QUESTION: What are the goals, priorities, objectives of aid?
Dr.BURRILL: Well the goal of foreign aid has changed over time, now that the Cold War is over. But I think we're in the process of redefining what our goals are. And I break our goals into two general categories. One, is the humaniatarian assistance we give, and that's based on the religious beliefs in our country and our beliefs about how we should relate to the rest of the world and who we should help. The second general area has to do with our own security. And during the Cold War we defined security very much in terms of who was anti-communist. Now that that is no longer the major way of defining security we're looking at: What does our security mean today? How do we define our security today? And the major building blocks of that have to do with environmental degradation, and how do we stop the global environment from degrading more. How do we control population so that it is not something that leads to more refugee problems, that leads to terrorism. Terrorism is another major part now of our international security concerns. Foreign aid fits into that because foreign aid to get at the underlying basis in many situations that causes terrorism. Even though terrorism is of course the result of many, often centuries of problems that have led to it.
QUESTION: What factors need to be looked at when giving foreign aid?
Dr.BURRILL: We need to look at where our interests lie in stopping environmental degradation, helping to control population, helping to resolve international health problems, and very importantly our economic security and our economic future and the relationship of foreign aid to our economic future is something that is often overlooked and is extremely important.
QUESTION: Should our funding be based on the projected success of giving foreign aid to certain countries?
Dr.BURRILL: Foreign aid should definitely go to those countries that are open to making changes in their policies, in their economic policies as to what they're going to do in terms of development, and we should be giving economic aid to those countries that are likely to utilize that aid in a positive way to create development in their own countries. And that will in turn result in trade for the US. Which in turn results in jobs here in the US.
QUESTION: How successful has aid been? You look back at the Marshall Plan which really kicked off aid and that was a deemed a great success. A lot of people think that since that time aid has been less successful. What is our record on that?
Dr.BURRILL: Well aid is a building block, foreign aid that is is a building block in creating economic development. In and of itself it is not sufficient. You must have the right kinds of policies in place, you also need governments that are not repressive, that are open to both economic development as well as to allowing the citizenry to utilize its talents and its resources. So foreign aid is only one building block to creating development. But there have been successes where foreign aid has played a major role in creating development and if you look at South Korea, Thailand, Columbia, there are other countries as well, where foreign aid has played a major role in creating a development that we see today, and in fact, the trade that we now see between the US and those countries.
QUESTION: For those countries where aid has not been successful, is it time to stop funding those countries? Should we set a time line for aid?
Dr.BURRILL: Whether or not to stop foreign aid funding can be and has to be handled only on a case by case basis. And in some cases the answer is yes, but it is made up of a series of criteria and elements as to whether stopping foreign aid will help. It's a long term process to create the types of policies in a country that will bring about economic development and that will bring about change. And diplomacy is part of that, foreign aid is part of it. But you cannot be assured of creating change simply by stopping foreign aid. But it may in some situations be the answer.
QUESTION: Is this a piece by piece process? How can it best be explained to the public which has seen us give foreign aid for 50 years now but still sees poverty in Ethiopia, or famine in Somalia? How do you explain to the American public that foreign aid is really worthwhile and that it really does help?
Dr.BURRILL: If you go back to the security issues that I mentioned, foreign aid is extremely important in helping to solve global environmental problems, in helping to solve population problems, which will eventually result in problems that come and effect us. And it is an important building block for creating trade for the US because through economic development in developing countries we then have the basis for increased trade and the part of the US economy that is growing the fastest is our export trade. And the part of our export trade that's growing the fastest is our exports to the developing world. So really the future of the country in a large part, in terms of our economy, is dependent upon how we relate to the developing world, particularly as we go into the 21st century.
QUESTION: What are the benefits of giving aid? Or could you give some examples of cases where we've given aid, and that "poof" the country may not be perfect but it's helped.
Dr.BURRILL: Well, it's important to realize that foreing aid in the sense of helping restructure government policies, foreign aid is an important element. At this time, foreing aid is helping in the former Soviet Union where their restructuring, and their attempts to restructure the private sector with the privatization of government health industries and modes of production, in helping to reform the legal system, is extremely important in that process and to the success of that process that foreign aid can help. Some other examples..we are currently assisting in the Philippines with decentralization of government services there and this means more local control of government services, it means an increase in democracy and the involvement of citizens in the control of resources and development in the Philippines.
