United States Agency for International Development

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID to German: " the United States Agency for International Development " ) is an agency of the United States for development cooperation. The independent agency based in Washington, DC ( Ronald Reagan Building ) coordinates all the activities of the foreign policy of the United States in the field of development cooperation. The acronym of the Authority which is also seen, for example, on their planes, made ​​up of U.S. for " United States " and AID, the English term for "Help".

USAID supports the foreign policy of the United States in the areas of:

• Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade
• Health policy
• Democracy and strengthening civil society
• Privatization of the public sector and aiming at global market opening reforms
• Disaster Relief
• And - especially in Latin America - by the crime and drug control ( " combatting the drug trade" ) and the creation of "safe zones ".

USAID operates in four regions of the world:

• Sub-Saharan Africa (focus here is Kenya)
• Asia and Middle East (eg Äygpten, Palestinian territories, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan)
• Latin America (emphasis El Salvador, among others ), Caribbean
• Europe (especially in the Ukraine, Moldova, Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia, Albania, Lithuania) and Eurasia (especially in Georgia, Armenia and other countries of the Silk Road Corridor ).

History

The origin of USAID goes back to the Marshall Plan for Europe after the Second World War and Truman's Four Point Plan. In September 1961, signed by President John F. Kennedy the Foreign Assistance Act, and by a regulation USAID was a self-sufficient - even if policy-related - organization. It is subject unlike most European organizations of development cooperation with the instructions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the United States.

Budget

For 2014, the U.S. President has requested a budget of 20.4 billion U.S. dollars for USAID, which represents only a portion of the controlled by the U.S. State Department foreign aid, which was estimated in the draft budget for 2012, with 47 billion U.S. dollars. However, it has to be in charge, that a large part of the foreign aid budget of the State Department for the employees and large representative of USAID will spend enjoying diplomatic status.

Tied aid

The Buy American Act requires that American foreign aid preferably lead to the purchase of goods and services produced in the U.S. ( is called tied aid - which usually inaccurately translated as tying ). U.S. transportation companies to deliver the assistance, including technical assistance have to be done by U.S. experts. This policy will be strictly followed by the American development agency USAID, in contrast to European institutions of development cooperation, which have largely dispensed with it since the 1990s. The United States also publish - unlike many other nations - no information on the degree of tying. The share is estimated to be 70%. The tying concerns z.T. even the simplest everyday objects.

Role of USAID in foreign policy

At the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the governments of the world participated in a program on Agenda 21, which included an aid target of 0.7 % of gross national product for rich nations. The level of U.S. foreign aid falls below this target, they turn currently about 0.1 percent of their gross national product for development cooperation.

In absolute terms, the United States is currently the world's largest donor of economic tools and presented in 2003 the relevant organizations 16.254 billion U.S. dollars for economic cooperation and development. For example, World Vision receives (United States) financial resources.

Famine Early Warning Systems Network

The Famine Early Warning Systems Network ( FEWS NET) is a project funded by the USAID for famine early warning system. In the network of international, regional and national partners work together. FEWS NET staff are stationed in Africa, Central America, Haiti, Afghanistan and the United States to evaluate the data. FEWS NET provides policy makers services, such as monthly information on food security in 25 countries, forecasts and emergency messages. Also developed FEWS NET studies to support programs and activities. FEWS NET also help themselves to other early warning systems and networks.

The role of USAID in food security is, however, widely criticized, as they sit by the interests of American agribusiness. In South Africa, the planned USAID spread of a genetically modified potato variety was prevented. In Iraq, USAID in 2003 was entrusted with the implementation of reforms in agriculture, which are criticized from an environmental and social perspective. In India in 2010 met the attempt to introduce an architecture developed by Monsanto transgenic eggplant by USAID fierce resistance of small farmers and the Ministry of Environment.

USAID in Russia

USAID supported NGOs in Russia financially in their work. In September 2012, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that the staff of the U.S. Agency are reported for development cooperation. The reason given was that USAID had interfered in the political process in the country. The organization had given money to various organizations in order to influence the elections, among others. USAID worked for twenty years in Russia.

USAID supported the only independent election monitoring group in Russia, Golos. Golos had reported numerous cases of fraud in the parliamentary elections in December 2011. More than a third of the funds from USAID flowed into health and environmental programs.

USAID in Ukraine

The agency of the United States for International Development USAID supported the Ukraine since 1992 with about 3-5 billion dollars. Inter alia put them together as voters for the 2006 general election, promoted offshoot of Pora! party and the youth organizations of the nationalist parties and more critical of the government media. The recipients of the grants were, however, obscured or disclosed only after a considerable delay.

USAID in Central Asia

In several countries of Central Asia, USAID makes a web infrastructure ( " Freenet " ), which also serves the procurement of orders from U.S. companies to local businesses. So that government monopolies TV at the same time should be broken up.

USAID in Latin America

The U.S. government in Latin America cooperated little with the existing multilateral structures where complex such as the OAS and explicitly not with the CELAC. Instead, it relies on a network of its own non-governmental organizations and foundations, which often also have their headquarters in the United States. So understood, founded on 26 February 2003, USAID and Konrad Adenauer Foundation funded Fundación CADAL (Centro para la Apertura y el Desarrollo de América Latina) as a counterweight to the CELAC. USAID is in the words of her former secretary Andrew S. Natsios (2001-2006), the " most widely used instrument, when the means of diplomacy are no longer sufficient and the use of military force is becoming risky. "

In June 2012, the Foreign Minister of Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Venezuela signed a resolution relating to the designation by employees of USAID from ALBA countries, because USAID promotes the political opposition, together working with the U.S. intelligence agencies and on the destabilization of elected governments participate. This picture was confirmed in April 2014, when it became known that USAID Cuba had systematically tried to destabilize the political situation in Cuba by means of a specially established microblogging service to initiate yes a " Cuban Early Lung ".

Bolivian President Evo Morales referred USAID on May 2, 2013 in his country, and was referring to a statement by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who had South America called the "backyard " of the United States. He accused the organization before continue to manipulate local groups to destabilize Bolivia.

One focus of the activities in El Salvador (and also in Honduras and Guatemala) is the fight against youth drug gangs through education and training. These gangs are recruited in part from forcibly repatriated illegal Salvadoran, Honduran, Guatemalan, etc. immigrants in the U.S. and other repatriates groups. The profile of the health programs of USAID in El Salvador has repeatedly come under criticism.

Criticism

The USAID is repeated not only to operate in the criticism development aid, but also espionage and political influence. So should the USAID have tried using the text messaging project " ZunZuneo " Cubans encourage resistance against their communist government. In order to disguise the origin of the project, front companies to have been operated in Spain and the Cayman Islands. In this case, text messages were collected, stored and analyzed by Cubans.