Redesigning Foreign Aid

Carol Lancaster

From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2000

Article preview: first 500 of 4,985 words total.

Summary:  The traditional goals of U.S. foreign aid -- promoting U.S. security and fostering development in poor countries -- are no longer as pressing after the Cold War. Washington must revamp its approach to aid and address new, urgent priorities: shoring up peacekeeping efforts in such places as the Middle East and the Balkans; easing the transition to globalization; tackling transnational environmental crises and diseases; and improving the quality of life for the world's neediest. This new diplomacy will not only transform U.S. aid but bolster its relevance to American interests and values in a rapidly changing world.

Carol Lancaster is Associate Professor and Director of the Master's of Science in Foreign Service program at Georgetown University. She previously served as Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State. Her recent books include Transforming Foreign Aid and Aid to Africa.

A WORLD TRANSFORMED

Foreign aid was an extremely useful tool of U.S. diplomacy during the second half of the twentieth century. It helped contain the expansion of communism in Asia, Latin America, and Africa; promoted economic and social development in those regions; and provided humanitarian relief in emergencies. Foreign aid will continue to play an important role in the twenty-first century. But its major purposes and priorities will be distinct from those of the last 50 years and will therefore require a new design for both its organization and management.

The 1990s were a decade of enormous change. The Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The pace of globalization accelerated as the revolution in communication technologies reduced barriers to international trade and investment. The number of democratic countries expanded dramatically in the former Soviet sphere, Africa, and other parts of the developing world. Although poverty remained widespread, real economic and social progress began to occur -- especially in Asia and Latin America. And the capacity of many of these governments to manage their economies and open their markets to international capital became greater than at any time in recent history. In short, the traditional purposes of aid over much of the past half-century -- promoting U.S. security and supporting development in poor countries -- are no longer pressing in the post-Cold War world of American dominance and new emerging markets.

These changes have left the United States the sole superpower and acknowledged world leader. They have also raised new challenges and opportunities for U.S. leadership that point to different purposes and priorities for foreign aid. Three are particularly pressing: to help preserve peace, address the challenges of globalization, and improve the quality of life of the many poor and disadvantaged throughout the world.

THE PEACEMAKER

The most basic challenge facing the United States today is helping to preserve peace. The end of the Cold War eliminated a potential threat to American security, but it did not eliminate conflict. In 1998 alone there were 27 significant conflicts in the world, 25 of which involved violence within states. Nine of those intrastate conflicts were in sub-Saharan Africa, where poor governance has aggravated ethnic and social tensions. The ongoing war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been particularly nightmarish, combining intrastate and interstate conflict with another troubling element: military intervention driven by the commercial motives of several neighboring states. Such motives could fuel future conflicts in other weak states with valuable resources. Meanwhile, a number of other wars -- in Colombia, the former Yugoslavia, Cambodia, Angola, Sudan, Rwanda, and Burundi -- have reflected historic enmities or poorly resolved hostilities of the past. Intrastate conflicts are likely to continue in weakly integrated, poorly governed states, destroying lives and property, creating large numbers of refugees and displaced persons, and threatening regional security. The two interstate clashes in 1998 -- between India and Pakistan and Eritrea and Ethiopia -- involved disputes over land and other natural resources. Such contests ...

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