The tide is turning

In the spring of 2007 USAID’s Social Services Division held a farewell party for its much respected director Dr Jim Sarn. His loyal and creative staff assembled a cover band to play his favourite tunes at the event. With Tom Petty's "Won't back down" we paid tribute to Jim's principled approach to work, but it was U2's "The tide is turning" - accompanied by the International School of Kabul Choir - that really celebrated Dr. Sarn's belief that change was possible.

The tide is about to take a dramatic turn in Afghanistan. This weekend major funding cuts will likely be announced concerning $250M of municipal governance programs - all five could be shut down very soon. The impact of the March2011 Congress mandated reduction of $1.4B in USAID's Afghanistan budget is finally being felt on the ground - even Hillary is rumoured to have received a bit of a bruising in the House last week.

US retreat from the war in Afghanistan is being driven by domestic economics and the rapidly growing political currency of withdrawal. Meanwhile the moral outrage will continue to ebb and flow fueled by royal heists of public funds and civilian collateral damage in the unwinnable guerrilla war. How can we lever the good investments made - in such areas as education and health - without feeling obliged to stick around and "protect" them?

I believe there is still a place in the world for aid - collaborative assistance. But the industry needs to take a resounding swing away from the mega project whose most important yard stick is the “burn rate” of Congressionally allocated funds.