Rethinking Foreign Aid & Global Asset Building: is there a Role for Realism?

Realists in international relations theory don’t usually have time for lofty endeavors like ending global poverty or how to restructure foreign aid to better reach the bottom of the pyramid. Traditional realists view foreign policy through the lens of security and hard power, and weigh most potential action in a cost-benefits analysis. But even still, it’s got me thinking about how development and foreign aid agendas might be different when considered through a realist lens: could the global development community actually learn a thing or two from this approach? Without making a judgment as to whether I believe a realist’s world view is right or wrong, I’d have to say the answer is…well…sure.

First of all, a traditional realist would view the fight against poverty in terms of potential US security and economic benefits. Poor, hungry, and failing states are unpredictable and pose a serious and strategic risk to U.S. security. On the topic of failing and violence prone states, Secretary of Defense Gates recently wrote in Foreign Affairs, “Dealing with such fractured or failing states is, in many ways, the main security challenge of our time.” While his words were mostly focused on U.S. Security Assistance, the message is the same: poor, unstable, countries are often highly combustible and can spiral into chaos quickly, posing risks to domestic populations and entire regions.

Pakistan – a nuclear armed, fragile state, prone to violence, with a weak civilian government and a sizable population living in poverty – provides ample food for thought. Immediately after this summer’s devastating floods, many worried that the Taliban would seize an opportunity to appeal to victims by ramping up their social outreach and marginalize the civilian government by highlighting their sluggish response. But would U.S. security analysts have been so anxious had we been more proactive about targeting those in poverty by providing them tools and services, such as disaster microinsurance policies or other microfinancial services that would enable them to better cope with unforeseen disaster?  Instead, we gave the Pakistani military a virtual blank check with little oversight and even less goodwill spreading back to the U.S. Similar to the re-thinking of global warming as a potential security risk, if global poverty was viewed as a long-term national security threat, instead of a social or humanitarian outreach issue, U.S. policy to combat it would probably look much different.

Second, realists would also start evaluating every project and aid package in a cost-benefit analysis and measure results more critically. In a time when domestic tax-payer incomes are shrinking, U.S. foreign aid dollars should go further. Specifically, they (or any fiscal conservative) would recommend a re-examination of foreign aid that stretches the impact of each dollar spent, and scrap programs that show no quantifiable results.  As idealistic as he is, President Obama’s recent unveiling of his administration’s revamped aid and development policy indicates a move toward a larger strategy re-examination along these lines.  His new policy will seek to limit programs that have been ineffective, solely focus aid on countries that show legitimate signs of development progress and ending the practice of measuring development evaluations based on outputs of dollars and pounds of grain. At the UN a few weeks ago, President Obama noted the importance of these projects in their domestic settings and globally, “In our global economy, progress in even the poorest countries can advance the prosperity and security of people far beyond their borders, including my fellow Americans”. Outlining his new approach, the President stated “Consider the millions of people who have relied on food assistance for decades. That’s not development, that’s dependence, and it’s a cycle we need to break.”

One particular program that would fit well into a new strategy would be to link aid delivery to social protection programs, such as conditional cash transfers. CCT programs are designed to end extreme hunger in the short term, by distributing small monthly cash transfers (less than $30 per household), and building human capital in the long term, by attaching conditions to the funds, like school attendance and immunizations for children. The effects have been positive on both improving nutrition/health and education for those in extreme poverty, but so far, direct foreign aid programs have not been applied to them.  As will be explored in a forthcoming publication of the UNDP and the Global Assets Project, with the help of recipient governments, telecoms and banks, the CCT model could present a less expensive and more transparent foreign aid delivery model for the U.S. Cash on delivery programs also offer results-based approach to foreign aid delivery that hold the recipient governments accountable to their commitments.

So a when applied to aid and development, a realist lens would advocate advancing our national interests while also considering how to lift billions out of poverty.  And I agree that there is no reason that these goals should be mutually exclusive. But to have the most positive impact they have to be strategic, effective and, most importantly, reach those in need. Linking CCT programs to foreign aid would be a great way to highlight the President’s new “progressive realist” approach to aid and development.