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This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
INSIDE DEVELOPMENT
In this section:
U.S., Vietnam Sign Bilateral Agreement for Economic
and Technical Aid
South Africa Anticorruption Program Pays Off
Education of Religious Leaders Key to Successful
Health Program
Education Is Key to Economic Growth, Says Strategy
Rep. Dreier Hails Democracy
Mission Directors Set Goals
U.S., Vietnam Sign Bilateral Agreement for Economic and
Technical Aid
An agreement signed June 22 at USAID headquarters by officials
from the United States and Vietnam will let the countries
continue to build on the success of their more than 10-year
relationship, the two top officials at the ceremony said.
Nguyen Bich Dat, Vietnam’s deputy minister for planning
and investment, and Administrator Andrew S. Natsios signed
the bilateral agreement that lays out guidelines for the economic,
technical, and humanitarian assistance provided to the Southeast
Asia nation by USAID and its partners.
Both men also played up economic and other advantages of
their ongoing ties, including the $6.4 billion in trade that
flowed between the two countries in 2004. U.S. companies invested
about $70 million in Vietnam during the same period.
Natsios said USAID’s programs are helping to spur trade
agreements and bring “economic growth, jobs, and wealth”
to the Vietnamese.
He also listed other areas of cooperation between the two
governments, including assistance to combat HIV/AIDS and new
funding to stem the spread of the avian flu.
“This agreement allows for a close, cooperative, working
relationship on issues critical to the health, wellbeing,
and economic future of the people of Vietnam. I welcome this
opportunity, and look forward to continued success in working
with Vietnam to address development challenges,” Natsios
added.
The agreement is similar to others signed between the Agency
and countries with which it works, said Walter North, a deputy
assistant administrator for Asia and the Near East, who called
the signing an historic occasion.
The agreement was one of a number of exchanges between Washington
and Hanoi during a visit to the United States by Prime Minister
Phan Van Khai in June. He met with President Bush to mark
the 10th anniversary of normalization of diplomatic ties between
the countries.
Khai’s visit was the first by a Vietnamese head of
state to the United States since the Vietnam War ended 30
years ago. The trip helped reinforce President Bush’s
support for admitting Vietnam to the World Trade Organization.
Today, Vietnam is a country in transition. Since 1986, it
has doubled the size of its economy and reduced poverty by
half. Though it still ranks among the poorest countries in
the world, Vietnam is pushing hard at economic reforms.
Among USAID’s programs in Vietnam that Natsios mentioned
at the ceremony is the Support for Trade Acceleration (STAR)
project, which focuses on reform of economic policies and
commercial laws.
USAID assistance also includes aid to war victims, displaced
and orphaned children, and victims of trafficking.
Other efforts support Vietnam on initiatives in environmental
governance and improved air and water quality.
South Africa Anticorruption Program Pays Off
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A witness gives testimony at the Pretoria Commercial
Crime Court.
Sesana Mokoana, USAID |
By her second year in law school in Free State, South Africa,
Glynnis Breytenbach knew she wanted to be a prosecutor. So
it was no surprise when she entered the prosecutorial service
in Johannesburg in 1987.
Soon after, the South African government began aggressively
fighting back against an upsurge in commercial crimes, and
Breytenbach found a new calling.
She was named director of operations for the Specialized
Commercial Crime Court, nicknamed “the unit.” It
was established in 1999 by President Thabo Mbeki to put a
dent in the spate of commercial crimes that became blatantly
obvious in the 1990s and were siphoning $6 billion a year
from the economy.
USAID and Business Against Crime (BAC), an association of
major South African corporations, are assisting with anticorruption
initiative funding. USAID began training prosecutors to try
commercial crimes, which can include fraud and corruption.
And BAC advised the unit on management approaches, which led
it to adopt a computerized caseload management system.
The volume of cases is high, says Chris Jordaan, special
director of public prosecutors and head of the Specialized
Commercial Crime Court. Each police investigator could be
handling 30 cases, and each prosecutor almost double that
amount.
