May 2005
In this section:
Four Years of Progress at USAID
Joining Forces to Deliver Aid
Democracy Tops Agenda
Four Years of Progress at USAID
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Some of the 3.7 million Afghan refugees who returned
home after the repressive Taliban regime was ousted
by U.S.-led troops in 2001. After living as long as
20 years in exile, refugees arrived from Pakistan and
Iran, riding trucks to a U.N. reception center in Kabul.
There, they received payment for the trucking costs
and $13 per family member. Refugees also received vaccinations
and instructions on dealing with landmines left over
from Afghanistan’s 20 years of wars. Trucks then
carried the returnees to their home villages, where
they received a six-month supply of food, building materials,
and the seed and tools to begin farming.
Ben Barber, USAID |
After four years at the helm of USAID—a time when resources
have nearly doubled from $7.8 billion to $14.2 billion—Administrator
Andrews S. Natsios told a general staff meeting April 6 that
the focus for the next four years will begin with democracy
and the rule of law.
“The failure to deal with these issues is a fundamental
reason why many countries have not made progress,” Natsios
said.
The town meeting to set the agenda for the next four years
was held before 1,000 Agency employees at headquarters in
the Ronald Reagan Building.
Natsios said that the rapid and effective U.S. response
to the Dec. 26 tsunami—one of the most destructive natural
disasters in world history—was possible because of unified
efforts by the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance
(OFDA), the Office of Food For Peace, the Office of Transition
Initiatives, the Indonesian and other missions, the Bureau
for Global Health, and other offices.
Natsios said that staffers “have been empowered to
act…using their own innovative and entrepreneurial instincts.”
“There was a time when it was not politically correct
to take initiative on your own.”
Natsios also noted that huge programs in Iraq, Afghanistan,
and other postconflict areas have raised concerns for staff:
“Increasingly, they’ve been called into dangerous
and insecure areas of the world to carry our work out.”
“I know many of our officers face real security risks
in the field. We’ve just recognized Marian Spivey-Estrada’s
heroism in Darfur.” (As a member of USAID’s Disaster
Assistance Response Team, she was shot while on an aid mission
and was recovering at home.)
“I just want to tell you all that we worry about all
of you, particularly when you’re in the field, and want
you to know that we’re working in the senior leadership
of the Agency and in the bureaus to ensure that we can do
all we can to improve the security environment we’re
working in,” Natsios added.
The five initiatives for the first term have been started
but need to be completed, he said. They include
• Strategic realignment: This includes publishing
Foreign Aid in the National Interest, which reflects
the post-9/11 Bush administration declaration that development—along
with defense and diplomacy—is a cornerstone of U.S. foreign
policy. Strategy papers are also out on education, fragile
states, agriculture, trade capacity building and anticorruption;
and the White Paper has been circulated in other U.S. agencies,
Europe, and the United Nations. (See pages 5 and 7).
• Business systems modernization: Natsios cited
work on a unified financial management system—Phoenix—which
is operational in 13 field missions and should be finished
later this year; a new worldwide procurement and acquisition
system and an executive management information system are
next on the agenda. He also cited the Business Transformation
Executive Committee that was formed to get staff input into
systems changes, saying that a costly effort to create a new
business system in the 1990s failed because it lacked such
input. (See page 7.)
• Expanding partnerships: In three years, the
Global Development Alliance (GDA) formed almost 300 alliances,
investing $1 billion of USAID funding that was matched by
$3 billion from the private sector. The office is one of 18
finalists for an innovations award at Harvard’s Kennedy
School of Government. USAID is also the third-ranking federal
agency in terms of faith-based initiatives. (See pages
10 and 11.)
• Nineteen presidential foreign aid initiatives:
The Agency runs 15 or 16 of these initiatives, including assistance
to huge programs such as the Millennium Challenge Corporation
and carrying out 60 percent of the President’s Emergency
Plan for AIDS Relief. (See page 3.)
• Communicating the USAID message: The Bureau
for Legislative and Public Affairs redesigned and relaunched
Agency publications, including FrontLines, and increased
outreach through global training campaign for public information
officers. A branding campaign for USAID materials and documents
was also launched. (See page 2.)
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“We, on the right side of freedom’s divide,
have an obligation to help those unlucky enough to have
been born on the wrong side of that divide.”
