Пересмотр администрацией Д. Трампа политики содействия развитию (на примере зарубежной помощи Афганистану)

Obama vs McCain on global health

«М’ЯКА СИЛА» ЯК ХАРАКТЕРНА ОЗНАКА ПОЛІТИЧНОГО ВПЛИВУ ВЕЛИКОЇ ДЕРЖАВИ ЗАУМОВ БАГАТОПОЛЯРНОГО СВІТУ В ЛАТИНОАМЕРИКАНСЬКОМУ РЕГІОНІ

International development assistance is an integral part of the foreign economic and foreign policy activities of the US government. International aid is one of the largest components of US foreign relations spending and is regarded by many members of Congress as one of the most important foreign policy instruments. However, many US citizens and members of Congress feel that the US cannot afford such international aid spending, given the current budget deficit and competing budgetary priorities. As one of the largest donors of international development aid, the United States is of considerable interest to many researchers, including those who study trends in the polarization of attitudes toward foreign policy, including international aid. This article is devoted to the current US policy in the field of international development cooperation at the beginning of the presidency of Joe Biden. It examines the economic component of US government assistance: the total amount of US economic assistance, as well as the structure of international aid spending and country priorities for US economic assistance, are considered. An assessment of the prospects for US assistance is presented based on an analysis of the Joint Strategic Plan of the State Department and the Agency for International Assistance 2022-2026 and the US National Security Strategy 2022. Despite the stability and relative inertia of the international aid system, one can observe an increase in US interest in development assistance after the transition of power to President Biden, including in the context of competition with China.

Last week a group of 165 Republicans in the House of Representatives called for ending support for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). This would be an extraordinary move with extraordinary consequences as ending funding for USAID would severely hamper the ability of the U.S. to pursue much its foreign policy. Without USAID, U.S. foreign policy would largely be limited to defense, direct government assistance to foreign countries and diplomacy. Eliminating USAID would leave the U.S. with even fewer options in international politics, strip the country of much of its soft power and terminate programs which deliver effective foreign assistance in everything from health care to support for civil society organizations. Additionally, the savings would not be very substantial as the entire USAID budget for 2010 was around $1.5 billion.

Gender equality is generally accepted within the international development community as being critical for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agreed to by member nations of the United Nations in 2000. However, this article suggests that there are tensions between the MDGs and the strategies to achieve gender equality on the one hand, and international development policies, such as the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2005), on the other. Furthermore, rather than gender equality being central to achieving the MDGs it appears that since the Paris Declaration, gender equality has ‘dropped off’ the mainstream international development agenda. This article reviews the policy and practices of NZAID (New Zealand's international aid and development agency) to help illustrate the difficulty of keeping a focus on gender within the current international development policy context. The impact of this issue on the effectiveness of official development assistance (ODA) in helping to achieve the MDGs in the Pacific is examined, as are the implications for evaluative policy and practice of a weakened focus on gender. In conclusion, it is suggested that, although evaluators do not set the development agenda of either aid agencies or developing countries, it is still possible to conduct evaluations that are ‘gender sensitive’ and that have the potential to transform gender relations of those women and men that development assistance is intended to benefit.

Since World War II, the United States has played a leading role in development assistance in both volume of funds and role. Though the largest bilateral development agency, USAID is somewhat of an outlier in modes of operation, scope and nature of activities, and place within government. This chapter examines the development and character of U.S. foreign assistance. Like others, the United States provides foreign aid for multiple reasons – to relieve suffering and promote long-term economic and social development, to gain favor with allies, to open markets, to help ensure national security. Security and diplomacy do play a large role in U.S. foreign aid, even in basic education. In the context of U.S. internal politics, both humanitarian/development and diplomatic/security rationales have been necessary to sustain public and government support for foreign aid. Still neither rationale has prevailed; the budget is split nearly in half. The need for a humanitarian rationale may be characteristic of U.S. foreign assistance along with the emphasis on democracy. Yet these programs have sometimes been distorted by the diplomatic rationale and the security needs of the state. Many of these tensions and the constant need to justify foreign aid likely derive from the perennial periodic isolationist thread of U.S. politics, the particular adversarial institutions of U.S. policymaking, and the transparency which leaves these processes open. Even so, U.S. development assistance has played a prominent role in the trajectory of international development post-World War II, and has worked to address many of the great challenges of the times.

