Anthropology in the U.S. Agency for International Development: An Overview

1980 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-54
Author(s):  
William Jansen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Development ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Assistance ◽  
United States Government ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Marshall Plan ◽  
Economic Assistance ◽  
Agency For International Development

For readers who may not be familiar with the Agency for International Development, allow me to provide some background information. AID administers most of the foreign economic assistance programs of the United States government and is concerned primarily with direct, or "bilateral," assistance to other countries. Large scale United States assistance efforts began in, 1947 with the European Recovery Program (later known as the Marshall Plan) and were supplemented by the Point IV program in East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. The 1954 Food for Peace Act provided food commodities to feed people in need overseas and, in the latter 1950's the Development Loan Program was begun so the United States could provide financial assistance to developing countries. Then, in 1961, most United States foreign assistance was consolidated in the newly established Agency for International Development.

Zimcord Conference Documentation

1981 ◽  
Vol 11 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 51-53
Author(s):  
Edward A. Dougherty
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
International Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Government ◽  
International Agencies ◽  
Agency For International Development ◽  
States Government ◽  
Trained Personnel ◽  
Set Up

The Zimbabwe Conference on Reconstruction and Development (Zimcord) was held in Salisbury from March 23-27, 1981. Thirty-one nations and twenty-six international agencies pledged about $1.45 billion in economic aid to be disbursed over a three-year period beginning in July of 1981. The United States government, through the Agency for International Development, pledged $225 million. USAID has just begun to set up a mechanism for the distribution of those funds. Because of the presence of well-trained personnel and the substantial bureaucracy that has remained intact during the transition from a white- to a black-led government, USAID intends to utilize the existing decision-making structure in Salisbury as much as possible. For those interested in potential Zimbabwean projects, one of the key documents that needs to be studied is the Zimcord Conference Document. In the following discussion the main points of the document are summarized.

USA: Official Development Assistance

2012 ◽  
pp. 43-51
Author(s):  
A. Shakirov
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Assistance ◽  
The Other ◽  
Economic Assistance ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The One

The article considers the aims and practices of the United States’ foreign assistance provided to other, especially developing, states. The aims include the promotion of the international development, on the one hand, and the achievement of US own national interests in security, economic and political spheres, on the other hand. Official foreign assistance (OFA) of the United States is divided into two types: economic assistance and military-technical one. Currently, the USA is the world's largest donor of both types of the official foreign assistance. This author discusses structure and factors influencing the OFA provided to the developing countries, as well as the experience of cooperation in this sphere between Russia and the United States.

scholarly journals Improved Drought Resilience Through Continuous Water Service Monitoring and Specialized Institutions—A Longitudinal Analysis of Water Service Delivery Across Motorized Boreholes in Northern Kenya

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 3046 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Turman-Bryant ◽  
Corey Nagel ◽  
Lauren Stover ◽  
Christian Muragijimana ◽  
Evan Thomas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Development ◽  
Groundwater Resources ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Government ◽  
Water Service ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Northern Kenya ◽  
Agency For International Development ◽  
Specialized Institutions

Increasing frequency and severity of drought is driving increased use of groundwater resources in arid regions of Northern Kenya, where approximately 2.5 million people depend on groundwater for personal use, livestock, and limited irrigation. As part of a broader effort to provide more sustainable water, sanitation, and hygiene services in the region, we have collected data related to site functionality and use for approximately 120 motorized boreholes across five counties. Using a multilevel model to account for geospatial and temporal clustering, we found that borehole sites, which counties had identified as strategic assets during drought, ran on average about 1.31 h less per day compared to non-strategic borehole sites. As this finding was contrary to our hypothesis that strategic boreholes would exhibit greater use on average compared to non-strategic boreholes, we consider possible explanations for this discrepancy. We also use a coupled human and natural systems framework to explore how policies and program activities in a complex system depend on consistent and reliable feedback mechanisms. Funding was provided by the United States Agency for International Development. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government.

“From factory to field”: USAID and the logistics of foreign aid in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan

2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 719-738 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wesley Attewell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Aid ◽  
International Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
Market Forces ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Critical Scholarship ◽  
Agency For International Development

Emerging critical scholarship on logistics has shown how the field is implicated in a broader necropolitics of violence, disposability, and exploitation. While much has been made of logistics’ historical linkages to military and market forces, this paper, in contrast, explores how logisticians have played an increasingly central role in development and humanitarian missions to theatres of conflict and emergency. It focuses on the effort of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to supply mujahideen forces in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan with the non-lethal materiel necessary for their insurgency. It argues that USAID understood its relief and rehabilitation mission as a problem of logistics. By sketching the shifting contours of USAID’s cross-border programming, this article offers a more nuanced diagnosis of how logistics has become essential to the management of life and death across multiple temporalities, spaces, and scales.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF ENVIRONMENT: BUILDING HOUSES ALONG THE GREAT RIFT VALLEY IN JORDAN