AP/World Wide Photos |
For the coming four years, Natsios listed major regional
challenges. Africa faces the pandemic of HIV/AIDS, serious
governance problems with emerging democracies, and civil wars
such as in the Congo.
Latin America faces a new rise of the authoritarian left
and the need to shore up democracy.
The most serious challenges are in the Middle East-Asia
region, from Morocco to Indonesia. Ten new missions have been
opened in and around this area, a sharp change from the 1990s,
when consolidation meant closing missions.
Natsios pointed to the heightened attention the Agency is
giving to building democracy. He noted, “What happened
in Georgia, what happened in Kyrgyzstan, and what happened
in Ukraine have a lot to do with what we have done around
the world to build civil society and democratic institutions.
“If we did a survey of opinion within the Agency, I
think there would be an overwhelming consensus that the central
development challenges we face right now around the world
rotate on the issues of democracy, governance, and the rule
of law,” Natsios added.
“They affect all sectors, they affect all bureaus,
because governance is essential to what development is about.”
He also said that the Agency will increasingly focus on
“working with governments, because we do a lot of our
work now through institutions independent of government.…
“Civil society and private institutions are critically
important. Private markets are critically important. But we
need to focus more attention on capacitating governments,
ministries at the national level, provincial governments,
and local governments, because ultimately public services
are not going to be administered…unless governments function
properly.
“And so we need to return to an earlier period in AID
where we did more work, not necessarily by putting our money
through the ministries but working in the ministries.”
Natsios also called for the Agency to work more closely
with other U.S. agencies such as the Defense Department, which
is involved in aid work in Afghanistan and Iraq, and was part
of the initial relief response in tsunami regions.
A reorganization of the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict,
and Humanitarian Assistance, for example, includes a military
liaison position.
Natsios also said he wants to “restaff the Agency”
and train new midlevel managers to replace those retiring,
especially after the period of the 1990s when little hiring
took place.
And he hopes to simplify the 13 different personnel systems
and hire the experts needed so that country programs, country
strategies, and project design won’t have to be contracted
out to non-Agency staff.
The Office of Human Resources “is now designing a course
for project design and program design. We need to reestablish
that as a core discipline of the Agency,” Natsios said.
And, Natsios added: “We are going to appoint a chief
scientist for the Agency and a chief economist for the Agency”
to have top experts available to guide policy and speak out
on important issues.
Michael Miklaucic contributed to this article.
Joining Forces to Deliver Aid
Sadr City, a teeming slum on the outskirts of Baghdad, is
one of the toughest places USAID staff have ever worked. Insurgents
make it almost impossible for American civilians to enter
the conflict-prone area.
In some of the poorest and most remote parts of Afghanistan,
aid workers face similar challenges.
Carrying out programs in these environments has presented
a real challenge to how USAID goes about its business. The
day-to-day work in Afghanistan and Iraq over the last two
years is redefining how USAID operates.
Some of the key ingredients of success are a creative and
flexible staff, close collaboration with the U.S. military,
and strong relationships with local people.
“Ten years ago, working hand-in-hand with the military
was unusual,” said Amanda Levenson, USAID/Afghanistan’s
controller. “There has been a shift in thinking on both
sides. The military now understands the value of what we do
and includes economic growth goals in their exit strategies.”
Kirk Day, USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives
representative, said cooperation with the military in Iraq
is equally close. “We’re here for the same purpose:
to help Iraq and for our national security. We just approach
it differently,” he said.
In Sadr City, the military gave Day and his team carte blanche
to get projects off the ground.
The military, in turn, acted as USAID’s eyes and ears,
ensuring projects reached the intended beneficiaries and helping
identify priorities.
In Afghanistan, the mission turned to Foreign Service Nationals
(FSNs) from other USAID missions to jumpstart programs while
local FSNs were being trained.
FSNs often have skills and knowledge direct hires do not.
Recruiting them from other missions and capitalizing on their
expertise was one of the most significant aspects of the mission’s
success.
Another part of the equation was building relationships
with local people, including contractors. In Iraq, participation
by Iraqis in every project is the only way to operate. In
Afghanistan, there is a similar push.
Not only is such participation a security issue, but it
builds local capacity and ownership—two of USAID’s
nine principles for reconstruction and development.
Working with local partners when it is difficult—or
often impossible—to see the work they are doing demands
trust and flexibility on both sides.
