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The Politics of Compassion
With Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, Jan. 26, 2001; 11 a.m. EST
In a three-part series entitled "The Politics of Compassion," Post foreign investigative reporter Michael Dobbs has examined aid from the United States -- humanitarian and nation-building -- in the former Soviet Union. Dobbs was online Friday, Jan. 26, 2001 to talk about his findings, the role of ethnic lobbying groups, the effectiveness of U.S. assistance and who really benefits from it.
The first part of the series looked at the remarkable success of the Armenian-American lobby in securing aid for their homeland. The second part traced how millions of dollars failed to encouraged freedom of the press in Kazakhstan. The third part looks at how Washington firms profit from overseas projects.
Dobbs served as The Post's Moscow bureau chief from
1988-1993 and is the author a biography of Madeleine Albright and a book
about the collapse of Soviet communism.
Read the transcript below:
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control
over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
washingtonpost.com:
Welcome to today's discussion with Post reporter Michael Dobbs, author of a three-part series about U.S. foreign aid. Links to his articles can be found above.
Washington DC:
What is your opinion of Jesse Helms' idea of abolishing USAID, replacing the Agency with block grants directly to relgious based organizations and other developmente firms.
Michael Dobbs: It is an interesting idea that deserves to be examined seriously. However, it also runs a risk: that the foundation would end up as a slush fund for Congressional pork. If something like that were set up, there would have to be careful guarantees about its independence. Administrations, both Democratic and Republican, have tended to oppose such an idea because it would deprive them of what they see as a valuable foreign policy tool, to reward America's friends.
Washington, DC:
Your article accurately points out the excessive cost that is imposed as a consequence of the "Buy America" policy and yet you also recognize that this policy is expressly imposed by the U.S. Congress. What are the prospects of for reducing this aspect of "Tied Aid" under this Congress?
Michael Dobbs: Probably not very high. But it is interesting that Jesse Helms, who is generally opposed to foreign aid, says he is willing to spend more money if it is channeled in a different way. In my view, his proposal might actually end up with less money being spent in this country, and more reaching the grassroots.
washington, DC:
You seem to imply in part III of your article that if USAID funds were provided to smaller, not-for-profit institutions, that the process might work a bit better. On the other hand, if the problems you highlight in your series are true, such as a lack of accountability and inexperienced staff, I find it hard to believe that smaller outfits, with little experience handling multi-million dollar contracts, would perform any better. Wouldn't it be better to eliminate the American contractor alltogether and let Congress decide if it is worthwhile to provide development aid directly to foreign institutions (if at all)?
Michael Dobbs: The problem with Congress deciding everything is that the aid program then becomes a vehicle for Congressional pork, as is already happening to some extent. I think it is worth examining the role of some of the non-profit institutions, particularly the Soros foundation, which has shown itself to be more flexible and less bureaucratic than either USAID or the big contractors.
Crofton, Maryland:
I recall that recently, Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General and other international luminaries have taken the U.S. to task for its "stinginess" with regards to foreign aid. I have a real problem with the measure of this so-called stinginess that these luminaries applied; it was either a percentage of the federal budget, or some concocted percentage-of-GNP number. Do you think that Kofi and friends were accurate in their general assessment? Personally, I don't think so, since I believe that it's not just the U.S. Government that is dispensing American foreign aid, that NGOs have for years provided amounts that dwarf anything anted up by the Eurpoeans or Japanese. Am I right in this regard?
Michael Dobbs: It is true that the u.s. aid package in absolute figures is one of the largest in the world. in relative terms, however, because of the size of the u.s. economy, it is one of the lowest, by whatever measure you like to apply, percentage of federal budget or percentage of GNP. i think most experts would agree on this.
Washington, D.C.:
Mr. Dobbs,
Do you see the role of international NGOs growing or changing in light of skepticism some have concerning the work of organizations such as USAID and The World Bank?
Michael Dobbs: I think the role of international NGOs has already grown enormously relative to organizations like USAID and the World Bank. This trend will undoubtedly continue.
Arlington, VA:
How did you come to the decision to write this series and how did you select which USAID contractors to highlight?
Michael Dobbs: Having worked a long time overseas, and also as a diplomatic reporter in this country, I was naturally interested in America's role in the rest of theworld. I thought that foreign assistance programs were a good place to start examining this role, although I am interested in other aspects of it as well. As for the selection of AID contractors to highlight, I chose Chemonics because it is very typical of the big contractors, and I had heard a lot about it. On the other hand, I could have chosen a completely different example. I think the strengths and weaknesses of the system would have been fairly similar whoever I chose to profile.
