QUESTION: What were the public attitudes before the Marshall Plan and how successful was the Marshall Plan?
Ms.TAFT: It took Mr. Marshall over a year lobbying the American people and explaining to the American people what hte Marshall Plan was supposed to do before it got any degree of acceptance. I think the ratio of support was about 15% of the American people thought the Marshall Plan was a a good idea and yet it had bipartisan support and it was the right thing to do because what it was doing was underwriting the development effort for Europe after the war, providing loans and technical assistance to help them rebuild their economy. It turned out as you know to one of the most successful efforts that the US has ever engaged in internationally. Right now we have a similar problem in terms of a public misunderstanding about what our foreign aid is all about. I think that ever since the end of the Cold War people think we don't need to be engaged internationally, but in fact we do. In fact the world is less stable now that the Cold War is over. Then our obligation is to work with other societies, other governments and the people throughout the world is probably as important now as it was after the Second World War and certainly now after the Cold War.
QUESTION: What was the main focus of foreign aid during the Cold War and how has that changed, and has it, since the end of the Cold War?
Ms.TAFT: Well obviously the main foreign focus of foreign policy was the containment of communism, and to build up our military deterrent capability, our response capability, and to ensure that we had governments in critical geographic areas that were supportive of the Western values and not the communist values. So we ended up investing quite a lot of money in some very far away countries that would have seemed otherwise insignificant: Somalia, Zaire, a number of countries that did not really have an economic or social relationship to the United States but they had a geo-political one. So the aid went there, the aid went to the Middle East Peace process and it was politically motivated to ensure that our allies were would be with us, with us in the United Nations votes, with us against communism. Now that the Cold War is over we don't have superpowers that are trying to have geopolitical battles, Angola is no longer a geopolitical concern, Somalia isn't, many other countries are not. So the question is: who cares about them? Are these countries important? And does the US have an interest in reaching out to countries that don't have an immediate military or political interest. We're struggling with that issue right now. What do we do with our foreign assistance now that we don't have another superpower as our major opponent?
QUESTION: Where should we focus our aid now? What countries or what goals are we looking at now?
Ms.TAFT: The question of where we should focus our foreign aid seems to me we ought to look at what are the American interests. What do we do well, what is it that we have to contribute to the world. One of the things we do very well is democracy promotion: rule of law, trying to help build institutions, judicial institutions, and government structures. So our foreign policy particularly in the transition states that used to be in the former Soviet Union. A lot of effort is going in to helping in the structure of the rule of law. That's important to do. Another thing we do very well is agriculture and agricultural research. One of the best successes of foreign assistance that we ever had was in the Green Revolution. We still have a huge deficit of food compared to rural populations. A value added for US and potential US markets seems to be in agriculture. A third thing we do very well relates to health care. America has the best healthcare system in the world and we have the best medical research. We can and have learned a great deal for our own country's health systems by learning about diseases and trying to treat different kinds of diseases internationally. Look at small pox eradication. America was very much in the forefront there. It seems to me that that's a focus in terms of world health that America has a strong value added. And two other areas I'd like to mention is in the environment where our own quality of the environment in this country in the future will very much depend on the quality of air from our neighbors and from other countries. We need to deal with that question. And population. Population's the biggest problem that we see emerging on the horizon and America has at this point been supporting about 50 million families in family planning services around the world that want it and need it so that they can live better lives themselves. And I think that those are areas where the US has a value added and can work in concert with other donors to really improve the human condition of people around the world.
QUESTION: Some claim that $14 billion is raised for private charities per year from American donations, and this is more than the entire foreign aid budget. Can't these organizations fund the humanitarian missions?