Not being able to get out is one of the biggest frustrations
for mission staff, said Allyson Stroschein, special assistant
to the assistant administrator for Asia and the Near East,
who recently returned from almost a year in Iraq.
Working with the military helps, but USAID staff had to
work quickly to find other ways to manage projects effectively
in these environments.
In Afghanistan, the mission often uses fixed-price contracts
for building schools, for example, to help lessen the accounting
burden.
Using larger international organizations as fiduciary agents
for fledgling local organizations and government ministries
gives the new organizations ownership over the activities
and allows USAID to account for the funds more directly.
As Levenson said, “It’s exciting because people
are willing to stretch the envelope to solve a problem. Every
week, there is something new.”
Democracy Tops Agenda
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An Afghan woman demonstrates that she voted for the
first time. Voters were required to dip a finger or
thumb in ink to ensure that they voted only once.
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As the Bush administration pushes for greater democracy
around the world, USAID’s Office of Democracy and Governance
in the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance
(DCHA) is working to expand its support for free elections,
responsible systems of justice, and open media throughout
missions around the world.
Weak and failing states may constitute direct threats to
U.S. national security and have proven highly resistant to
efforts for democratic reform. Yet in the past five years,
authoritarian rule in Iraq, Afghanistan, Georgia, Ukraine,
and the Palestinian territories has ended through free elections,
which USAID backed.
Programs funding good governance, civil society, and democracy
are run by more than 300 U.S. aid experts in some 80 countries,
from Albania to Zimbabwe.
In the midst of the war in Iraq, these experts developed
programs to build local democratic government from the ground
up and helped register voters for the January legislative
election. Voting took place in relative order and tranquility
in the midst of an armed insurgency, allowing elected representatives
to take the reins of government from the transitional authorities.
The staging of the Afghanistan Loya Jirga national assembly
in summer 2002, only months after the fall of the Taliban
regime, owes much to U.S. logistical support. As the largest
and earliest donor, Agency support was pivotal to convening
the delegates responsible for ratifying the new Afghan constitution.
USAID also supported the October 2004 presidential elections,
when Afghans elected Hamid Karzai. Parliamentary elections
are now being prepared—currently scheduled for Sept.
2005—helping Afghans build a legitimate state with institutions
that promote good governance and the rule of law.
Less violent, but equally dramatic, were the relatively
peaceful democratic transitions in Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine
in 2004.
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More than 10 million men and women registered to vote
in Afghanistan’s first democratic election. Voters
chose from 16 presidential candidates.
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In the decade that preceded the “people-power movements”
in both these counties, USAID supported projects to build
democratic institutions and civil society, establish rule
of law and a democratic legislative base, and develop an independent
press.
“As USAID responds to the challenges of the 21st century,
it is becoming more clear that democracy is not merely a necessary
precondition for sustainable development. Nor is it a twin
objective. The struggle for democratic governance is at the
core of development, and thus democracy-building must permeate
USAID’s work in all sectors,” said Michael Miklaucic,
a democracy specialist in DCHA.
USAID has been a pioneer among donor agencies in promoting
democratic reform and building democratic institutions for
over 20 years. In the early 1980s, the Agency pioneered human
rights promotion efforts in Asia, the Middle East, and Latin
America.
In the 1990s, it began implementing comprehensive democracy
and good governance development programs.
In 1994 it established the Center for Democracy and Governance
(now the Office of Democracy and Governance).
Today, the U.S. National Security Strategy calls for a three-pronged
approach that includes defense, diplomacy, and development,
so USAID must fuse its efforts in democracy building to the
overall national security effort.
It can do this through greater interagency coordination,
a greater focus on fragile states, and new practice areas
such as security sector reform, Miklaucic said.
Scarce resources and increased demands on the Office of Democracy
and Governance remain problematic, however. The Agency continues
to seek additional unrestricted funds to implement these programs,
but many democracy and good governance efforts are underfunded,
especially in Latin America and Africa.
“If democracy is to be the government of choice in
our toolbox for fragile states, then increased resources need
to be made available to allow us to continue our successes
in even more places around the world,” Acting Assistant
Administrator Bill Garvelink said.
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A poll worker in Kabul explains procedures to voters
lined up at a polling center Oct. 9, 2004, for the presidential
election.
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