The United States has a long and noble tradition in international development. In 1961, the US Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act, which reaffirmed “the traditional humanitarian ideals of the American people and renewed [their] commitment to assist people in developing countries to eliminate hunger, poverty, illness, and ignorance.”
But if it’s true, as many claim, that the US Department of State (DOS) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have frittered away billions of taxpayers’ dollars on quixotic, far-fetched, and even harebrained initiatives, then it’s time for Congress to ax programs that are inconsistent with or irrelevant to the original intent under the Foreign Assistance Act, or contrary to the US government’s foreign-policy priorities.
The President’s Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Request for DOS and USAID is jam-packed with excess and dubious programs. It calls for “$63.1 billion for foreign assistance and diplomatic engagement, which includes $32 billion in foreign assistance for USAID fully and partially managed accounts, $3 billion (10%) above the FY2023 Adjusted Enacted level.”
Given the unprecedented size of the budget request, Congress must go over it during the markup process on Capitol Hill with a fine-tooth comb – or, better yet, a hacksaw – and eliminate funding for projects that are wasteful, ill-conceived, or contrary to American values, or which fly in the face of the recipient’s values. In any case, Americans have pressing needs at home that cry out for attention.
The Fiscal Year 2024 State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Bill, released on June 22, “provides $52.5 billion for programs under the jurisdiction of the subcommittee.” This is a decent start.
A bank teller wouldn’t hand you a wad of cash just for the asking. You have to establish your bona fides as a client of the bank. Likewise, Congress should not dish out cash to any overzealous DOS/USAID ideologue who insists his or her pet program is vital to global stability or national security without presenting corroborating evidence that it is needed or that it will work.
Foreign assistance – Gordian knots
DOS/USAID development assistance fits, broadly speaking, into two categories: a) essential humanitarian aid to save lives, alleviate suffering and meet basic human needs, and b) advocacy and sponsored research, which, frankly, is often optional, ill-conceived, or possessed of a whiff of ideology. Some research projects – for example, those related to dual-use biological research – are potentially dangerous.
Advocacy programs are often brazen exercises in social engineering incompatible with (when not subversive of) the values and standards of the recipient nation. Moreover, not infrequently, they bankroll “market-oriented reforms,” a euphemism for concentrating economic power in the hands of entrenched elites while leaving everyone else for the most part high and dry. Or they aim to achieve utopian goals only in the distant future – if at all (and it’s probably better if they never do).
Having said that, Congress should unambiguously continue to support humanitarian activities such as international disaster assistance, food security, nutrition, sanitation, biodiversity, and medical aid. That’s the easy part.
The hard part is distinguishing between essential humanitarian aid that is in the national interest from what is not – and then excising the vast quantities of lard that surround most budget submissions. That which is ideologically inspired, that is, anchored in belief structures detached from science and reality, should come in for especially close scrutiny.
The size of the DOS/USAID budget request for 2024 is just under the average of the annual budget outlays for the Department of Defense for the years 1960-1972 (when the Vietnam War was on); it is more than the 2023 defense budgets of any one of America’s major allies, that is, of France, Saudi Arabia, Japan or Germany.
To be sure, most development professionals are hard-working, kind, and extraordinary individuals who are motivated by a spirit of service and compassion toward others, let there be no doubt. But they owe it to the US taxpayer and the world’s poor to pull the plug on failed projects and programs, especially the ones that are fruitless, have resulted in botched outcomes or were of dubious intent to begin with.
Foreign aid for advocacy re-examined
USAID’s mission is “to transform families, communities, and countries” across the globe. Fine, but from what, into what? And with what end in mind?
American institutions are informed by a specific idea of the human person who, as a rational, sensitive creature made of body and soul and possessed of fundamental rights and transcendent dignity, lives within a pre-existing, objective order that governs the cosmos.
This concept of the human person is reflected in the American Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
These convictions gave rise to the American spirit of enterprise, individual responsibility, tolerance, and good humor. Our spirit is optimistic, humane, and pragmatic and, until recently, rigorously non-ideological.