Ms.TAFT: I'd like to see his figures because we don't have $14 billion that goes through our agencies for this. There's $14 billion dollars private money that goes to internationally related activities. Our private voluntary charities and agencies receive about $4 billion a year for their international work. There's no question that private assistance through the private voluntary agencies does reach people all over the world in need at the grassroots. But you're not going to solve some of the problems in these societies by only dealing at the grassroots on the charity and the human side of it. You do have to have some attention and credibility by our government working with other governments to provide the kinds of conditions in those countries that make life worth living and that are respectful of the rights of their citizens, that give a chance for their citizens to improve their lives. So we work at the grassroots on the social service side, helping them help themselves, but there also has to be a role for our government and the people of the United States to say we do care. We are blessed with a lot of good things in our life in the United States and yet we are the least charitable as a government for those kinds of efforts in foreign aid. It's apalling that we give so little as a nation. We give a lot through the private charities, but not very much official.
QUESTION: Why is it a function of our government to provide aid to foreign countries when a lot of people think it should be spent here at home?
Ms.TAFT: Well as, One of the things that is a misnomer here is that the term foreign aid. There's nothing foreign about foreign aid. Assistance and our relationship with the rest of the world, whether it's the governments, the UN, or people to people programs, have a direct bearing in our ability as a nation to live in a world which is stable, secure, and is not going to be threatened by extremists, by terrorists, by drugs, by any number of problems that come to our country because there are so many other countries who are so much worse off than we. Now let me just give you an example, in 1980 in this hemisphere we had only 4 democracies. 1996 every country in our hemisphere has had at least one and many multiple democratic elections. Cuba's obviously the exception. There has been a dramatic move towards political stability in this hemisphere. But do we just walk away as a nation saying well you've had one election so we're not going to help you with judicial reform, or if you need help on getting your economic policies right, or if you need some assistance in the education area that we don't care about that now that you've had one vote. I think not. It's really important for us to have a sustained positive relationship with other countries. And, in the global economy, it's absolutely critical that we have this. You look at where do our exports go, 40% of our exports are with the developing world. They are the future markets. The mature markets are Europe and Japan we're not going to increase too much the amount of trade we have with them. The other countries are going to be our markets. And we won't have good markets there if there if they're not stable governments and if they're not people who are educated and healthy and living so that they can buy our exports. So it's all linked together.
QUESTION: What is the prime interest of foreign aid?
Ms.TAFT: Well it depends on who is phrasing the issue of our prime interest is economic development for what end. Some people in the debate about foreign aid say that all we ought to care about is our own economic development in the United States. And so that their form of foreign aid would be assistance to American corporations to work abroad and expand their presence abroad. And I have no problem with that. That is one thing that is good to do, and there are agencies that help companies do that. But that's not foreign assistance. Foreign assistance that we are most interested in is what brings stability in societies that make them good potential partners? And it's the rule of law and responsible governments, and its a civil society with organizations and people having some access to things like credit, clean water, health care, the benefits of society and in those places where there are not equitable benefits to the society, places like Burundi, places like Bosnia, places like Rwanda, then they become tinder boxes. Throughout the Middle East we're very concerned about fundamentalism. Why is that? Because there are elements of soiciety who have not had a benefit to the social opportunities. So foreign aid we think ought to be to equalize opportunity for self advancement of people of all levels, particularly the poorest levels.
QUESTION: How successful has our economic program been in developing economic growth?
Ms.TAFT: Well, let me give you one example of an agency that's a member of Interaction, it's called Accion. It has spent about $200 Million in microenterprise, small loans in Latin America and has created over 200,000 jobs for people's livelihoods. We have for examples of micro-lending banks and places like Bangladesh where up to 2 million people have received small loans which they then are able to payback and start their own micro-businesses or small businesses. It's all fairly self-help. This is very exciting. This is an economic development activity. We think investments in education are very are probably the best investments you can make. We find that in our own society. People say that if you have a well-educated society your economy's going to be great....will be stable (?), and so we are promoting very much education in the developing world. Particularly for girls and women.
QUESTION: Does foreign aid work as a tool of foreign policy? Does it prevent conflict? How does it create a more secure world?
