I think the statement "A reasonable expectation, if foreign assistance had been doing what we said it was doing, would be that the impact on the populations we served would now be clearly visible... In ways that move political opinion" is off base. The impact is very clear and has been well documented. As you point out earlier in the piece, the real reason political opinion hasn't been moved is that the American people don't care about foreign aid's impact abroad, and they don't care about the negative consequences of its cancellation. People don't even care about the millions of people facing famine due to the closure of the strait of Hormuz. I think you are correct in your earlier statement that nothing will move public opinion on this until the American public is directly impacted. Ebola might be that trigger, but I'm not holding my breath.
I also want to add some nuance to the often-highlighted reliance of the US foreign assistance apparatus on US-based implementing partners, or as you put it 'that Roughly three quarters of US ODA was being consumed inside the Western aid system itself‘. I'm sure you are well aware, but for your readers: Yes, most holders of the prime contracts and cooperative agreements for US ODA were American companies or organizations. But in most cases these companies implement these programs by hiring a bunch of local people in the country in question, and also issue a bunch of subawards. These can also go to international organizations but often are issued to local actors. USAID regularly required a substantial portion of program budgets to be set aside for subawards - in some cases, up to 50% or even 80%. Similarly, portions of the budget usually go to both local and international short-term consultants recruited externally to do specific pieces of the scope.
So while it's true that the prime implementers get the contract, bill their US-based employees to the project, and also get to collect indirect costs, this system also channeled lots of money into local employee salaries, consultant incomes, and local organization budgets. Is that the ideal system? Definitely not, but it's the one that developed in response to the US government's lack of in-house program management and technical expertise to manage these programs directly, and the lack of capacity of most local organizations to navigate the US government's complicated procurement processes or comply with the intensive financial management and reporting requirements that the US government imposes on implementing partners. I'm not sure how much true localization was ever going to be an option given those constraints.
Raj Patel's paper, "The Long Green Revolution," situates ODA in its historical context. This was always a geopolitical project that changed with shifts in the Great Powers and with national political settings. Remember that the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and Oxfam both emerged from Great Power struggles.
This is an insightful analysis that captures the shift we are facing. As I look at the reality on the ground, the 30 percent drop in global aid is a massive wakeup call. It is stripping away the emergency financial safety nets that developing countries rely on, leaving them completely exposed when the next big crisis hits. We might not talk about the strict, controversial "structural adjustment reforms" of the 1990s anymore, but the basic math hasn't changed: countries still have to balance their books and manage their debts, even if those rules are now wrapped up in new terms like "climate pacts" or "debt restructuring." To survive in a world that is deeply connected but politically divided, we cannot rely on unpredictable charity or old-school international NGOs. Instead, we need to set up automatic, pre-planned international funds and use smart financial guarantees to bring in private investors, ensuring that real protection is already in place before the next inevitable wave of economic and climate emergencies arrives.
Now that the system has been broken, the gap between what we thought we were doing and what we were actually doing is becoming visible.
Thought we were doing? Marketed we were doing? The very nature of the organizations in the industry was to perpetuate themselves and this belies the honesty of impact in terms of attribution and contribution noting the multitude of other factors.
‘Roughly three-quarters of US ODA was being consumed inside the Western aid system itself‘
It is an industry - an industry built on public money where the product/service taxpayers paid for through government institutions part of the industry never truly got to grips with defining what the customer, the taxpayer, was buying?
In summary: ODA wasn’t working. When the bad people came to destroy it the only people who cared were us on the payroll. No one else saw any reason to stick their necks out to help.
Bad people? Rather emotive given the counter argument is realism in terms of what was / is being achieved? Are there other ways to get a return? Have we been open in terms of what being on the payroll delivered beyond being on the payroll?
I think the statement "A reasonable expectation, if foreign assistance had been doing what we said it was doing, would be that the impact on the populations we served would now be clearly visible... In ways that move political opinion" is off base. The impact is very clear and has been well documented. As you point out earlier in the piece, the real reason political opinion hasn't been moved is that the American people don't care about foreign aid's impact abroad, and they don't care about the negative consequences of its cancellation. People don't even care about the millions of people facing famine due to the closure of the strait of Hormuz. I think you are correct in your earlier statement that nothing will move public opinion on this until the American public is directly impacted. Ebola might be that trigger, but I'm not holding my breath.
I also want to add some nuance to the often-highlighted reliance of the US foreign assistance apparatus on US-based implementing partners, or as you put it 'that Roughly three quarters of US ODA was being consumed inside the Western aid system itself‘. I'm sure you are well aware, but for your readers: Yes, most holders of the prime contracts and cooperative agreements for US ODA were American companies or organizations. But in most cases these companies implement these programs by hiring a bunch of local people in the country in question, and also issue a bunch of subawards. These can also go to international organizations but often are issued to local actors. USAID regularly required a substantial portion of program budgets to be set aside for subawards - in some cases, up to 50% or even 80%. Similarly, portions of the budget usually go to both local and international short-term consultants recruited externally to do specific pieces of the scope.
So while it's true that the prime implementers get the contract, bill their US-based employees to the project, and also get to collect indirect costs, this system also channeled lots of money into local employee salaries, consultant incomes, and local organization budgets. Is that the ideal system? Definitely not, but it's the one that developed in response to the US government's lack of in-house program management and technical expertise to manage these programs directly, and the lack of capacity of most local organizations to navigate the US government's complicated procurement processes or comply with the intensive financial management and reporting requirements that the US government imposes on implementing partners. I'm not sure how much true localization was ever going to be an option given those constraints.
Raj Patel's paper, "The Long Green Revolution," situates ODA in its historical context. This was always a geopolitical project that changed with shifts in the Great Powers and with national political settings. Remember that the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and Oxfam both emerged from Great Power struggles.
Adding-emerged from altruism and seeking to deliver on social principles?
This is an insightful analysis that captures the shift we are facing. As I look at the reality on the ground, the 30 percent drop in global aid is a massive wakeup call. It is stripping away the emergency financial safety nets that developing countries rely on, leaving them completely exposed when the next big crisis hits. We might not talk about the strict, controversial "structural adjustment reforms" of the 1990s anymore, but the basic math hasn't changed: countries still have to balance their books and manage their debts, even if those rules are now wrapped up in new terms like "climate pacts" or "debt restructuring." To survive in a world that is deeply connected but politically divided, we cannot rely on unpredictable charity or old-school international NGOs. Instead, we need to set up automatic, pre-planned international funds and use smart financial guarantees to bring in private investors, ensuring that real protection is already in place before the next inevitable wave of economic and climate emergencies arrives.
Now that the system has been broken, the gap between what we thought we were doing and what we were actually doing is becoming visible.
Thought we were doing? Marketed we were doing? The very nature of the organizations in the industry was to perpetuate themselves and this belies the honesty of impact in terms of attribution and contribution noting the multitude of other factors.
‘Roughly three-quarters of US ODA was being consumed inside the Western aid system itself‘
It is an industry - an industry built on public money where the product/service taxpayers paid for through government institutions part of the industry never truly got to grips with defining what the customer, the taxpayer, was buying?
In summary: ODA wasn’t working. When the bad people came to destroy it the only people who cared were us on the payroll. No one else saw any reason to stick their necks out to help.
Bad people? Rather emotive given the counter argument is realism in terms of what was / is being achieved? Are there other ways to get a return? Have we been open in terms of what being on the payroll delivered beyond being on the payroll?
They are bad because they were concerned about destruction and not concerned about what was or wasn’t being achieved.