Prosecutors assigned to his unit have won South Africa’s
Prosecutor of the Year Award four years running. A major reason
is the use of plea bargaining, introduced by U.S. technical
specialists, but a new concept in South Africa. Today, one
out of 10 accused are plea bargaining, and the number is growing.
“Training in the unit is a high priority,” he
says, “both in-service training—coaching and mentoring—and
formal training.” The unit lacks adequate resources for
the latter, he added.
The unit in Pretoria proved such a success that in 2003
the Department of Justice opened a second court in Pretoria
and one in Johannesburg. With USAID and BAC anticorruption
initiative assistance, a court opened in Port Elizabeth in
2004 and another in Durban. All five courts maintain conviction
rates of more than 90 percent. Additional courts in the major
cities of Bloemfontein and Germiston are planned, Jordaan
says.
Jordaan’s teams of prosecutors do not shy away from
the rich or powerful. One trio of stock brokers was hit with
5,256 counts of fraud involving $4 million. Specialized commercial
crime prosecutors have successfully indicted senior members
of parliament, senior police officials—including a commissioner—and
members of the legal fraternity.
Breytenbach is smiling when visitors ask her to account
for the success of commercial crime courts. “Co-location,
good case planning, and high [staff] retention,” she
says. “We are seeing a deterrent effect.”
If the unit could get “a sufficient number of higher-skilled
prosecutors,” she adds, “in five to 10 years, white-collar
crime will be under control.”
Sesana Mokoana contributed to this article.
Education of Religious Leaders Key to Successful Health
Program
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The Grant Mufti of Egypt, Ali Gomaa (second from right),
meets Filipino Muslim leaders during their study tour
of Cairo, Egypt. He gave his blessing to the leaders’
fatwa that supports family planning during this visit
in 2004.
TSAP/AED |
In early 2004, the Assembly of Darul Ifta—the biggest
and most influential group of Muslim religious leaders in
the Philippines—issued a national fatwa, or religious
decree, supporting reproductive health and family planning
in Mindanao.
More than a year later, results are starting to come in.
Reports from USAID partner agencies indicate a rise in the
number of couples using family planning. One partner, Helen
Keller International, said that in project sites in Lanao
del Sur the percentage of married women who used modern family
planning methods reached 24.9 percent in October 2004, up
from 17.9 percent in January 2003.
Before the fatwa was issued, Mariam Daud, an ustadza
or female Muslim religious leader, said “couples preferred
to go to a traditional birth attendant to give birth, rather
than to a government hospital or doctor, because of the fear
that they would be given medicine to make them infertile.
But after the fatwa dissemination, the negative perceptions
changed.
“What convinced them is the declaration that birth
spacing is not ‘birth control,’ and that family
planning is for the welfare and health of the mother and child,”
said Daud, who helped draft sections of the fatwa on maternal
rights and healthcare and select appropriate verses in the
Qur’an to support birth spacing.
The Social Acceptance Project-Family Planning (TSAP-FP)
program, funded by USAID, recently provided small grants to
local NGOs to help them educate imams and local communities
about the fatwa.
Radio spots in local dialects are being aired as well. And
there are plans to meet with the Darul Ifta to develop Friday
sermons on family planning that will be read during National
Family Planning Month this August.
Daud, who is also an officer of one of the NGOs spreading
the word about the fatwa, said: “We are more confident
now to strengthen our advocacy on family planning anchored
on responsible parenthood with the issuance of the national
fatwa by our well-respected Muslim religious leaders.”
The Philippines’ Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao
(ARMM)—which includes the provinces of Basilan, Lanao
del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, and Marawi City—is
a region with high fertility rates, low contraceptive use,
and maternal and infant death rates that are among the highest
in the country. Contributing to those elements, people believe,
was a lack of clear guidelines about the role of family planning
in Islam.
The fatwa allows “all methods of contraception”—but
not abortion—“as long as they are safe, legal, in
accordance with the Islamic Sharia, and approved by a credible
physician, preferably a Muslim.”