Cairo, Egypt:
You referred to USAID's general policy of providing technical assistance and training rather than cash to developing countries. In general, do you think that this has a greater impact in the long run?
Michael Dobbs: I think the jury is still out on this one. To be provocative a little, it would have been interesting to see the result had the U.S. government chosen to give the $26 million they gave to Chemonics for local government in Poland to a Polish institution that was already implementing reforms in this area. I think it is veryhard to argue that the Polish institution would have done a worse job than Chemonics. It may well have done a very much better job.
Washington, D.C.:
Mr. Dobbs,
While your series in the Post detailed powerful lobbies and the corporatization of aid, I wonder why so little attention was paid to what USAID could be doing in the only region of the world with increasing hunger: Africa.
Michael Dobbs: It is true that there are always other things that you can cover. It is impossible to cover everything in one article, even a series of articles. In general, the Post has paid a lot of attention to AIDS in Africa, and also famine-related problems.
Washington, DC:
I have been working in International Aid work for nearly 15 years. Do you think that they way we dispense funding naturally breeds dependency? CANAid provides funding in a much different fashion requiring the country to perform the work. USAID often requires that an American vendor perform the tasks.
Michael Dobbs: I certainly think that there are other models for dispensing aid that are worth examining seriously. The Soros foundation, which I have already mentioned, is one. Soros relies much more than USAID does on local talent and advice, strengthening the capacity of local institutions to tackle problems long after the aid-giver has left. It is wrong to think that there is only one way in which aid can be delivered, just because it has traditionally been delivered that way.
Washington, DC:
I guess I know something about the topic of your articles since I got back in June from 21 months in Armenia working on the ABA Central and East European Law Initiative's rule of law project. I agree with alot in the articles and yes, there is waste and AID's attempts to quantify the results of our activities drove me nuts. But what is the solution? What SHOULD the U.S. be doing? Having been there I really feel that the people need and most of the time appreciate the help. How to do this in a sustainable way is the crucial question. We aren't the only ones attempting to aid these countries. The British, the EU and the World Bank and such all feel it's worthwhile. Do you have suggestions for change? That's what was missing from the articles.
Michael Dobbs: Perhaps the weak point of my articles wasthat I did not really examine a project that could be described as an unqualified success/. I don't really think it is for journalists to make suggestions for change. Generally, however, I would say that aid should hbe more flexible, less bureaucratic, more tied in with what people are doing locally, less paternalistic. Ironically, the very attempts made by USAID to ensure accountability have resulted in less initiative. People are so terrified of doing something wrong that they don't think about what they should be doing right. I think I would give people more freedom to fail, perhaps not on a $26 million project, but certainly on a $1 million project. There should be rewards for results, rather than obsessive monitoring of every step of a project.
Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan:
Part two of your series called attention to the large amount of U.S. foreign aid channeled to Kazakhstan-- that has since produced few positive results. How can foreign aid be better spent in Central Asia? And given the pattern of increasing authority displayed by that region's leaders, should foreign assistance to Central Asia be cut drastically?
Michael Dobbs: I certainly think that foreign aid should be closely linked to the fulfilment of other U.S. foreign policy aims. In the former Soviet Union, these must include transparency and a political/economic climate that discourages corruption. There is no point chanelling loarge amounts of money to a kleptocracy.
Washington, DC:
Your series has been excellent. At some point will you do any articles on U.S. aid to other regions? I'm wondering specifically how certain aid programs might be affected under the Bush administration, especially aid countries where Bush doesn't have any particular experience or expertise (of which there are many).
Michael Dobbs: Thanks. Probably I will return to this subject at some point, although not imediately. The Bush administration has yet to make clear what its plans for USAID are--they have not even appointed an administrator (the top guy there)--so it is difficult to say what they are going to do.
Washington, DC:
There's a new mantra that of all the development sectors, education is the foundation for them all. And yet, education and training ranks last compared to more popular "issue" sectors, like population, nutrition, democracy building. In 2000, the international community embraced international education and training as Job One - what do think the chances are of the US following suit?
Michael Dobbs: I am suspicious of mantras. We tend to veer from one magic bullet to another. A combination of different approaches is probably the best approach.
DC:
You have obviously spent much time researching development assistance and USAID in particular. With regards to your time spent with USAID staff, what is your opinion of the morale in the Agency? Do they truly believe in their assistance efforts, or are they just bureaucrats pushing papers and replying to Strategic Objectives. I would be interested in knowing if the USAID culture is one that truly believes in its mandate, and in the scheme in which it presently handles development assistance.