2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 513-536 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bridget L. Guarasci
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
International Development ◽  
Rift Valley ◽  
Biosphere Reserve ◽  
The United States ◽  
Home Building ◽  
Agency For International Development ◽  
Tourist Economy ◽  
Great Rift Valley

AbstractThis article analyzes the restoration of Jordan's UN Dana Biosphere Reserve cottages for ecotourism and home building in the neighboring village of Qadisiyya as competing land projects. Whereas a multimillion-dollar endowment from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) restores Dana's houses as a “heritage” village for a tourist economy, families in Qadisiyya build houses with income from provisional labor to shore up a familial future. Each act of home building articulates a political claim to land. This article argues for attention to the architecture of the environment in the comparison of two, once-related villages. A comparative analysis of Dana and Qadisiyya reveals the competing socio-political objectives of home building for the future of Jordan and the implications of environment in that struggle.

Development Assistance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Simon ◽  
Michael W. Miller
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Aid ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Development Assistance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Assistance ◽  
Marshall Plan ◽  
Successful Development ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Failing States

The Marshall Plan marked the beginning of modern foreign assistance, and from the very outset national security and foreign aid have been inextricably linked. Successful development assistance can make the world a safer, more stable place, advancing U.S. national interests in direct and subtle ways. Aid can help struggling states avoid becoming failing states, where all manner of threats—from terrorists to international criminal networks to deadly pathogens—can find a safe haven. Aid helps stave off political strife that contributes to the rise of demagogues with interests antithetical to those of the United States. At its best, foreign assistance can reinforce country efforts to join the community of democracies. A world where there are fewer wars, terrorist safe havens, and political tyrants is a more secure world for the United States.

Foreign Economic Aid

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey F. Taffet
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Political Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Government ◽  
Economic Assistance ◽  
Capitalist System ◽  
Economic Aid ◽  
Aid Programs ◽  
The Impact

In the first half of the 20th century, and more actively in the post–World War II period, the United States government used economic aid programs to advance its foreign policy interests. US policymakers generally believed that support for economic development in poorer countries would help create global stability, which would limit military threats and strengthen the global capitalist system. Aid was offered on a country-by-country basis to guide political development; its implementation reflected views about how humanity had advanced in richer countries and how it could and should similarly advance in poorer regions. Humanitarianism did play a role in driving US aid spending, but it was consistently secondary to political considerations. Overall, while funding varied over time, amounts spent were always substantial. Between 1946 and 2015, the United States offered almost $757 billion in economic assistance to countries around the world—$1.6 trillion in inflation-adjusted 2015 dollars. Assessing the impact of this spending is difficult; there has long been disagreement among scholars and politicians about how much economic growth, if any, resulted from aid spending and similar disputes about its utility in advancing US interests. Nevertheless, for most political leaders, even without solid evidence of successes, aid often seemed to be the best option for constructively engaging poorer countries and trying to create the kind of world in which the United States could be secure and prosperous.

Preparing for Agroterror: How is the Texas Animal Health Commission Implementing Federal Food Security Regulations?

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordan Hunter
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Food Supply ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Animal Health ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Government ◽  
Agricultural Industry ◽  
The Public ◽  
Department Of Health

AbstractAgroterrorism is a subform of bioterrorism with the potential to have a crippling impact on both the agricultural industry and the food supply of a nation. A calculated attack using a miniscule amount of pathogenic or disease causing substances on the livestock or crops in one rural community can spread to animals and metropolitan regions much farther away long before any response from state or federal veterinary or agricultural organizations. Although there have been no large-scale agroterrorism attacks in the United States, there have been historical precedents for agricultural biological warfare and recent examples of unintentional or accidental spread of pathogens in the food supply that have threatened the health and safety of the public. Along with an ongoing push for preparedness to prevent a biological attack on the U.S. agricultural industry, there is a great deal of uncertainty and conflict among landowners, farmers, analysts, and politicians about what methods should be implemented to safeguard the public. In response to this possible threat, the United States government has implemented legislation that it considers preemptive in its ability to safeguard the food supply and manage the public health and/or biological crime response in a widespread agroterrorist attack scenario. However, this requires cooperation on both the state and federal levels, and of several agencies including the department of Health, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Health and Human Services. This paper examines the steps being taken by the USDA in fulfilling the orders of the federal government in response to the looming threat of agroterrorism and how the TAHC works cooperatively with federal agencies and the private agricultural industry to carry out these regulations.

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