The idea of a fatwa was first brought up by participants
of the ARMM Health Congress in 2003, which was convened by
the ARMM regional government with technical assistance from
TSAP-FP.
A group of religious leaders at the event later attended
a series of orientation seminars on family planning and Islam
and then crafted a draft fatwa.
Once everyone agreed on the language, the document was translated
from English into Arabic. Both versions were signed by 23
members of the Assembly of Darul Ifta.
The Grand Mufti of Egypt, Ali Gomaa, also gave the fatwa
his blessing—orally and in writing—when some of
the Filipino religious leaders who helped write the document
traveled to his country on a study tour.
Education Is Key to Economic Growth, Says Strategy
More than just a vehicle for personal and professional enrichment,
education is being recognized as a key to the economic growth
of developing countries, according to the new Agency education
strategy, Improving Lives Through Learning.
The strategy document, published in April and formally introduced
May 25 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., calls
education a force for development and lays out USAID’s
plans to boost its efforts in basic education, higher education,
and job training in the countries where it works.
“The Bush administration has made education a centerpiece
of the U.S. development strategy, and the Congress has given
us substantial funds to carry this effort forward,” Administrator
Andrew S. Natsios said. “The USAID strategy for education
reflects this U.S. commitment to expanding education as a
force for development.”
The report links access to quality education with faster
economic growth, reduced poverty, improved income distribution,
enhanced public revenues, democracy, and crisis prevention.
Educating girls, in particular, has benefits that reach
families and wider social networks and contributes to health.
Lack of access to quality education relevant to local needs,
on the other hand, is one of the factors contributing to broader
instability within countries, Natsios said.
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These girls attend one of USAID’s accelerated
learning programs operating in Afghanistan. In 17 provinces,
the programs help 170,000 students who could not attend
school when the Taliban was in power to catch up.
Perry Boomshine, Creative Associates |
“Without economic growth, we find a lot of the objectives
we’re trying to achieve become unsustainable,” said
Jay Smith, acting assistant administrator for Economic Growth,
Agriculture, and Trade, when he unveiled the education plan
in May.
The 21-page document is the result of research, analysis,
and more than 50 years of first-hand experience in countries
worldwide. It took several years to compile.
John Grayzel, director of USAID’s Office of Education,
called it an operational document that will expand as staffers
and partners carry out its two broad objectives: “basic
education” and “beyond basic education.”
The basic education focus will include early childhood development,
primary and secondary schooling, teacher training, literacy,
mathematics, and other basic skills training, in both formal
and informal settings.
The plan also promotes equitable access to education without
regard to sex, disability, ethnic background, residency, and
income.
The second broad category, beyond basic education, will
include university-level education and workforce training.
In 2004, USAID spent more than $365 million in 43 countries
for basic education—twice what was spent in 2001. It
also spent $55 million for higher education and $12 million
for workforce development.
Still, more than 115 million children—two-thirds of
them girls—are without access to basic education around
the world, and more than 880 million children and adults are
illiterate.
Many of the education programs in developing and transitional
countries have been found lacking, for reasons ranging from
civil war to teacher shortages fueled by HIV/AIDS deaths to
costly school fees. USAID research found that while developed
nations typically spend $4,000 per student on education, developing
nations spend $40.
“The challenge of development in the new century and
a keen awareness of the crucial role of education in establishing
free, secure, and prosperous societies have awakened a new
commitment to education and training in the development community,”
the strategy’s authors conclude. “The strategy provides
an overall focus for the Agency’s education program,
while allowing the flexibility to coordinate with others in
response to development needs and opportunities in individual
countries.”
Rep. Dreier Hails Democracy
WASHINGTON—In his keynote speech at the USAID
Democracy Officers Conference and Workshop June 13, Rep. David
Dreier, R-Calif., said he has a “strong belief that freedom
is a right shared by each and every person, and though sometimes
forcibly repressed, it is the desire that can never, ever
be extinguished.”