Michael Dobbs: I think there are a lot of people in USAID who are idealistic about what they are doing, and genuinely committed to producing positive change. On the other hand, I was also struck by the bureaucratic nature of this organization. In some cases, it bordered on paranoia. To sum up, there are a mix of people at USAID, just like there are anywhere else, both idealists and careerists. The trick, I guess, is devising a system that will empower the idealists at the expense of the pen-pushers.
Alexandria, VA:
Thanks very much for your articles describing the current state of US bilateral development funding. While I now work in the corporate sector, I spent several years in the development field and prize those years for the opportunity to work on projects that were helping to build free government and commerce in places that hadn't had it before.
One of the greatest frustrations for me and my organization was measuring performance. For a time (1995 and 1996), it seemed like USAID (our main client) was coming to us every four or six weeks asking for a different set of quantitative performance indicators for our institution-building projects. From today's article, it seems that Chemonics and other firms are still struggling to measure the performance of their field projects. Are there any firms -- for-profit like Chemonics or non-profits -- that have best practices for measuring performance of development projects in place?
Thanks very much -- I look forward to your answer.
Michael Dobbs: I must agree with you that I was very unimpressed by the quantitative performance indicators devised by USAID for measuring the success of projects. Often, they are totally unrealistic. They have attracted a lot of criticism, both inside the agency and among the people who are supposed to gather all these dubious statistics. A better approach, in my view, is to send out someone reasonably intelligent and balanced and get him/her to submit a report of how the project went. I doubt if the result would be any less informative than the present system, which is pretty artificial in many cases.
Arlington, VA:
An issue you didn’t address is the perception abroad that the U.S. is deliberately trying to replicate itself – our outlook and institutions – all over the world in a sort of neocolonialism backed with dollars. Do what degree to you believe U.S. assistance is used as a foreign policy tool?
Michael Dobbs: This is an interesting issue, and certainly one that would be worthwhile addressing in the future. To a certain extent, as I have mentioned above, u.s. assistance has to be a foreign policy tool. The us government is spending money abroad because it wants the rest of the world to function something like America, not like the old Soviet Union. That's Ok, as long as it isn't taken to extremes.
Gainesville, Florida:
Congratulations on the excellent series. You focussed on contractors but not on the decision-making and project management by USAID itself. I know there are many committed people there, but the organization does seem like a "wasteful and inefficient bureaucracy". Any comment on this or how to improve it?
Michael Dobbs: Some of the criticisms that are made of contractors could equally be made of USAID itself. I alluded to this in today's article. As Chemonics president Tony Teele mentioned, he sent 23 expatriates to Poland because he was asked to do so by USAID. It was USAID who designed this project, poorly in many peoples' view. Teele saluted and obeyed.
Washington, DC:
Do you think that putting USAID under more direct control of the State Department, as has been proposed in the past, will improve the Agency's effectiveness in promoting economic development?
Michael Dobbs: I hardly think this is the solution. It might make the agency even more bureaucratic.
Washington, DC:
Whoa!!! Is there really a meaningful distinction between the idealist and the careerist? Most of the career USAID officers I've met are truly concerned with reducing poverty, expanding social and economic opportunities, and improving governance. The constraints they face are usually when politics enters the equation - either from the Hill, lobbies and the private sector actors with clout, or political appointees and State Department/NSC foreign policy directives.
Michael Dobbs: OK, I agree with you that careerists can also be idealist. I was speaking in generalities. Also agree with you about the political constraints of one kind or another that the USAID officers are laboring under. What I meant to say was that it would be good if a system could be put in place that would generate rather than stiffle initiative and responsibility. The present system does not seem to me to encourage "out of the box thinking", to say the least.
London, Uk:
You singled out the Franklin Printing investment in Kazakhstan. In that deal a new private enterprise was launched, jobs were created, the Enterprise Fund made money on its investment and the loan was fully repaid. Certainly in the end the Government interferred with the press as it has done with TV and radio, but why were you critical of the investment process?
Michael Dobbs: It is true that the loan was returned with interest. However, the goals of the project were not met. These were : (1) to encourage private enterprise in Kazakhstan; (2) to encourage freedom of the press. How can those goals be met when the company in question ends up under the control of the President's daughter? That's not most people's definition of eithe rfreedom of the press or freedom of the marketplace. This was part of America's freedom support program, not a purely commercial undertaking.