The alternative worldview – prevalent among agnostics, practical atheists, skeptics, and most of America’s cultural elites today – sees the human person as a psychologically challenged complex construction of atoms and electrical impulses descended from one thing or another after a long period of random mutations.
They cannot explain where consciousness and feelings come from and do not even try. Their vision is reductionist and pessimistic and, as a result, they tend to see development assistance as limited to a means of preventing social disorder, alleviating poverty, and mitigating human distress rather than as an opportunity to do just that and bring out the greatness in each human being.
Some aid programs aim at nothing less than changing long-standing social norms and attitudes in countries deemed insufficiently attuned to the interests of progressive humanity. This kind of thinking is captured, for example, in “Biden USAID’s Radical Gender Policy Is Exporting Cultural Colonialism” or “Biden Takes the Culture War to Hungary.”
Today’s orthodox worldview in the academy tends to limit the purpose of development to the attainment of bodily comfort (or at least to the minimization of discomfort) and the achievement of prosperity – perfectly worthy goals but ones which fall short of integral human development in a wholistic sense – or some other material goal such as harnessing natural forces in order to improve the human condition.
To limit the aim of foreign development assistance to such material considerations is to treat the endeavor as an exercise in experimental science or a kind of animal husbandry – with people as the animals.
Since US foreign aid affects people, families and countries, Congress must insist that USAID formulate development assistance policies that are secundum natura hominis, not contra natura hominis, that is, consistent with or, at least, not contrary to the nature of the human person and enhance the common good of society.
When engaging foreign countries, USAID must be careful not to export a reductive vision of the human person, which may inadvertently promote moral underdevelopment or be seen as part of a bid for geo-political dominance.
Aid programs in support of education can easily degenerate into a means of social indoctrination, no matter how high-minded the stated purpose, and be used to overrule a person’s conscience, regulate outcomes, and control the uncooperative.
Spotlight on performance
The Heritage Foundation, which has long cast a critical eye on US foreign assistance programs, highlighted the need for improved efficiency metrics and good governance to measure performance in its report “USAID 2017-2021: The Journey to Self-Reliance.” This report provides “a solid base from which to launch even bolder reforms while offering a future Congress a basis upon which to reshape foreign aid authorizations and appropriations.”
Congress should take a hard look at programs that have become bloated and/or undergone ideological drift. The pursuit of ideological pseudo-reality only undermines foreign aid’s exalted purpose, that is, to save lives, foster entrepreneurial spirit and self-reliance, alleviate distress, and foment a culture of life and the common good. As such, it disserves and betrays both those who need the aid and those who give it, namely the US taxpayer.
When deliberating on the DOS and USAID budget request and during markup, which has begun, Congress should insist that agencies:
- Explain the value proposition and assumptions of specific line-items in the proposed budget and set forth the expected outcomes within a realistic timeframe. Congress should challenge experimental programs and request that USAID spell out its criteria for prioritizing countries and allocating funding “to reform coalitions and policy priorities” under, for example, its “Dekleptification Guide ” (September 2022).
- Define unambiguously the meaning of words such as “prosperity,” “freedom,” “human rights,” “equity,” “democratic governance,” “health,” and “inclusion.”
- Disclose criteria for selecting partners, allocating funds, and determining the purpose of each proposed line item against benchmarks, timelines, and past achievements/failures.
- Identify redundancy in certain specific accounts, for example, USAID ‘s Pillar Bureaus, Transition Initiatives, Complex Crisis Fund, Economic Support Fund, Functional Bureaus and Offices, Prevention and Stabilization Fund, and Democracy Fund, to name a few.
- Check for inconsistencies in language and reasons for de-prioritizing formerly high-priority accounts. For example, if international religious freedom is one of the administration’s top priorities, the FY2024 request of $11.4 million (66% of which covers salaries, benefits, utilities and supplies) for the Bureau of International Religious Freedom seems paltry.
