ARTICLE - A CHANGING HEMISPHERE

A NEW APPROACH FOR A CHANGING HEMISPHERE
(USAID) - By Mark Feierstein

USAID’s work in Latin America and the Caribbean has changed dramatically since I served at the Agency in the late 1990s. Then, the Agency was largely focused on helping consolidate the region’s new democracies, reducing poverty, and curbing population growth. The Colombia mission was on the verge of closing, USAID’s presence in Mexico was minor, and the Food for Peace program ranked among the biggest budget items. A dozen years later, following a period of strong economic growth, dramatic declines in poverty, and deepening democracy, our approach has shifted.

Outside of Haiti, we are reducing our investment in health and bringing family planning programs to a close. Food for Peace programs are being replaced by efforts to promote agricultural production. And with a focus on the threat that crime and drug trafficking pose to economic growth and the consolidation of democracy in the region, the bulk of our resources are destined for those countries on the frontlines of the effort to reduce violence—from the producer countries of Colombia and Peru, to the transit countries and regions of Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean.

Viewed through a traditional development lens, some of these countries—namely Colombia and Mexico—would not qualify as USAID aid recipients. But given the need to help Colombia consolidate its security gains and help Mexico fend off organized crime, the former continues to be the second largest aid recipient in the Latin America and the Caribbean region, behind Haiti, and the latter is about to rank third.

Our concern about security is also driven by the United States’ national security interests. In an increasingly globalized world, organized crime penetrates borders. The coca grown in Colombia and transported as cocaine through the Caribbean, Central America, and Mexico harms our citizens and saps strength and resources from our communities. USAID programs are an integral part of President Barack Obama’s National Drug Control Strategy and its goal to significantly reduce drug use and its impact in the United States by 2015.

But there is also a crucial development dimension to our approach. To achieve the main objectives of the Presidential Policy on Development—to help countries grow their economies and improve democratic governance—the region’s security must improve. With the highest murder rates in the world, crime is a leading threat to many of the region’s democracies. And as the landmark analysis in El Salvador produced by a joint U.S.-Salvadoran team of economists revealed, crime is the leading constraint to growth there.

While USAID is continuing our longstanding work to strengthen the capacity of judicial systems to fairly and effectively provide justice; the heart of our security work in many countries now involves supporting preventive anti-crime measures, namely providing youth vulnerable to the lure of crime with positive and productive alternatives. Through the U.S. Government’s signature security initiatives—Merida (in Mexico), the Central American Regional Security Initiative, and the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative—we are creating safe urban spaces, providing job training, and engaging in concerted efforts to keep children in school.

“Achieving that sustainability requires strengthening
countries’ capacity to operate effective institutions, grow their economies, and keep their people safe.”

As we have concentrated our efforts in fewer countries and sectors, we have had to reduce our engagement elsewhere. In recognition of the gains that Panama has made since we reopened our office there in 1990, we will close that mission in September. And in a cost-saving measure, we are closing the Guyana mission and shifting our programs to the Eastern Caribbean office based in Barbados.

We are also reducing our work in some sectors, such as family planning and election administration, as governments increasingly demonstrate their ability to finance and effectively administer programs once led by USAID. As President Obama has said, “the purpose of development is to create the conditions where our assistance is no longer needed.”

New Actors Emerge

As we leave countries and sectors, we are expanding the universe of donors by building on our existing trilateral arrangements with Brazil and Chile and creating new ones. And to supplement our assistance and ultimately make our efforts sustainable, we are increasing our partnerships with businesses, especially in the areas of youth work-force development, agricultural development, and climate-change adaptation.

Achieving that sustainability requires strengthening countries’ capacity to operate effective institutions, grow their economies, and keep their people safe. One of the main ways that USAID is meeting this goal is by channeling more of our assistance through host-country government systems, NGOs, and other private entities.

The concern over security has by no means obscured the importance of our other development goals, such as enhancing food security and reducing malnutrition, protecting the environment, and reducing the impact of global climate change as well as maintaining our unique role in strengthening democracy and governance.

In fact, our work in these areas reinforces our crime-prevention investments. For example, through the Obama administration’s global food security initiative—Feed the Future—small-scale farmers in Guatemala and Honduras are getting help to improve crop yields and link up with international buyers. As their incomes increase, so does the economic resilience of their communities.

Finally, all these challenges come together in Haiti, which today commands the lion’s share of our bureau’s resources. Although reconstruction is a long-term proposition, Haiti is already building back better. The economy is getting a much-needed boost from the revitalization of the agricultural sector, and a much-needed influx of international private investment, including a new industrial park set to open on the country’s north coast in March.

These positive advances are possible because of the concerted efforts of the Haitian Government and its international partners to place Haiti on a solid footing following the 2010 earthquake. Together, we cleared more than half the rubble from the streets, helped hundreds of thousands of displaced persons return home, and got a potentially crippling cholera outbreak under control.

In Haiti, as elsewhere in the hemisphere, our interaction with Latin America and the Caribbean is shaped as much by geographic proximity and strong historical ties as it is by traditional development measures. Perhaps in no other region in the world do our development goals dovetail so closely with U.S. diplomatic objectives and national security interests. A more peaceful, prosperous, and democratic hemisphere is unquestionably in our national interest. And USAID will continue to have an important role to play in making that a reality.