Washington, DC:
In fairness to the US contractor of the Polish project, I doubt seriously if any firm or organization, either American or Polish, could manage a $26 million program that has vague goals ("democracy", "self governance") and such a short time frame. My question is why is so much money pouring into Eastern Europe, Israel, and Egypt, when there are certainly much more needed and underdeveloped countries out there? How many people are starving in Poland and Russia today? Maybe focusing on smaller programs (that would also open up competition so smaller firms and NGOS could bid on them) would be the way to go. These monster programs are a way to dump money quick.
Michael Dobbs: You make some good points. In the case of Israel and Egypt, the answer to why so much money flows there is obvious: politics. What I wrote about the ARmenia lobby applies in spades to the Israeli lobby.
D.C.:
How does the U.S. compared to foreign aid given by France, U.K., Germany and Japan?
Michael Dobbs: Many countries tie foreign aid to the purchase of goods and services from their country. As far as I know, however, the u.s. is a leader in this respect. (I have not studied the Japan case closely.)
Potomac, MD:
There is an interesting "hybrid" model, a foundation funded by the US government (directly by Congress) which hires African nationals to identify and work with groups (typically NGOs) made up of their own countrymen. Americans orient the work and negotiate additional rigor, but the ideas remain entirely those from the grassroots beneficiaries. This model, too, has been a target of the displeasure of Senator Helms and his cohorts. There is no "right" way to bring about the circumstances that are conducive to effective and productive use of development funds, but surely those who come from the area where the work is being done are better able to guide the effort to a successful end.
Michael Dobbs: I think that the input of local people and their knowledge and advice, not only in implementing the project, but also in designing it in the first place, is essential. As I understand it, Polish experts had very little to do with the designing of the local government reform project in Poland. It was designed by USAID, and implemented by a Washington-based firm, albeit with local support.
Baku, Azerbaijan:
Mr. Dobbs
Congratulations on a fantastic and very accurate series. Based on my meetings with USAID during the past couple days, people are very nervous about what will come your articles.
You've mentioned how organizations like Soros effectively use local staff-- isn't it accurate that AID assumes only expats are capable of carrying out a workplan or agenda?
Also, based on your studies, which non-profit NGOs best utilized the funds given to them and produced concrete results?
Michael Dobbs: I detected some paranoia at USAID about my articles. However, I tried hard to be fair, and give full opportunity for rebuttals. In general, I agree with you that USAID needs to be more open about what it is doing. It should welcome outside examination, not shy away from it.
On the expats question, part of the problem is the money. To be fair to USAID, they are rightly concerned with making sure that funds are not diverted. This is of course laudable, but on the the hand, there is a danger of what i would call "excessive accountability". If you monitor everything, you stiffle initiative, and waste as much, if not more, through bureaucracy, as you prevent in pilfering. A balance has to be struck here.
On the non-profit NGOs, I would not like to single out any in particular. They all have their strengths and weaknesses.
Washington, D.C.:
Could you please explain the current monetary agreement between Israel and the United States?
Michael Dobbs: If you are talking about the aid money, as I understand it, a large cheque is given every year. It is unique among foreign aid programs. USAID has very little say in how it gets spent.
Washington, DC:
Do you think that the answer to more creativity might be cooperative agreements an d grants, rather than contracts? Cooperative agreements and grants involve less money but have less accountability. That would be interesting to see in effect, although I've never known what criteria AID used in deciding on which form to use for each project.
Michael Dobbs: Aid officials tend to like contractors because they believe that contractors are more answerable to USAID for the funds they spend. However, as I have pointed out, this does not necessarily lead to better results.
Washington, DC:
I've seen both the large for-profit AID firms and the large non-profit NGOs in action. In truth there is no difference. Both charge high overhead that is used almost entirely to write more proposals, for-profits charge a small profit but so do NGOs (they just don't call it that). Do you agree that the answer is to trim down the size of all of these projects and open them up to full competition (small and large firms, small and large NGOs, US and foreign organizations)?
Michael Dobbs: I agree with you that the distinction between non-profit and for-profit firms is a little artificial. The non-profits are prone to the same kind of behavior as the for-profits. A big part of the problem is the contracting process, which is geared to the insider, whether he works for a profit or non-profit. Ways should be found of opening up this bidding process. I talked about this to Brady Anderson, the outgoing USAID administrator, last week. He essentially agreed with the point that you are making.
Michael Dobbs: Thanks to everyone for a stimulating discussion. I enjoyed it, and am glad to know there are so many people out there interested in this topic.
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