Ms.TAFT: Well I think there's several ingredients. The first is if your foreign aid is long term, predictable and sustained it can have an immensely positive impact. Look at the Middle East. We have for 50 years helped Israel. Ever since the peace process we have reaffirmed our commitment to vast amounts of assistance to Israel and Egypt it has promoted stability and has undergirded our commitment to that region. NATO, you think of it as a military alliance, it's also a political alliance. It's primarily a political alliance. The reason it's worked is it's had resources, it has had political attention, and it has been sustained for fifty years because of our concern about the European and American alliance, the atlantic alliance. When we do that kind of assistance in the foreign aid which is humanitarian it also has immense positive impact. I mentioned the Green Revolution, but also the erradication of small pox. It took a number of years but we no longer have small pox in the world because of that intervention. As a result, in our country today we save over $300 million every year because we don't have to give small pox vaccinations. There are those of us who are advocating that we ought to making those kinds of investments cause they directly help us here. For $300 million we can erradicate Polio, there is a capability of erradicating Polio in the developing world and then we wouldn't have to have the immunizations here. But we don't have even that kind of money.
QUESTION: Can foreign aid prevent conflicts? Or in the cases such as Rwanda, Somalia, and Burundi help after the fact, after they've already collapsed?
Ms.TAFT: It's hard to know exactly what foreign aid will prevent in terms of a crisis. There is no question that foreign intervention in Rwanda after the April 6, 1994 airplane crash that killed the presidents of Burundi and Rwanda, military intervention would have stopped the murdering of 500,000 people. Foreign action there would have made a difference. Foreign action has helped the Kurds in Northern Iraq where our military has been a part of the peacekeeping effort there. It has, it' s presence has been a deterrent. The investments though that foreign aid make in the social sector, before there's a crisis, are probably best demonstrated by the kind of aid we gave places like Taiwan and Korea, South Korea, in terms of educating the citizenry, providing assistance in health care and education set a tone for future investments by those countries, which have proven to be the hallmark of their successful economy. They have an educated, healthy citizenry, which is part of the reason they have their economic boom. So we think investments in those kinds of humanitarian elements will create a better stable government. But the signals that we send to a government through our foreign aid are also very important. If you are if you want to get the notice of a government that's not doing good things to their people you can say that we are not going to be supporting you at a vote in the World Bank, or we will not promote any government to government relationships with you unless you behave in a different way. So there are some carrots and some sticks that work. Burundi, we'll see, we'll see what happens every day now it's getting worse in Burundi. Foreign assistance isn't the answer here in term of humani..I mean in terms of development aid. We need a lot of political foreign attention on trying to restrain the radical elements in that country. And if that doesn't happen and there's a mass genocide, then we'll have to go in with vast amounts of humanitarian assistance and the military will have to help us do that. Just as they did in Rwanda.
QUESTION: What is the relationship between the military and foreign aid?
Ms.TAFT: Part of foreign aid is military aid. Military arms, which are both granted
military excess property, low cost loans for the procurement of weapons. The
United States is the largest supplier of military weaponry in the world. In some
instances I believe that that equipment goes to countries that are not very
reliable, and we have to ask the question who's getting that military
assistance? Do they have any external enemies that they need it for defensive
purposes? Or are they going to use it against their own people? And if you
look at some of the patterns of our military equipment assistance in the past we
are finding that it ends up for repressive purposes against their own people. I
think that that is unconsciable. The US isn't the only one that does that. But
that is a big part of our military aid.
We have a military aid program which is the IMET program, which does
training. Now I think this is good, I think it's important for the developing
countries, the militaries of these developing countries to see the way our
military is trained, its professionalism, its civilian led command system, its
value of human the human dignity. I mean it really is a an incredible
institution for stability that we have in our country with our military and it's
important for other countries to see and be trained this way because
unfortunately many other militaries in the developing world are quite
repressive. So we think the training is fine.