Dreier was one of more than a dozen speakers at the workshop
organized by the Agency’s Office of Democracy and Governance.
The theme for the week-long event was “Building a Democratic
Future,” with presenters from the U.S. government as
well as the World Bank, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Brookings Institution, and Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace.
Dreier, who chairs the House Committee on Rules, outlined
the correlation between security in the United States and
building democracies around the world that are permanent and
successful. “History has shown that democracy is mankind’s
best response to strife, poverty, and extremism,” said
Dreier. “A world of democratic countries is more peaceful
and prosperous.”
Dreier also observed, “Failing states fail the promise
of their people, and they represent a grave danger to the
United States.”
He has introduced the International Security Enhancement
Act of 2005, legislation to better identify and coordinate
the U.S. response to failing and weak countries before they
become dangerous and to reduce costs to the government over
the long term.
According to Dreier, the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11,
2001, have been a major driving force behind the latest surge
of democratization. “Crimes against the United States
not only led to the destruction of the Taliban, but ultimately
resulted in millions of Afghans voting in the first truly
democratic election in the 5,000-year history of that country.”
However, Dreier is careful to make clear that “one
election a democracy does not make. We need to remember that
these new governments are a work in progress, and the success
of any democracy depends on what happens after the election
is held.”
The workshop, held at the Academy for Education Development
Conference Center, included sessions on new democracies and
economic growth, fragile states, the military’s role
in crisis stabilization, and democracy and Islam.
Mission Directors Set Goals
Organizers of the mission directors conference in May—the
third in USAID history and second since Administrator Andrew
S. Natsios took the Agency helm—issued a series of calls
for followup action reflecting the strategy for development
in the next four years.
At the top of the list, in keeping with President Bush’s
second inaugural address, is democracy.
The Agency needs to explain how spending U.S. government
dollars to help developing countries move from authoritarian
systems toward democratic governance is vital for U.S. national
security. The message: By helping economic growth in extremely
poor regions, USAID is preventing the creation of zones where
terrorists can recruit people who have few opportunities to
improve their lives.
Chiefs from USAID’s 80-plus missions around the world
heard that the Agency is drawing up an international development
strategy that will complement the Bush administration’s
National Security Strategy. The document will explain the
links between humanitarian and development assistance and
U.S. national interests in the areas of security, economics,
trade, immigration, travel, and other issues.
The mission chiefs were also told that the Agency aims to
complete a series of business system modernizations. Human
resource reforms also will be completed to make it easier
to hire, train, and utilize staff.
Several mission directors noted tight security measures—imposed
by Department of State security officers now that most missions
are moving into embassy compounds—made it difficult to
carry out development work.
USAID officials agreed to try to negotiate more flexible
security policies with their State counterparts. In addition,
USAID will collect data on the costs of running a mission
inside an embassy compound and negotiate acceptable arrangements.
In past decades, USAID moved from being an agency with experts
who carry out field programs to an agency that contracts or
gives grants to other groups to conduct development projects.
To reverse that trend, Natsios said he wants to look carefully
at alternative ways to perform Agency work and carry out extensive
training programs for staff on project design and management.
Other decisions from the conference include the following:
- expand recruitment of economists and engineers
- improve training and job conditions of foreign service
nationals
- prepare alternate 2007 budgets as if there were no congressional
earmarks and missions could decide on the best use of funds
- improve reporting on performance of aid programs and
communicate those results to Congress
- clarify and strengthen USAID links to the Millennium
Challenge Account, the President’s Emergency Plan for
AIDS Relief, and the State Department’s Office of Stabilization
and Reconstruction
- carry out new branding regulations and guidelines requiring
contractors and grantees to identify projects as funded
by USAID and the American people
- ensure reports and other communications target larger
audiences and are written in plain English, without a lot
of technical jargon and acronyms, including two-page descriptions
of each major USAID project or activity
- continue to reach out to new partners, especially private
industry and faith-based groups
- put to work the newly trained development outreach and
communications staff to tell host countries and the media
what USAID is doing to improve the lives of people around
the world.
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