Guest blog by Lant Pritchett, Professor of the Practice of Economic Development, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
The name of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is too clever by half. By forming the acronym “aid” it attempts to create popularity (who could be against “aid” broadly interpreted as “assistance” to the world’s poorest?) at the expense of perhaps confusing everyone, including itself, about its actual mission. There are many ways of providing assistance to people in poor countries that do little or nothing to produce development. While we might all whole-heartedly agree that de-worming is demonstrated to be cost-effective assistance, its impact on development is, at best, tiny. An existential question the next leader of USAID has to face is whether USAID is about assistance—in whatever forms and for whatever goals political support can be mobilized and logistics can be arranged—or whether it really is an agency whose mission is to promote development.
The difference matters. One reaction to the critics of aid effectiveness who point to failures in development despite historically high and sustained levels of foreign assistance is to circle the wagons by arguing the goal of aid is just assistance, full stop. In this case the debate is only about whether aid is assistance: “Did this aid support an activity that has some positive benefit to human well-being?” This makes the question easy to address with available methods, likely to often produce a positive answer, and almost certainly irrelevant to development.
Development, for better or worse, has always been defined as a deliberate acceleration of modernization, conceived as a synchronized (if not simultaneous), complex, four-fold transition of economy, polity, administration, and society. Modernization is a one-word description of what the West accomplished from the nineteenth century onwards. Development, as accelerated modernization (which may or may not follow exactly the West’s historical trajectory or modalities), is what Japan accomplished following the Meiji Restoration, rising from an isolated backwater to global power; development is what Korea achieved from 1962 to today, rising from a poor, weak, powerless, post-conflict state to what it is today. The goals that are the aim of development—having a productive and prosperous economy, a polity guided by the wishes and in the interests of its citizens, a administratively capable state, a cohesive society—are desirable goals. Moreover, development is the only demonstrated and sustained way to achieve the objectives of increased well-being.
Being an agency for international development implies more than that the agency provides assistance to improve the well-being of individuals in countries that are not developed, but that the central goal of the organization is to promote development. Promoting economic development, for instance, means supporting actions and policies that create widespread opportunities for people to improve their incomes. Unfortunately, as any reader of this blog likely realizes, this is much more difficult—and much less photogenic—than planting the flag over the delivery of specific services addressing popular causes.
A new leader could make USAID exclusively about aid and focus on the narrowly prescribed goal of making aid effective assistance, but the real problem pressing the Obama administration is not that aid has not been effective assistance but rather that development needs to happen. Development needs to happen in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Somalia, in Zambia, in Guatemala, in Bolivia—and continue to happen in India and China. Even addressing a series of important problems for well-being like vaccinations, schools for girls, HIV/AIDS prevention or malaria does not add up to a development agenda. If the next leader of USAID does not own that objective and mission—putting the big “D” in USAID and not just little “a” in aid—he or she is sealing USAID’s irrelevance.
21 Comments
Two things surprise me:
1. Harvard pays a salary to a “Professor of the Practice of Economic Development”
2. This person has really nothing to say, other than reformulating the problem: “Promoting economic development, for instance, means supporting actions and policies that create widespread opportunities for people to improve their incomes”
Is this for real? “While we might all whole-heartedly agree that de-worming is demonstrated to be cost-effective assistance, its impact on development is, at best, tiny.” Healthier kids that can go to school more often and therefore build up more human capital, has nothing to do with development? Think Pritchett is pretty much alone on that one. I can see a million ways in which bringing down child mortality and illness leads to development (one of them might be through a reduction in fertility). How you can even begin to argue that these kinds of interventions would not spur development, frankly, is beyong me.
1) I’ve heard many definitions of development, but never before the one in this post. “..always defined as…” may be a bit of an overstatement.
2) Isn’t the purpose of USAID ultimately to advance US foreign policy? The meaning of that last “D” will necessarily change depending on the context in which foreign policy is being advanced.