The humanitarian aid side of the military is wonderful. They have helped the
non-governmental organizations in humanitarian, disaster relief crises for
decades. This is a small piece of the portfolio of the military but it's becoming
an increasingly important one. Whether it's helping in Haiti or Bosnia as
they're doing now, if the United States military is not present in some of these
complex emergencies it doesn't work as well and it does raise questions as to
whether the United States has a political commitment to the resolution of a
crisis if we're not willing to be on the ground with our military. So the
humanitarian sides been really very very positive for us.
QUESTION: Who funds military activities in humanitarian assistance?
Ms.TAFT: The money that the Defense Department has for humanitarian assistance comes partially from a direct appropriation that DoD gets from the Hill. It used to be $100 Million, I think it's been reduced a little bit, but that would cover things like special flights, it would cover commodities that if there's equipment, humanitarian equipment or MREs that need to be sent that it can cover those kinds of cost. The bulk of the military costs are reimbursed from the US Agency for International Development.
QUESTION: Should the US continue to fund military assistance programs?
Ms.TAFT: They ought to keep them involved in the humanitarian support side. They probably need to continue the military training side. I have grave questions about the whole issue of weaponry. I'm very concerned about issues such as landmines, and the position that our government is taking on landmines. So it's very difficult to say what you would change about the military assistance side. I think part of our problem in foreign aid has been there's been too much co-mingling of the perception that our assistance should be military and that our contribution to the world's security is our military, and that's only one piece of it. So I would rather separate out the amount of money that we spend that really relates to the human condition, our relationships with other governments in terms of their social commitment, their economic growth and that is less than 1% of the federal budget. That is the part that I would like to focus on, and we're only talking about $4 Billion.
QUESTION: What is the future of foreign aid? What are the risks of eliminating foreign aid?
Ms.TAFT: We've done some calculations about the impact of the dramatic declines in
foreign assistance. We believe that in the next year 3 million children who have
been currently eligible for immunization programs overseas will not get them,
and will probably die. There are a million people a billion people in the world
that do not have water, clean water. We have programs to try to deal with that
they will have to be stopped. Our ability to provide humanitarian assistance
and nutrition programs, family planning programs, all of these are being cut
by one third. This cannot go on and have any credibility in the world that we
are a nation of conscience, a nation that cares about this.
In poll after poll the
American people have reaffirmed that they believe the American government
and their non-governmental organizations should be concerned about and
aggressively help on child survival, on nutrition, in famine response, in
concerns about the environment, and to try to bring our benefits of our society,
share those with others. The least popular element has been military. So I
think the military has to start explaining themselves as hard as the foreign aid
people have, and in this regard, our challenge is how do we make it come alive
to the American people that the investments are not just payoffs to foreign
potentates and we're trying very hard to show that the money does reach
people in need, it is helping them make a difference in their lives, and there's
some wonderful statistics to show that: 80% of the children in the developing
world now have are immunized, the US has taken a great interest in this and
has been heavily involved in that. That's the kind of thing that is really
important.
We had an exercise the other day on how much can we get in
foreign assistance from the equivalent of a B-2 bomber: $600 million for
another B-2 bomber. That is the equivalent of our total foreign assistance,
humanitarian development assistance to all of Sub-Saharan Africa. $600
million. For half of that we can get rid of polio. For that amount of money we
could provide family planning services to all families in the developing world
that have already come forward and asked for assistance but are on the
waiting list. When you start being able to make it that tangible to the
American people that what you get and what the trade off is I think we'll be
much more successful and I hope this program will help your listenership
understand that that it's not an either or gain. You don't do military or
economic and humanitarian assistance. We're a big country, we're the
wealthiest country, you've got to do some of both. The recent study from all of
the donors shows that the US has now slipped to 4th place in terms of our
overall generosity for assisting the poorest people of the world. We're behind
Japan, France and Germany in actual amounts of money. That's pretty
pathetic and we hope it's going to reversed.
End of Interview.
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