The politics of American humanitarian intervention

Over the last 20 years, the U.S. government has chosen to intervene in Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, Haiti and Libya, while resisting calls to take action in Rwanda and Sudan.

These days the Obama administration has been hesitant to get involved in Syria. President Obama’s varying view on humanitarian intervention is in keeping with over 20 years of inconsistent American policy on the issue.

Obviously, there are many reasons why Washington selectively engages in humanitarian intervention missions. Among them, recent research on when and why the U.S. engages in humanitarian intervention emphasizes two factors that might force the U.S. government’s hand on humanitarian intervention: public opinion and Congressional partisanship.

Although public opinion appears to have an influence on legislative behavior, traditional factors such as partisanship have the strongest influence on how legislators cast their votes.

Humanitarian intervention is most likely when the U.S. president enjoys a majority in Congress. In the case of the 1990s, humanitarian interventions failed to get off the ground when President Clinton lost majorities in Congress.

Politicians however are learning the lessons of the 1990s and circumventing Congress. President Obama contributed the U.S. military to NATO operations in Libya preceded without Congressional authorization, as he was aware that such a vote would go down to defeat in a Republican-controlled House and deeply partisan Senate.

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International development aid

Development aid has long been recognized as crucial to help poor developing nations grow out of poverty. There are numerous forms of aid, from humanitarian emergency assistance, to food aid, military assistance, etc.

In 1970, the world’s rich countries agreed to give 0.7% of their GNI (Gross National Income) as official international development aid, annually. Since that time, despite billions given each year, rich nations have rarely met their actual promised targets. For example, the US is often the largest donor in dollar terms, but ranks amongst the lowest in terms of meeting the stated 0.7% target.

Furthermore, aid has often come with a price of its own for the developing nations:

• Aid is often wasted on conditions that the recipient must use overpriced goods and services from donor countries
• Most aid does not actually go to the poorest who would need it the most
• Aid amounts are dwarfed by rich country protectionism that denies market access for poor country products, while rich nations use aid as a lever to open poor country markets to their products
• Large projects or massive grand strategies often fail to help the vulnerable as money can often be embezzled away.

Will US budget cuts create an isolationism?

Excerpts of an opinion piece by Bruce Stokes, director of global economic attitudes at the Pew Research Center:

The forced budget cuts, known in Washington as sequestration, are now in force in the United States and $85 billion in spending cuts are in the process of being implemented, with about half of them coming out of Washington’s spending on international engagement.

These reductions include foreign aid and … will shrink the U.S. footprint around the world, with consequences for the projection of both U.S. hard and soft power.

The question now, in the United States and overseas, is where exactly the cuts will fall.

China transforming Africa

Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo, and author of “Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way for Africa”,  is an outspoken critic of international aid, arguing for years that foreign handouts stifle Africa’s development, perpetuate corruption and hinder the continent’s growth.

In a new interview with CNN, Moyo explains why she’s optimistic about the future of Africa. She looks at the positive impact that China can have on the continent and details the key drivers that will spur Africa’s economic growth. Some briefs:

CNN: The Chinese story has been thrown into the mix, has that changed the landscape?

DM: Yes, absolutely, but in a strange way it’s exactly what we need in terms of delivering economic growth and meaningfully reducing poverty. We need jobs, we need investment, we need trade, we need foreign direct investment, whether investment domestically but also from the outside. It’s not some magic pill, everybody knows that this is the formula, and finally the Chinese are showing up, again, not just in Africa, but around the world with that elixir, that mix of opportunities to really transform these countries.

CNN: A lot of people are critical of Chinese “neo-colonialism” but you argue that’s not the case.

DM: Well, it’s not, because China has so many economic problems in itself. You know, this is a population of 1.3 billion people with 300 million people that live at the level of Western living style. So they’ve got a billion people to move out of poverty. The notion that they would be spending their time trying to colonize other places is just, frankly, absurd.

I’m not saying that China should be given a red carpet, carte blanche, to come into Africa or, indeed, anywhere in the world, and do what they like. We do need the investment, we need job creation and we do need actual trade in these places. But I think what’s really essential is to focus on what China can do for Africa, as well as what Africa can do for China. And I think that discussion is not had as objectively as it should be.

Afghans worry about International Aid

The impending withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign combat forces from Afghanistan means more than a loss of firepower. International aid is also on the decline because of donor fatigue and fears of deteriorating security after nearly 12 years of war.

Worried about losing hard-won gains, many Afghan and international aid organizations are racing to finish projects or find new sources of funding to provide basic services such as health care, education and electricity that the weak central government has been unable to deliver.

The money that has flowed into Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S. invasion that ousted the Taliban and their al-Qaida allies has led to drastic improvements, with nearly 8 million children, some 40 percent of them girls, enrolled in school — up from just over 1 million when girls were banned from school under the Taliban.

Afghan street children are packed into classrooms, raising their hands to answer math questions and bending their heads over art projects as part of a program funded by the European Union. But the money is about to disappear after a four-year grant expires next month, and the Afghan government isn’t ready to fill the gap. That leaves thousands of poor children who spend most of their days hawking goods on the street poised to lose their only access to an education.

The U.S. Agency for International Development in Afghanistan has built or refurbished more than 680 schools, and child mortality has been halved with improved health facilities and other services.

A short history of US foreign aid

Following World War II, US leaders realized that America’s security and prosperity are interconnected with the rest of the world, and that they had a duty to help people in Europe with their recovery from war.

In 1961, Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act in response to President John F. Kennedy’s request to unify all economic aid efforts under the jurisdiction of a single agency, the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

President George W. Bush began a process of rebuilding US foreign aid and introduced several notable reforms: He created the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) to better enable countries to meet the needs of their own citizens; he developed the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which paved the way for the Global Health Initiative (GHI); and he began to restore staffing levels at USAID through the Development Leadership Initiative (DLI).

Efforts to ensure that foreign aid works to reduce global poverty and human suffering have accelerated under President Barack Obama. In 2010, President Obama announced a new US Global Development Policy, recognizing that governments and citizens in poor countries shouldn’t be merely recipients of aid, but full partners in the process. The policy also outlines new tools for measuring programs to make sure they meet their goals, so both American taxpayers and poor people affected by US policies abroad can see where aid dollars are going and for what purposes.

[Source: Oxfam]