The first story is about a nutrition project--one in which the object was to spur local intrepeneurs to market a local infant food. And then another anecdote:
For nearly a decade, Julie Sundaygar, 29, of the Bong Mines Bridge community on the outskirts of Monrovia, has sold bananas and shelled peanuts to workers who poured out from the Ministry of Finance’s Mechlin Street entrance. Sundaygar recalls almost doubling her sales when USAID-funded projects filled the ministry with USAID workers. “I could sell \$LD15,000 (about \$US75) first,” says Sundaygar who brings her fruit here from a twice weekly hour-long journey to Omega Market. Now her prices have halved. “Nobody here now gets their fruit.”
When I was last there, one of the popular job training choices the NGOs offered was furniture-making. There was quite a market for American/European style chairs, but if you looked closely the market was NGO workers and UN peacekeeping troops. The peacekeepers were never going to stay forever, and the NGOs come and go--and when they go they rarely pack furniture to go with them, so the market glutted.
An economic plan that's contingent on money coming for free forever is crazed. Tourism is challenging but they have people working on that. Infrastructure is a problem, of course, both the building of and the maintenance of.
The first link above tells of one aid project, but the first one they reported on I took note of: a 17M USAID project to advise the government on tax policy.
I was told the main purpose of USAID when founded was to funnel money to the right people to encourage good behavior and presumably wise choices; secondarily to help out the poorer populations (hopefully as a consequence of those wise choices). That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it lends itself to corruption and recently quite a bit of their money had been going to political influence buying in this country, which is way out of line. I'm not impressed by the motte-and-bailey defenses I've heard.
The main purpose of USAID, of which for many years I was a strong supporter, was to advance American interests. If it built a water treatment plant, it was because someone understood that would advance American interests. If it founded a school, it was for the opportunity to provide textbooks that taught the American position to the local children. If it also enabled people to move freely in what might have otherwise been a contested region, learning things and filing reports, all the better. If it provided funding lines to local elites that tied their prosperity to American money, better still.
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