Moreover, as Representative Mario Diaz-Balart underscored on June 23 in his remarks at FY24 State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Sub-Committee Markup, Congress must make sure that foreign assistance does not “leave countries unable to support themselves, more dependent on foreign aid and throw the door open for Communist China.”
Learn from Afghanistan
The economic component of foreign aid to Afghanistan was $39 billion, or 30% of its total outlay of approximately $91.4 billion between 2001 and 2021.
The report of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (July 2021) – “What We Need to Learn: Lessons from 20 years of Afghanistan Reconstruction” – unequivocally states that “the US government did not understand the Afghan context and therefore failed to tailor its efforts accordingly.”
Good intentions do not compensate for bad ideas or boundless ideological confidence.
John F Sopko, the author of the report, lamented the failure of aid policy in Afghanistan: “We [need] to determine why the effort to build a strong, sustainable Afghan state failed so dramatically and disastrously.” That failure had more to do with bad ideas than with poor management or a lack of resources. Congressional oversight should seek to prevent such failures in the future.
Listen to partners without preconditions
Foreign assistance initiatives must be in sync with the wishes and concerns of peoples and elected officials across the globe. If not, the US runs the risk of blowback. Here is just one example:
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico, in a recent note to US President Joe Biden, slammed USAID: “I would like to briefly express to you that for some time the United States government, in particular the United States Agency for International Development has dedicated itself to financing organizations openly opposed to the legal and legitimate government that I represent, which is clearly an interventionist act, contrary to international law and the respect that should prevail between free and sovereign states.”
This sentiment is increasingly expressed by countries around the world.
The problem of concentration
USAID, with its small and shrinking partner base, has a concentration problem. Congress should require it to divulge the names of its top 25 implementing partners and, more important, the names of its subcontractors and how often they are engaged. Ditto the recipients.
Concentration has been a problem for years. According to USAID’s website (link recently deleted), “In FY2017, 60% of obligations went to 25 partners, and more than 80% of obligations went to just 75 partners. The number of new partners has decreased consistently since 2011 when the agency worked with 761 new partners; in 2018, it worked with 226 new partners.”
Congress should tell USAID to diversify its partner base and expand local empowerment even if this results in increased inefficiencies and workloads. USAID must dramatically expand direct assistance to worthy recipients in foreign countries, by-passing its Washington-based brokers.
Putting human development, humanitarian assistance first
To be sure, Congress should:
- Continue to support USAID’s humanitarian aid portfolio: water management, food security, sanitation, sustainable agriculture, small businesses and entrepreneurship, disaster preparedness, sensible environmental and biodiversity programs, non-intrusive health initiatives (such as malaria and HIV/AIDS care, improved nutrition for vulnerable children, etc) and the promotion of religious freedom and, generally, culture-of-life initiatives.
- Ensure that the programming in the 2024 Budget Request neither contradicts the principles embodied in the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act, the Declaration of Independence, and other key documents of the United States, or undermines the interests of, or otherwise antagonizes, partner countries that may regard the ideologies, attitudes or policies we would introduce as alien, deleterious or anathema.
- Insist emphatically that DOS/USAID focus on traditional humanitarian assistance and scale way back on the undesirable and intrusive aspects of its advocacy work. Such an approach will better reflect the original intent of foreign aid, the magnanimity of Congress and the generosity of the American people.
And, as indicated in the aforementioned appropriations bill, Congress should demand transparency by requiring “the public posting of reports and foreign assistance data on the Department of State and USAID websites so the American taxpayers can see how the funds are used” and who is receiving the funding.
In short, Congress must insist that DOS/USAID spend taxpayers’ money more wisely while giving us something we haven’t had in a long time: a foreign policy anchored in realism, common sense, and more respectful engagement with foreign countries, taking into account their unique needs, cultures, and sensitivities.
In this way, USAID will remain “the world’s premier international development agency and a catalytic actor driving development results” while demonstrating American generosity.