Beltway Bandits

A year after the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom, USAID tasked Louis Berger Group (LBG) to build Afghan infrastructure from scratch. The job was easy: to build roads, health clinics, schools, etc. in a landmine, Taliban, drug mafia infested country. No thanks to them for paving the cross country, Kabul-Kandahar highway and making it available to traffic, eleven months after the work started at the beginning of 2003. This project which reduced 24 hours drive (donkey ride) to 6 hours of smooth road trip and many other projects were a waste tax payer???s money. Yes, the displaced NGO???s could???ve done this in continuation of landmarking achievements. And because we haven???t seen it on TV, we can say that tribal chiefs haven???t been involved in any of these projects.

As someone who has worked in the aid business and in Afghanistan, I think Ms. Wolverson has written a fine article. She has pointed out several paradoxes associated with the way we deliver our aid, although she misses an important one. When we bypass the national government in a country and channel our aid through NGOs and private firms we miss a key opportunity to strengthen the link between citizens their government (hopefully elected). Yes, corruption and inefficiency are big problems with governments, but we are seeing that these and other problems (e.g. long-term staying capacity) also exist with NGOs and contractors, and we won't fix them by ignoring them. If we're trying to build more accountable socitieties (which we are) we need to think long and hard about whether our aid delivery system helps or harms this goal. Unfortunately, in this country there is a strong political constituency of NGOs, contractors, and universities who directly benefit from the status quo and lobby their politicians accordingly. See how they (with the eventual notable exception of CARE) mobilized against an attempt by the administration to use a portion of our food aid budget to buy grain directly from African farmers. These will not be easy issues to resolve, but articles like this can help inform the public about how the system works.

Has this "journalist" even been to Afghanistan to see what these "evil" for profits are doing...or has she met any of them? It is a rare person indeed over there working in a war zone for the money...they aren't making that much. Their commitment to doing good is no less strong than the good folks working for NGO's. Ms. Wolverson hasn't got a clue!

This is a seriously one-sided article. Most firms working for USAID do good and effective development work. The label Beltway Bandit is pejorative and the author needs to do some homework on the other side to fully understand the work of USAID partners.

Just like economic deregulation, privatization of foreign-aid will inevitably lead to corruption. Governments handing out checks to companies supported by top officials such as Dick Cheney (aka CEO of Halliburton - a weapons manufacturing company) really level out the playing ground for competitors in "free enterprise."