3) I agree with the first two comments. Especially the one by “Anonymous”
There is no mystery about the answer to the question. The idea of making USAID a more independent agency focused purely on development is not new and has been revisited recently. The answer is that USAID will stay under the State Dept, will provide assistance that is subservient to foreign policy goals and will also have to deal with Congressional whims and ear marks.
Whether development happens in those countries depends much more on whether those societies embrace the transformation of their economy, polity and administration and much less on the new leader of USAID.
This is a response to Anonymous:
Pritchett isn’t “pretty much alone on this one”. All the connections you are asserting make sense on some level, but they’ve never been firmly established. This is what we call the micro-macro paradox: we can see on the ground that livelihoods are improved, but they never aggregate properly.
Take this one development darling: microfinance. Studies have shown that the funds are often used to improve small businesses and improve well-being, but that they tend to have zero impact on employment, which is arguably more important for development!
Also, immunization is, unfortunately, not a huge factor in development. You’ll find that immunization rates in a lot of the poorest countries are actually *better* that many middle-developed countries.
Making statements like, “better health = better education = development” mean absolutely nothing if there isn’t a proper developmental state in place (I hate the terminology but I have no better word for it). An educated population has to have something to do with that education.
Development is about bigger, less explicit things than direct interventions: institutions, policy, etc – all the endogenous things that are self-reinforcing and *endogenous*. Aid, as Pritchett has defined it, doesn’t address those things. Development does.
USAID has the interest of the United States at it’s core. Don’t be fooled by charitable and humanitarian endevours. That is just the way it is. Bono and Karen Hughs even stated that the mission of USAID is to promote “Brand USA”.
What is the future of a healthy, educated child in the developing world if there are no jobs available when they graduate?
The debate over aid and development can go on and on. At some point it has to move beyond defending one’s position with intellectual and academic references and findings. We need to find a way forward that involves the ideas and contributions of local stakeholders. The issues are all related to one another. Education needs job creation. Job creation needs development. Development needs infrastructure. Infrastructure needs good leadership. Good leadership needs education. There are many other interrelated issues which include healthcare, stability, trade, and information technology.
My hope is that the debate stimulates positive action that includes collaboration and partnerships amongst organizations and individuals that truely want to lift people out of poverty. Otherwise the debate is simply mental masturbation.
Lant knows how to get ya thinking, eh?
Two comments:
1) i agree with Jeff that USAID can never become, really, a development agency. They have to report their results/ impact to congress every year- so the agency will always tend to support quick wins – which is mostly “aid” stuff as he defines it. that is, they need to look good by saying: we spent this money, and we saved X children by jabbing them with vaccines; or saved them by handing out X bednets.
2) I think it is perhaps more useful to answer questions about what different aid actors should do at the same time – so that you can hopefully gain some of the benefits of specialization/ comparative advantage. When this type of exercise is done, usually you get some sort of conclusion like: aid agency in question will focus on aid, and the World Bank and regional development banks will focus on development. Which makes sense, but then, the regional banks and the WBank are never really allowed to focus on development – but rather their boards, and their need for popular support (and desire to respond to nasty things written about them) makes them shift ever more resources to the crowd-pleasing short-term handouts…that is, they shift more towards aid and, alas, away from development.
The recent evaluation of the WBank’s health portfolio found precisely this: a stated strategic priority for health systems development (clearly the Bank’s comparative advantage) – but in the past 10 years, more and more focus and resource flows to disease programs (which are best characterized as “health aid”).
Excellent Post – The last USAID Director of some duration Andrew Natsios (there was another after him for a brief period with fewer aid or development credentials) had an emergency assisstance background. While a bright dedicated fellow the lack of any real training in the very complex issues of development certainly affected USAID operations under his direction. The issue of a new Director is crucial.
