Politics & Current Affairs — August 16, 2010

Losing Hearts and Minds

“To put it bluntly, the bean counters are out of their depth.” David Rieff says insistence on strict accountability in foreign aid programs means losing hearts and minds in Afghanistan.

bigthinkeditor

“To put it bluntly, the bean counters are out of their depth.” David Rieff says insistence on strict accountability in foreign aid programs means losing hearts and minds in Afghanistan. The government’s need for quick and demonstrable results from development assistance programs undercuts the way effective development aid works: “If the daily news of one failure after another in Afghanistan and Pakistan had not done so already, [development projects are] not going to happen if the bureaucratic structures of U.S. development assistance are simply incompatible with those policies and programs development specialists believe have at least some chance of success.”

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