Global Development, Converging Divergence and Development Studies: A Rejoinder

JessicaTrisko DardenAiding and Abetting: U.S. Foreign Assistance and State ViolencePalo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2020. 198 p. $30.00 (paper).

It is just about time for yet another round of internationaldevelopment goals. The Millennium Development Goals(MDGs) – the eight goals, 20 targets and 60+ indicatorsthat came out of the United Nations in 2000 – are comingto the end of their natural life. Although the official enddate is not until 2015, if your country is not close to reach-ing the MDGs now, there is simply not much time tocatch up. (Helpfully, the UN’s MDG Monitor websitecounts down to 2015 by the second.)As 2015 ticks ever closer, international bureaucrats (andI use that term affectionately since I have been one) aredeciding how to cook up the nextround of goals. We can be assuredthat there will be another round ofMDG-like goals sometime fairly soonbecause this has been the consistentpattern for much of the last century.My colleague Michael Clemens docu-ments how global universal primaryeducation has been repeatedly prom-ised by grand international summitssince at least 1934, even if their actual impact has beenquestionable (Clemens, 2004).So what should MDGs redux look like if we want themto be constructive and not merely more of the same? Agood place to start is to consider the pluses and minuses ofthe current set. On the positive side, the MDGs have beenhugely successful at fundraising. The MDGs evolved outof a set of goals created at the OECD in the mid-1990s asa direct attempt to try to reverse the steep cuts in foreignaid after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Total aidplummeted by more than 20 per cent between 1992 and1997, prompting waves of panic within the aid community.At the time of the September 2000 UN Summit when theMDGs were adopted unanimously by the largest-ever gath-ering of heads of state, total aid was around $60 billion peryear. By 2005 the level had doubled to around $120 billionand it has hovered around this level ever since. Coinciden-tally, a series of ‘MDG costing studies’ suggested that justsuch a doubling was necessary for those goals to beachieved (Devarajan et al., 2002; Zedillo, 2001). A linkbetween the MDGs and this spike in aid seems highlyplausible. Nearly all donor countries justified their increaseson the basis of, if not directly meeting the MDGs, helpingto reach MDG-like goals, such as fighting poverty, educat-ing children or stemming the HIV⁄AIDS pandemic.Another useful contribution of the MDGs has been tofocus the development community – and the taxpayingpublic – on outcomes, if somewhat belatedly. Although itseems obvious today to track progress on intended targets,common practice in the past was simply to calculate inputs:how much money was spent, how many books werebought, etc., rather than on the hoped-for changes incountries, such as healthier and more educated people.Finding out what is actually happening on the ground notonly helps to establish if money andeffort are reaching their intendedobjectives, but also helps to makecritical efficiency decisions. If we aimfor educated children, a logical firststep is at least to know how manykids are enrolled in school. It alsoprovides a baseline for deeper evalua-tion that can help make policy deci-sions, such as: is it better to useadditional marginal dollars to build schools or pay teachershigher salaries or fight diseases that too often keep kidsout of school? In fact, the approach of finding out how weare actually doing is obvious now in part because of theMDGs. Tracking and reporting have become mainstream –and it is not too much of a stretch to give the goals part ofthe credit.Yet, the MDGs also have some serious weaknesses.While the goals were initially intended as global aspira-tions, they quickly became actual targets for countries.Some of this was (likely well-intentioned if lazy) misuse ofthe goals as a replacement for national targets. If Goal Fivesays that the maternal mortality ratio should be reduced bythree-quarters, then that has been the target assigned toNiger, Cambodia and Honduras as well. Some of thistransfer to national goals was however by design, such asGoal Two which calls for universal completion of primaryschooling.But does it really make sense for all countries around theworld to have the same goals? Should China and CapeVerde be applying the same objectives and measuringsticks? More to the point, should we be determining the‘success’ or ‘failure’ of a country’s efforts at progress based

