DATELINE: Knoxville TN, 26 April 2006
Spent an interesting day with Steve DeAngelis talking Development-in-a-Box with serious players in the Pentagon and serious practitioners at a major USAID contractor. Both sets of players foresee a new definition of the linkages and sequencing and interdependency between defense, diplomacy and development (the “3D’s,” as they are called), and are eager to forge the new rule set.
But expect huge resistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development, we are told. The name alone will turn off the old-timers there, we are warned.
Why?
It seems to suggest that this difficult field that most of them have spent lifetimes trying to understand is somehow easily packaged up in a new way and distributed with ease by a military culture they’ve long distrusted.
Of course, nothing of the sort is true.
Postconflict/disaster states are a special category that USAID itself rather loathes to own, not much less so than the Pentagon itself. And State? Don’t kid yourself.
So admitting that these profoundly in-need-of-repair states need a kickstart to get them back in the game of economic development--much less “emergence” as attractive markets--is not to suggest that USAID is being disintermediated. Far from it. It’s just saying that these states are a special case, blessed with special urgency and responsibility whenever American blood is shed, and that it’s incumbent upon us to do a whole helluva lot better in resurrecting them than we’ve done in Afghanistan (partial success story) and Iraq (almost no successes to report save the wireless telecom industry).
Plus, we’re not talking about redefining classic development aid on the basis of what we’re learning and should logically be able to template in these rapid recovery efforts. That would be confusing emergency room care with long-term physical rehab. Hell, if we’re not shooting for the finishing line of an “emerging market,” we’re highly unlikely to get a state out of profound failure and into the usual category of LDC (less-developed country). In short, we need to aim high just to get the basket case back in USAID’s court at a minimum.
Finally, all we’re talking about with DiB is cherry picking and then systematizing the rapid development success stories that USAID’s achieved elsewhere. Looking over the Gap, you can find individual success stories of very rapid development in this sector or that, like that “Macedonia Connects” program I blogged a few days back. What DiB should represent is an all-star line-up of such rapid-fire build-ups of capacity. Don’t you think we owe a country something on that order of magnitude and effort after a disaster or after we’ve just arrested their rogue regime and removed them for trial elsewhere?
Me? I’m with Ann Marlowe and her most excellent WSJ op-ed today ("'A Virgin Market': Afghanistan isn’t Switzerland, but the opportunities are immense,” p. A18). We need to look at postconflict/disaster rehab jobs as market makeovers full of entrepreneurial opportunities rather than some moody, white man’s burden of never-ending development aid.
Check out her piece. It’s amazing.
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Comments (4)
As a front line Public Defender I think you need to write another book applying your concepts right here in America. It should be called - "Justice's New Map - Ending the War on Drugs in the Twenty-First Century". There needs to be a transition in law enforcement to address the "Gaps in the Core" we have here at home. I see drug raids that take out the bad guys but no "development in a box" follow-up which leads to more raids. Same problems that we have on an international level are occuring right here on a national level. Your concept applied in an article or book to the drug wars might help enlighten thinking on that area too.
Posted by Douglas William Vitt | April 27, 2006 4:44 PM
Similar good news from Mexico, which will decriminalize many types of drugs.
Posted by dan tdaxp | April 29, 2006 9:38 AM
I read an interesting book last month called, "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by John Perkins. If the book is believable, Perkins worked in the worlds of USAID from the 1970's to 1980's.
His book has a conspiracy feel to it.
I'm just curious if Tom or others who follow this blog have read the book (or summaries of it) and would have any comments to add relative to Development-in-a-Box.
The main comment that comes to my mind is that according to Perkins USAID and others who might implement Development-in-a-Box have an "evil" motive. During the cold war, that motive was to "enslave" states to the US rather than USSR. The shackles, again according to Perkins, are huge loans and other economic entanglements.
The believability of Perkins is somewhat suspect, but I have no doubts that the perception of enslavement through USAID, IMF, etc. is a reality to US detractors and particularly to a local population.
That perception by a local population would be a hinderance to implementing Development-in-a-Box. By analogy (a weak one, but hopefully illustrative), if you think of Wal-Mart as "low-prices-in-a-box," the resistance by local communities to accept Wal-Mart has become trendy based on the perception that Wal-Mart destroys the local community (small merchants, traffic flows, etc.). This perception has translated into irrational reactions.
The point is that if a local population perceives Development-in-a-Box as an "evil," they may take irrational steps to reject it.
Posted by DaveP | May 2, 2006 10:28 AM
Read Perkins book and found it a serious piece of crap. I know people in the publishing business who wouldn't touch it, even knowing it would sell well, because they believed it full of lies and exaggerations and flat-out BS.
Posted by Tom Barnett | May 3, 2006 10:20 PM