Message-ID: <v03007806af3a27f1af61@[205.217.163.184]> Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1997 12:50:51 -0500 From: "Daniel G. Clark" <mailto:dclark@MUT1.MUSCANET.COM> Subject: Re: Foreign Aid To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
Dick Tinsley wrote: >It is what is known as buying peace in the middle east. The Camp David
>Peace accord set the aid to Egypt as equal to the aid to Isreal. Having
>worked in Egypt for a total of 7 years I can accept a question concerning
>the effectiveness of the aid. A even more serious question would be the
>administrative cost of delivering the aid via the USAID bureaucracy. You
>might also note the close to 80% actually recycles and is spent in the US.
Indeed. And what portion of that "aid" goes to "prime the pump" for U.S. weapons sales? In late 1995 a colleague and I presented several (USIA funded) "conflict management" seminars in East Africa. While in Nairobi, our USIA host took us to the USAID headquarters to discuss "conflict prevention" with our regional development honchos there. They told us "we aren't throwing money at problems anymore"--now that we don't have any money or political will for aid. Instead we are listening to local folk and building partnerships with them in response to their initiatives! So I asked what about the criticism I'd read in a local news magazine and heard from local folk that Kenya has no money for development because of the cost of buying U.S. fighter jets. "Military assistance is a different branch; we can't do anything about that," came the USAID reply. In Addis Ababa, an elder (a retired banker) implored us to tell our people and tell our leaders: "We need more of the implements of AGRICULTURE, and we need NO MORE of the implements of WAR!"
Dan Clark mailto:<dclark@muscanet.com> Muscatine, Iowa USA