Many of the comments above point to the manipulation of foreign aid for foreign policy purposes,often buying U.S.or not competing with U.S. producers being more important than any local development. Thus is unfortunate as the U.S. produces almost everything somewhere, except for a few rare tropical fruits and vegetables, and as a result the development project has been severely constrained. Many of us believe that an enlightened development policy which actually developed partners and even competitors is in our long term interest. Would that wiser heads would prevail on this and we could get some actual sustainable help to the poor.
SS
Excellent post. I like the definition of development as accelerated modernization. At some point the global development industry seems to have forgotten this – now they seem to concentrate on making people comfortable in their poverty in small aid projects all over the place. If the least developed countries of the world are to become the next South Koreas and Taiwans there is a need for rapid modernization.
SS . . . you mentioned the practice of aid and development projects not using local goods or services that would benefit the local economy. I know a laborer that worked on the new U.S. Embassy in Kampala, Uganda. He told me that the sand that was used in the construction was shipped in from the USA. Sand! I wasn’t aware of any sand shortage in Africa. Was the project manager unaware of the 19,000 miles of coastline in Africa or the world’s largest sandbox called the Sahara desert? This is what we get when we reward mediocrity.
Thanks for the article. It’s great, and I agree. Last fall I studied at the American University in Cairo, which receives a good chunk of its funding from USAID. The intentions seemed to be in the right place (encouraging higher education), but building its new campus was a very poor allocation of the funds.
By the time the 2008-2009 school year began, there was no running water, no food, no internet, and lack of electricity and basic school supplies for the classrooms (desks, chairs, whiteboards). The cafeteria was not finished until November, and the on-campus housing wasn’t finished until the spring semester. Students who were supposed to live in housing were moved to military-run hotels, which became a huge problem for the female students. The school has wasteful water fountains all over campus, which never worked properly the whole semester I was there.
The campus wasn’t finished by the deadlines because the workers did not feel they received fair wages. So who and what is USAID trying to help? It was frustrating to see not only our own money spent in a seemingly poor manner, but USAID funds did not appear to be distributed fairly or appropriately. It was quite a shock in terms of seeing how the USA “develops” other countries.
@ Michael Kirkpatrick
“Was the project manager unaware of the 19,000 miles of coastline in Africa or the world’s largest sandbox called the Sahara desert? This is what we get when we reward mediocrity.”
SS–
Unfortunately it is not mediocrity, although there is plenty of that, but a willed focus on U.S. interests very narrowly defined.
The U.S. did a lot to help South Korea develop after the war. They have become a competitor but also valuable ally, trading partner and source of cheap electronic products and cars, as well as immigrants who have certainly added value to our working population and our culture. So long term development is generally beneficial to our country but is not viewed that way by U.S.policy makers or the World Bank although they give lip service to development. More common though less extreme would be the imported sand.
I wish some of the Professors with wider reputations than those of us commenting would address this issue. It is more important to the future of USAID than even the choice of a new Director.
SS
The American Tax Payer pays through his nose so that many if not most of the bureaucratic officials in USAID (in India) who never actually get out of their airconditioned comfort (judging from personal experience) and have no clue to the ground realities can squander the money often on projects and programmes which benefit no one other than the NGOs and others who are well ‘networked’. The consultancy organisations in US and India are partners to the loot of the average american tax payer who has no clue where his tax goes and how it funds its programmes with irreverence, including the salaries of these american ‘civil servants’ at their ‘posts’.
I disagree with the notion that there is little to no evidence showing the link between improvements in nutrition/health status and development.
First, the vast majority of the evidence seems to show that improved nutrition (especially during pregnancy and the first two years of life) leads to improved educational and economic outcomes for individuals – including increased wages/income and GDP growth. The Copenhagen Consensus, for example, listed simple interventions like micronutrient supplementation (and, yes, deworming) as some of the most cost effective interventions for saving lives and improving economic development. A sick/malnourished population is less productive. Poor health/nutrition also increases health costs and burdens govt resources.
