority.
To date, the United States has pledged $510 million for
relief and reconstruction. This includes $300 million in cash,
$110 million in in-kind military support, and $100 million
in private contributions.
The new South Asia Earthquake Relief Fund will encourage
private citizens and corporations to make donations, and will
direct the money and goods to relief organizations providing
funds, supplies, and expertise. The five business leaders
launched their endeavor and a website dedicated to it Nov.
9 at a White House meeting with Bush. The group also traveled
to Pakistan to get a firsthand view of the devastation.
“We must collectively do more to help the millions
in South Asia who have been devastated by the earthquake,”
said Hank McKinnell, CEO of Pfizer. “The South Asia Earthquake
Relief Fund is an important and meaningful step in furthering
humanitarian aid to improve conditions and help rebuild lives.
Through partnerships with relief organizations, the U.S. business
community has provided leadership, resources, and expertise.”
Pfizer has committed $1 million to relief organizations
and $5 million in medicine and healthcare products. Some of
its workers have also volunteered to treat the injured.
The other companies also pledged or made sizeable donations
to relief and reconstruction efforts. The other four executives
are Jeff Immelt of General Electric, Anne Mulcahy of Xerox,
Jim Kelly of UPS, and Sanford Weill of Citigroup.
The relief fund is designed to complement relief and reconstruction
efforts by USAID and other U.S. agencies. The fund is administered
by the Committee to Encourage Corporate Philanthropy, an international
nonprofit forum of over 100 business leaders.
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