Development Assistance: Background and Structure
U.S. foreign assistance in its current form dates back to the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) of 1961. At the height of the Cold War, the Kennedy administration used the FAA to lay out U.S. national security and development objectives. In 1961, the nexus between security and development was viewed in simple terms: countries marked by poverty and hunger were breeding grounds for communism.
Development assistance gave the United States another foreign policy instrument to prove to countries on the fence that capitalism was superior to communism. Even in 1961, this was not a brand new way of thinking. This was a primary motivation for the U.S. reconstruction of most of Western Europe and Japan after World War II, and it paid off: U.S. development assistance created strong allies, thriving markets for American goods, and a broad reflection of our democratic ideals.
The FAA established the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as the principal office to implement development assistance. USAID brought together disparate programs from various agencies and departments, with the U.S. State Department providing overall policy guidance. This structure remained largely intact through the end of the 1980s. In addition to USAID, the Peace Corps channeled the idealism of young Americans into the most remote areas in the world. Indeed, these were heady times for American idealism and America’s image abroad.
One of the main issues for U.S. development assistance through the 1960s and early 1970s was widespread fears of persistent famine in the developing countries of Asia. This led to the effort known as the Green Revolution, discussed in Chapter 2. Latin America presented a different set of challenges, Africa yet another, but wherever one turned, it was possible to find U.S. development assistance making a difference in the lives of poor people. In some cases, the United States supported countries headed by dictators or others with poor human rights records and weak accountability, and U.S. diplomats seemed to turn a blind eye to many of their unsavory practices, but U.S. development workers continued to have the respect of the people they served.
With the end of the Cold War came a new wave of U.S. assistance programs designed to support economic stabilization and democracy in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Once again, it made good sense to offer help to former enemies. These programs were implemented primarily by USAID but also by other departments and agencies. U.S. foreign policy—and thus development assistance—was entering a new age. Without the clear focus provided by the Cold War, development was being reinvented. The changes were reflected in a decline in funding, a preference for short-term reactive approaches, and a growing number of actors doing work that had formerly been under USAID jurisdiction.
This proliferation of actors doing work related to development has continued through the eight years of the George W. Bush administration. As Brookings Institution scholar Lael Brainard points out, there are now roughly 50 “foreign assistance objectives” and 20 U.S. departments that provide assistance (with many more agencies and fiefdoms within those organizations), resulting in an organizational chart of stunning complexity.11 The fragmentation of responsibility for development not only limits the effectiveness of assistance but also makes it extremely difficult for the United States to coordinate and collaborate with the rest of the donor community.
Because there is no single agency or person responsible for all U.S. development programming, it is unclear who speaks on behalf of U.S. development assistance. Is it the Secretary of State, the Administrator of USAID, the Global AIDS Coordinator (the head of the single largest U.S. government program), or the Treasury Secretary (who oversees U.S. relations with the World Bank)? Who represents the U.S. government in negotiations with other development agencies? The United States has agreed to work with other donors to achieve “more harmonized, transparent, and collectively effective” programs.12 But the prospects for doing this are remote if there is no way to determine basics like who is responsible for which development priorities.