Second, on a more philosophical/ethical plane, improved health and nutrition outcomes are good in and of themselves, whether they lead to higher income and GDP growth, or not.
Third, people on this post (not the actual article) seem to be only concerned with income poverty. Income is a means to an end. The main goal is increased wellbeing. For me, wellbeing is educational, health, nutritional status, etc. Aid addresses all of these directly and in so doing ALSO leads to development. So, to me, aid is a win win when done correctly.
Anon–
We glossed over a key issue in the description of development as “modernization” in all areas–economy, polity, society and administration. Not everyone in the world wants to be modern in the western notion of that word. Everyone might want better health and higher incomes, but not everyone is willing to accept societal transformation to achieve it. We tend to assume that development is inevitable and it is not. Societies can refuse development just as they can refuse to be modernized. It would probably improve aid effectiveness if we started asking ourselves which countries have implicitly refused development.
Maybe the title should have been “What is the USAID about?”. Because it might not for Aid and it certainly might not for development either. I admit though, that USAID may lead to aid or development as unintended consequence.
I am sure prof. Pritchett knows the political economy of “aid”.
I am more and more convinced that nobody knows a damn thing about development and even the concept seems more and more ill defined to me (long story).
I wonder even if development should be a field. Maybe we should stick to the basic principle of economics everywhere. There shouldn’t be the economics of the poor as a separate field. After all, people react to the incentives the same way.
It is just as important to monitor how government money is spent as private funding. How well AID and the World Bank spend and account for their funding in the developing world is paramount.
In case you haven’t seen you might be interested in America.gov’s feature on Stamping Out Corruption.
See
http://www.america.gov/stamping_out_corruption.html
Sand! I wasn’t aware of any sand shortage in Africa. Was the project manager unaware of the 19,000 miles of coastline in Africa or the world’s largest sandbox called the Sahara desert? This is what we get when we reward mediocrity.
You need a special type of sand for building (normally river sand). If you use the wrong type of sand the concrete cracks. Sourcing the sand from the USA was very probably the best solution (and it certainly avoided lots of complicated bargaining to ensure the delivery of the right kind of local sand), as it stopped the price going through the roof in the local economy because of the additional demand.
When Saudi Aramco built a road through the Empty Quarter to the oil field it bought all the sand in by truck, even though there was nothing but sand dunes on either side of the road it was constructing. In fact Saudi Arabia has banned the export of sand as it is afraid there is not enough for the local building market.
Sand! I wasn’t aware of any sand shortage in Africa. Was the project manager unaware of the 19,000 miles of coastline in Africa or the world’s largest sandbox called the Sahara desert? This is what we get when we reward mediocrity.
You need a special type of sand for building (normally river sand). If you use the wrong type of sand the concrete cracks. Sourcing the sand from the USA was very probably the best solution (and it certainly avoided lots of complicated bargaining to ensure the delivery of the right kind of local sand), as it stopped the price going through the roof in the local economy because of the additional demand.
When Saudi Aramco built a road through the Empty Quarter to the oil field it bought all the sand in by truck, even though there was nothing but sand dunes on either side of the road it was constructing. In fact Saudi Arabia has banned the export of sand as it is afraid there is not enough for the local building market.
Lake Victoria is an excellent source of river/lake sand, it’s located less than 10km away from the US Embassy in Kampala.
The local building market is much bigger than that terrible US bunker.
In fact, it is hands down the single biggest sector (after subsistence agriculture) giving a job to tens of thousands of young people migrating from their villages.
It is also a fast growing sector that never features in the “development” reports.
This is Davis Mitchell T, a Ugandan and is seeking for assistance from the USAID on behalf of the organisation called Bwindi Impenetrable Support the Dissabled Group Association (BISUDIGA). I am the controller and founder for the organization and we are aiming at catering for the needy in the four districts of South Western Uganda. They are Kanungu, Kabale, Kisoro and Rukungiri.
If you are in need of any info, write to mtdavis84@yahoo.com