FOREIGN AID, FOREIGN POLICY AND DEVELOPMENT MANAGEMENT Louis A. Picard PIA 2096/PIA Week Five

Foreign Aid Course Foreign Aid Policy: The First Decade

Focus This Week  Motivations  Vietnam: The Early Years

Quote  Either the grants can be administered by experts from outside the depressed area or they can be turned over to representatives of the depressed group.[i][i]  [i] Ralph Linton, “An Anthropologist Views Point Four,” in American Perspective, vol. iv, no. 2 (Spring, 1950), pp Entire article, pp [i]

Motivations: EMMA’S WAR 1. What does this book purport to say about foreign and aid international assistance? 2. How typical are the aid workers portrayed in this book? 3. How does the behavior of “Aid Workers” differ from that of colonial officials in the pre-independence periods? 4. To what extent does “Emma’s War” have something to say about Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America/ Caribbean? 5. What criticism would you make of the Book? 6. Coming out of Emma’s War, what does one need to think about as one approaches the “Profession” of International Development? 7. What do you think of Emma?

Motives  Idealism?  Adventure and freedom  Mission  National Loyalty  Money and Life Style

Life Style Read James Fox, White Mischief (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982).  The Happy Valley Set, Central Kenya during the 1930s  Reference point for Emma’s Kenya Friends  Outside of Social Convention

Experiments  The Role of the University- Hundreds of Contracts in the 1950s- Capacity Building  The Operational Expert (OPEX)  Technical Assistance- Advisor  Food Aid

Public Law 480 Title One-Cheap food which is sold to the private sector Title Two-Emergency food Title Three- Food for Development (Distributed as part of Development projects)

Technical Assistance Profile  Summary of Contracting Agencies With the  Technical Cooperation Administration in 1952[i][i]  Educational Institutions 58  Consulting Firms 42  Research Foundations 5  Religious Organizations 3  TOTAL 108  [i] Walter R. Sharp, “The Institutional Framework for Technical Assistance,” International Organization, vol. 7, no. 3 (August 1953), p 364. [i]

Quote:  In 1952, Edward Weidner, portrayed the donor environment as follows: “[Z]eal or enthusiasm is lacking. The missionary spirit, or, more properly, the sense of mission is not present in most instances.”[i][i] [i] Edward W. Weidner, Technical Assistance in Public Administration Overseas: The Case for Development Administration (Chicago: Public Administration Service, 1964), p. 59.

Vietnam: The Early Years  Beginnings Economic and Military Assistance Program in Indo-China  Then Part of the French Empire  U.S. subsidizing French Rule and fight against Communism in Vietnam

Vietnam: Why?  Fall of China  French Civilizing Mission  Part of Marshall Plan  March of Folly? (Barbara Tuchman)

Why we were in Vietnam?  We aid other countries with whom our relationships may be more nearly correct than cordial, because we believe that it is in our interests to maintain friendly contacts with their governments and their people and to keep them from going behind the Iron Curtain.[i][i]   [i] Speech by Arthur Z. Gardiner, Director United States Operations Mission in Viet-nam, address given to the Saigon Rotary Club on September 22, 1960 (Washington, D.C.: Department of State and U.S. Government Printer, 1961). [i]

Why Foreign Aid?  U.N. Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick’s alleged comment about why we provided foreign aid to Zaire’s Mobutu “He may be a Son-of-a-Bitch but he’s Our Son-of-a-Bitch.”

Picard’s View  Represents the Best and Worst of Foreign Aid Policy  “We had to burn the village in order to save it”  Strategies of Community Develop and capacity building have their origins in 1950s Vietnam

The Counter Narrative GOAL: To conceive of a rival hypothesis that could reverse perceived reality and provides a possible policy option for future attention because of its very plausibility.

Three Views of Foreign Aid- A Reminder 1. Part of Balance of Power- Carrot and Stick Approach (based on exchange Theory 2. Commercial Promotion: Focus on International Trade 3. Humanitarian Theory: Moral Imperative