Issues in Australian Foreign Policy January to June 2022

The notion that foreign aid harms recipient governments' economic autonomy and undermines citizens’ trust in political institutions and actors remain prevalent and paradoxical. The fact that foreign aid has come to mean development assistance has raised a series of questions that have been debated in the scholarly literature. Moreover, it is universally acknowledged that donors use aid to achieve objectives other than development and poverty reduction. This study assesses the impact of foreign aid on the economic autonomy of different regimes (2001–2021) in Afghanistan. The study opines that foreign aid supported economic growth and the longevity of the Afghan government. However, on the other hand, both on-budget and off-budget foreign aid funding had several ripple effects. This study offers a comparative analysis of foreign aid in the Karzai and Ghani era; and explores the knock-on economic implications of aid dependency in Afghanistan. The comparative analysis of regimes in the post-9/11 context illustrates that stringent conditions were attached to aid granted to the Ghani administration compared to the Karzai administration. The study has found that US aid has undermined the economic setup in Afghanistan. However, the leverage of US aid to influence decision-making is minimal. Afghanistan's strategic calculation and policymaking are determined by regional security conditions rather than US influence. Furthermore, it is pertinent to note that since 2014, a significant decrease in US aid has been witnessed due to divergence between the two states. The significance of assistance in US foreign policy towards Afghanistan is minimal. The study suggests that foreign aid projects harm institutional trust by lowering citizens' evaluations of government performance and administrative competence. Additionally, aid projects can incentivize rent-seeking behavior and hurt citizens' perceptions of political corruption. In mapping the future discourse on aid in Afghanistan, the current authorities need to be more oriented toward foreign aid. As a policy tool, support has not been confined to the roles that foreign and economic policy theorists have prescribed. Key Words: Afghanistan, Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEoA), Taliban, Foreign Aid, Economic Autonomy.

USAID in Bolivia: Partner or Patrón?

Problem statement: This study examined foreign aid as administered by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) through four presidencies, beginning with the Reagan era. Aid dispensed to the Peace Corps for humanitarian purpo ses was the major focus of the investigation. The research proposed that such aid should continue und er the President Barack Obama administration. Approach: The approach taken used both qualitative analyses of the four administrations along with quantitative analyses of the data from USAID. Results: The findings indicated that, while many forms of economic and military assistance had been both u sed and abused throughout much of American history, the Peace Corps created President Jo hn F. Kennedy presented an exception. However, the Peace Corps had received both benefit and harm as a beneficiary of US foreign aid due to fluctuating economic realities associated with the federal budget. President Reagan was a strong supporter of the Peace Corps; yet, it was under hi s watch that the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Act of 1985 was passed, which negatively influenced nearly all forms of economic and military assistance distributed through USAID. Star ting with President Clinton's second term funding for USAID dramatically increased. Conclusion: The Peace Corps was not immune to the adverse effects, but funding also increased President Clinton. From this time onward, the Peace Corps has enjoyed a high level of political and financial support, a scenario that deserves to be continued President Obama. This study can help future a nalyses of the US presidential responses to the giving of assistance to the Peace Corps.

Leadership changes at USAID

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is the largest donor of humanitarian assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). A quantitative analysis of USAID’s disaster relief funding for LAC from 2001- 2019 was conducted to determine trends and effectiveness of its contracting. The findings demonstrate that USAID provides billions in assistance to increase foreign trade, but project results are ambiguous. The United States views short-term assistance programs as investments for long-term growth in globalized economies. It is recommended that LAC for-profit and non-profit organizations follow a similar strategy and capitalize on the assured assistance of USAID. Keywords: Foreign aid; foreign policy; disaster relief; NGO; GO; contracting.