President Trump advocated massive cuts to foreign aid in his budget proposal for fiscal 2018, catering to supporters who think that foreign aid is wasteful, and provoking huge anxiety in the foreign aid community and among aid beneficiaries. If Trump gets his way, development aid would be cut by nearly one-third. This is a severe blow, but not surprising, given how slow the Trump team was to engage with USAID, the main government aid body, during the presidential transition and Trump’s repeated election statements that he would “stop sending foreign aid to countries that hate us” and instead invest at home in schools and infrastructure. What does this mean in practice, and what is likely to happen?
Women’s issues and the environment get the chop, while national security becomes a priority
People have known since early March that the administration was proposing about a 30 percent reduction in aid, but new details about the aid budget were leaked last week. Meanwhile, the USAID administrator has openly discussed the likely merger of USAID and the State Department.
Leaked documents to Foreign Policy magazine shed light on the Trump administration’s plans for foreign aid. Trump’s budget preserves some widely admired programs, such as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the Bush-era HIV/AIDS initiative, but it tilts heavily against funding for women’s issues and any assistance related to climate change. Under the proposed budget, Europe and Eurasia will lose nearly 58 percent of their funding, while East Asia and the Pacific and Latin America will be cut by around 40 percent.
The budget also shifts funding from the development assistance account to the Economic Support Fund (ESF), which focuses on providing assistance to fragile states with an implicit emphasis on keeping U.S. allies happy. This fund is more directed at meeting national security priorities than aiding development as such. It is also controlled by the State Department instead of USAID. Again, this is unsurprising — the administration has argued that aid — and taxpayer dollars — should center on U.S. national security interests above all else.
People disagree over the previous approach
Some independent aid agencies think this is the worst possible time for the world’s leading aid donor to suddenly change tack. The global community is confronted with threats like the Islamic State, over 65 million displaced people, and imminent famine in West Africa and the Horn.
Still, other members of the aid community admit that reform is sorely needed. Some think that merging USAID and the State Department will help foreign aid do more with less, while perhaps cutting back on unnecessary bureaucracy. Optimists hope that the cuts will promote efficiency and help focus aid in the long run. Other states are also reevaluating their aid programs. The global level of aid assistance has declined slightly, while top donors have been concentrating aid on fewer recipient countries over recent years. USAID operates in more countries than any other donor agency — people argue over whether it should keep this approach or focus more on countries where it can really make a difference.
Trump’s approach to foreign aid hangs in the balance. The administration wants deep foreign aid cuts, but Congress has just proved it is willing to go against the president’s wishes on aid funding, so it remains to be seen whether Trump leaves a mark on the way the nation’s aid business is run.
Source: The Washington Post. Read full article here.
15 May, 2017