QUESTION: Aid is broken up in general in to half towards economic development and half towards military assitance: what has been the impact of the military assistance on the economies of developing countries? Or the stability of those countries?
Dr.BURRILL: If it's applied judiciously and carefully, military assistance can assist in stabilizing situations and helping a government to create a stable environment for growth and for citizens. Very often in the past it has assisted in creating regional arms races and in those situations it is very detrimental, and is in fact contrary and is a negative force in terms of economic development and economic growth.
QUESTION: How does it provide stability? Do you mean sending our troops in or training their troops through our military training program?
Dr.BURRILL: No, providing training, providing equipment can help, but certainly where you
have a regime that is collapsing, you have a completely deteriorating situation,
um, having at side military assistance through the UN or through US military
assistance can be a real help in stabilizing a severely deteriorating situation.
Foreign Aid when applied or given ahead of time, successfully done, can help
prevent a deterioration and situation where military aid may have to be
employed or military assistance may have to be brought in to stabilize a
situation. And if you think about it, there are many many situations that have
never materialized because the international community and donors have
provided the kind of assistance that prevented the military situation to the
point that outside military assistance was needed.
QUESTION: Can you give some examples of that?
Dr.BURRILL: Well, I think that if you, if you look at various situations in Asia where there were the possibility of serious rebellion um and for instance the Philippines, where that has been diffused and it has been diffused by the government changing its policies and bringing the people into the process more and opening up and so this was assisted very much by, I think, foreign aid programs as well of course by the Filippinos themselves. But there is an example where a situation potentially could have completed deteriorated and did not.
QUESTION: Many people say that there are changes that need to be made to foreign aid that changes need to be made to make it a more effective foreign policy tool.
Dr.BURRILL: I think the main problem with the foreign aid program right now has to do with a lack of clear goals that are accepted by everyone who's involved in the debate. Consequently, there are conflicting signals, conflicting demands and a lack of resources to achieve the goals that are expected. And that until that is really clarified you will not see an adequate resolving of the criticisms that are leveled at AID.
QUESTION: What kind of changes does that mean decreasing the size of USAID, increasing the budget, changing the methods that they use in implementing aid?
Dr.BURRILL: Yes, I think what I'm saying is that there are conflicting ideas about what the goals of foreign aid should be. There are some who focus mainly on the humanitarian side, there are some who focus mainly on economic growth side and that there is such conflict over that that there's a lack of clear direction and clear mandate to develop programs that address those goals specifically. And this is in part also because of the end of the Cold War and the confusion now about what direction foreign aid should go in.
QUESTION: What direction do you think foreign aid should go in ?
Dr.BURRILL: I think that our foreign aid program needs to do the kind of humanitarian work that it's done in the past because as how we see ourselves as a nation, and I think that 20 and 30 years from now the US is not going to want to be seen as a stingy country, but one that is a world leader, and as a world leader that evidences the kinds of values that we profess to have. I also think that foreign aid is a critical element in creating economic growth and the opportunity for US businesses to sell their products overseas and to create the consumers and the markets for those products, and that that's one of the key areas where we're going to see growth for our economy and therefore the health of our economy and to provide security for the US on into the next century.
QUESTION: Finally, Congress has been decreasing the amount of foreign aid over the past years, what risks does that involve? What are the risks involved in eliminating our foreign aid program?
Dr.BURRILL: We risk reducing even more the chances of countries creating economic growth and development to the extent that foreign aid is a critical part of that development. Obviously the policies have to be right, but if you don't have foreign aid, a critical element of that will not be there. So we're risking not having the same export potential for our products in the future that we would have if we kept the foreign aid program intact. We're also risking greater environmental problems, international health problems, population problems the kinds of things that the aid program addresses. Those are likely to increase rather than decrease without the attention of foreign aid programs.
QUESTION: Such that these problems would escalate to the point where we would have to intervene as part of a relief effort?
Dr.BURRILL: Well we would either have to intervene or we will feel the results of that
internally, either environmentally or through refugee pressure.
End of Interview
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