While the hundreds of billions of dollars in US foreign assistance spent over the years have dramatically improved many people’s lives and livelihoods around the world, too often the United States’ approach to foreign assistance failed to advance US interests, failed to spur systematic development and enabled and perpetuated dependence and corruption by leaders in recipient countries. Since 1991, the United States has provided more than $200 billion in foreign assistance to Africa, yet the African Union reports that African countries lose an estimated $88 billion each year through tax evasion, money laundering and corruption. Too often, what is needed for economic growth and development is not more money but sound reforms that incentivise enduring private investment and growth.
Instead of insisting on mutual accountability to use US assistance to address the causes of poverty and underdevelopment, too often we funded outputs to allay the symptoms. In doing so, we failed both the American taxpayer and the citizens of developing countries who looked to their governments and ours to help create the conditions to realise a better future. For decades, the United States did not have a consistent policy as to even whether assistance was charity or a foreign policy tool.
We did not require a committed partner, a coherent business plan, equity collateral at risk or funding subject to performance-based disbursements. We infantilised recipient governments instead of having candid discussions on mutual performance expectations. Too often our approach to developing countries – frequently perpetuated by the excuses of those same governments – reflected the soft bigotry of low expectations.
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We excused the lack of political will as “capacity constraints,” dismissed it with “we shouldn’t expect too much,” and did not challenge them when governments acted in contrast to their professed commitments. Too often, we were content to confuse governments’ commitments for actions. We misinterpreted our access to leaders as influence with those leaders.
We mischaracterised aid projects’ outputs as outcomes and programme objectives as results. We misconstrued governments’ permission for us to expend aid as evidence that they shared a commitment to advance professed objectives. Perhaps worst, we failed to acknowledge when leaders of aid recipient countries demonstrated over and over through their actions that they prioritised their personal interests over at the expense of the interests of their own country and citizens.
We virtually never withheld assistance funds because host governments failed to deliver on their commitments, instead we responded by providing even more aid “because they have needs.” By trying to save people from bearing the brunt of the bad governance and corruption of their leaders, we helped perpetuate that very same corruption and bad governance. Quite simply, we violated the central maxim of international development: the donor cannot want development more than the recipient. From the pure greed of Malawi’s “Cashgate” scandal under Joyce Banda to the systematic kleptocracies of Bangladesh or South Sudan, by back filling health and social service needs recklessly created by bad governance, we have enabled and underwritten government corruption. In the worst cases, such as the predatory abuses of Mali’s Ibrahim Keita or Guinea’s Alpha Conde against their own populations, corruption and the failure to deliver basic public services needs led to military coups and incursions by terrorist organisations.
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