Walker on USAID Egypt

America's economic assistance program to Egypt needs to be refocused

Former US ambassador to Egypt Edward Walker -- one of the most prominent Arabists of the last few decades -- makes an important point on US aid to Egypt. I particularly liked that he took up the problems with the Commodity Import Program, which as far as I can tell merely subsidizes American companies and helps create a local comprador capitalist class:

In this case the money does already belong to the Egyptian government. One problem with this is that US objectives are no longer the guiding principal in the allocation process. In addition, the loans provided to Egyptian businessmen tend to be driven more by sales of American products than by AID's reform agenda, not a bad thing, but not a recognized purpose of the AID program. AID needs to take a hard look at how this program might be restructured to direct it more closely to AID's objectives.

Update: I've added a long note in answer to a question in the comments.

Comments

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Do you think it would be productive for the United States to provide aid to NGOs, or would that merely taint the NGOs by association?

[Issandr El Amrani]

It is likely that the answer to your question will come fairly soon. For a while now we've known that the Ibn Khaldun Center, run by the well-known Egyptian-American activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim (who was imprisoned for two years for his activism before being acquitted by Egypt's highest appeals court) is in the running to receive at least $1 million in funding, making the biggest NGO recipient in the Middle East. What people at State and elsewhere have been trying to figure out is how to best handle the situation, as Ibrahim is still harangued in the Egyptian press for his pro-US stance on some issues, such as the war on Iraq. (Ibrahim is also unpopular in Egypt for other reasons that have to do with his close relationship with the regime before he was arrested and the perception that he is an opportunist.)

When I last spoke to him a few months ago, Ibrahim said that in principle he would have no problem accepting US funding, so I think if it is offered he would take it. He will however have to deal with the outcome, which may include several members of the board of the Ibn Khaldun Center resigning -- some have already resigned because of reports in the press that Ibrahim was getting ready to receive US funding.

On a similar note, over the last year there has been considerable funding available through a new program dedicated specifically to democracy and governance in the Middle East. Although I haven't checked for a few months, I remember many NGOs refused US funding on principle and others that were considering it were too scared to admit it publicly. (They were scared about being shunned by the local NGO community and tarred by the press, not of any violent retribution.)

My guess is that at least under a Bush presidency many Egyptian NGOs would be reluctant at best to accept US funding. This has to do with the perception, often justified, that the Bush administration is stacked with people who are extremely hostile to Arab and Islamic culture and who have a poor record of defending Palestinian rights (recently several NGO heads refused to meet the head of a delegation representing the US Commission on International Religious Freedom because she had attacked Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International reports critical of Israel while representing the US at the UN Human Rights Committee. The NGOs felt her lack of commitment to Palestinian human rights betrayed a wider lack of commitment to human rights in general.)

I fear is that to an average American reader, this will seem like another example of Arab intransigence and irrational hatred of the US. That would be missing the point: while the way the press in particular treats activists is often horrendous, the objections activists have in refusing US aid are fair enough. After all, they have public opinion and their own moral scruples to think about. There is a side debate on this, notably that the Egyptian state is a big recipient of US aid, which makes claims by columnists in government-owned papers at least a tad hypocritical: if US money is dirty, the entire country is stained.

Anyway, here is the short answer to your question: funding Egyptian NGOs would be extremely productive, most of these people do fantastic and much-needed work. But many would have difficulty in accepting it, no matter how tempting it might be.