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65–128 PDF 2011

U.S. AID TO PAKISTAN: PLANNING AND

ACCOUNTABILITY

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY

AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

DECEMBER 9, 2009

Serial No. 111–131

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Chairman

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

PETER WELCH, Vermont

BILL FOSTER, Illinois

JACKIE SPEIER, California

STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio

JUDY CHU, California

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois

BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri

ANH ‘‘JOSEPH’’ CAO, Louisiana

RON STROMAN, Staff Director

MICHAEL MCCARTHY, Deputy Staff Director

CARLA HULTBERG, Chief Clerk

LARRY BRADY, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts, Chairman

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

PETER WELCH, Vermont

BILL FOSTER, Illinois

STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska

BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri

ANDREW WRIGHT, Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on December 9, 2009 ........................................................................ 1

Statement of:

Fair, Christine, Center for Peace and Security Studies, Georgetown University; Andrew Wilder, research director for policy process, Feinstein

Center, Tufts University; and Samina Ahmed, South Asia project director, International Crisis Group .................................................................... 4

Ahmed, Samina ......................................................................................... 41

Fair, Christine ........................................................................................... 4

Wilder, Andrew .......................................................................................... 29

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Ahmed, Samina, South Asia project director, International Crisis Group,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 44

Fair, Christine, Center for Peace and Security Studies, Georgetown University, prepared statement of ..................................................................... 9

Wilder, Andrew, research director for policy process, Feinstein Center,

Tufts University, prepared statement of ..................................................... 32

(1)

U.S. AID TO PAKISTAN: PLANNING AND

ACCOUNTABILITY

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2009

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY AND FOREIGN

AFFAIRS,

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John Tierney (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Tierney, Maloney, Lynch, Van Hollen,

Flake, Duncan, Fortenberry, and Luetkemeyer.

Staff present: Andy Wright, staff director; Elliot Gillerman, clerk;

Scott Lindsay, counsel; Steven Gale, fellow; Jesse Schwartz, intern;

Adam Fromm, minority chief clerk/Member liaison; and Lt. Col.

Glenn Sanders, Defense fellow.

Mr. TIERNEY. Good morning.

I missed you, Doctor. I think you must have been getting a glass

of water or something when I came in—nice to see you here. Thank

you.

A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on National Security

and Foreign Affairs, the hearing entitled ‘‘U.S. Aid to Pakistan:

Planning and Accountability’’ will come to order. I ask unanimous

consent that only the chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee be allowed to make opening statements. And without objections, that is so ordered.

I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from California,

Representative George Miller, be allowed to participate in this

hearing. In accordance with the committee rules, he will only be allowed to question the witnesses after all official members of the

subcommittee have had their turn: Without objection; so ordered.

I ask unanimous consent that the hearing record be kept open

for 5 business days, so that all members of the subcommittee would

be allowed to submit a written statement for the record. And, without objection, that is so ordered.

So, once again, I say good morning to all of our witnesses that

are here today. I do appreciate the written testimony. I think I

mentioned that to Dr. Wilder and Dr. Ahmed earlier, on that, as

it certainly is food for thought.

And, Mr. Flake and I were just discussing this: We are anxious

to hear your testimony. We will try to keep our opening statements

relatively brief.

2

On October 15, 2009, President Obama signed the Enhanced

Partnership with Pakistan Act. It has been formally known, as everyone here knows, as the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Bill. It triples the

U.S. civilian economic and development assistance to Pakistan to

$1.5 billion annually, until 2014.

While Kerry-Lugar-Berman was a largely bipartisan demonstration of U.S. commitment of long-term assistance to Pakistan, serious concerns remain regarding the ability of USAID and the State

Department to effectively and efficiently manage and account for

such a massive increase in assistance.

In November, I led a congressional delegation to Pakistan in

order to investigate, among other things, the status of U.S. assistance programs, and the State Department and USAID’s capacity to

manage and oversee Kerry-Lugar-Berman funding.

At the time, Ambassador Holbrooke’s team and USAID in Pakistan were actively searching for a new delivery model for U.S. assistance to Pakistan. I understand that this policy review is now

almost complete. And I look forward to the administration testifying before the subcommittee on their plans in early 2010.

During the congressional delegation, we met with Pakistan’s civilian leadership and political opposition, and a wide variety of

civil-society members, NGO’s, and international contractors. We

also traveled to Peshawar to deliver aid supplies directly to the

principal hospital that has been receiving wounded from the many

bombings there, over the several months preceding.

No one would be surprised to hear that everyone had a different

perspective on how the United States could best deliver aid. Prime

Minister Gilani prefers more aid to be funneled through the central

government. In the provinces, meanwhile, we heard that more

money should go straight to the provincial government.

Local NGO’s are boasting that they could cut out the high administrative fees for international contractors and build more domestic

capacity. But international NGO’s and contractors claim that the

local players did not have the capacity to do so. So, in short, our

meetings helped us quickly identify all the problems with the various aid-delivery models under consideration, but we found no consensus regarding how to go forward.

Clearly, there is no silver-bullet solution for delivering aid in

Pakistan. More disconcerting than the lack of consensus regarding

the best aid-delivery model was the lack of capacity at USAID in

Pakistan.

For years, USAID has been marginalized and stripped of personnel, while, at the same time, U.S. foreign policy has increasingly

emphasized aid delivery in high-risk conflict and post-conflict countries like Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It is no wonder that USAID has become so dependent on international contractors to plan, manage and even oversee massive development projects. This challenge is only made more difficult by

the current security environment that makes it extremely difficult

for either USAID personnel or Western expats, to actively manage

or oversee many projects, particularly those in the federally administered tribal areas and the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan.

3

As a result, both USAID and international contractors are often

entirely dependent on sending third-party locals to verify and account for major development and assistance projects. Although I

understand the temporary security needs of these oversight

workarounds, I have a serious concern about USAID’s ability to

provide long-term oversight and accountability of major projects

without ever even seeing them in person.

I plan to continue to work with Congress and this administration

to bolster USAID’s internal staffing and capability. We have to reverse USAID’s decline of the last decade, if it is to serve as a central tool of U.S. foreign policy in South Asia or the Middle East,

a task that it has been assigned, but not given the tools to fulfill.

In the meantime, however, any new plan for U.S. civilian assistance to Pakistan must factor in USAID’s limited capacity—both

limited personnel to actually manage and oversee contracts, and for

security reasons, limited visibility on many of its projects.

For today’s hearing, we have brought together three experts with

a great variety and depth of experience in both Pakistan and U.S.

assistance program. I don’t expect any of them to provide the silver-bullet solution.

But I do hope that you can give us some fresh perspectives on

this very difficult challenge. And, of course, to the extent that you

have that silver bullet, don’t hesitate to share it. Thank you.

Mr. Flake.

Mr. FLAKE. I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And I thank the witnesses.

I share the concerns that the chairman has expressed about the

pace of this aid going in. It seems to be more supply side driven,

rather than demand-side, at this point. I also share the concern,

and I understand the issues with regard to security. But the inability to actually see where some of this money is spent in the end,

is troublesome for a committee that provides oversight.

So I am anxious to hear the testimony. And I look forward to the

administration witnesses in the new year, to hear what they have

planned going ahead, to remedy the situation.

But thank you for coming.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Flake.

The subcommittee will now receive testimony from the panel before us today. I would like to just briefly introduce the entire panel,

and then we will start with Dr. Fair.

Doctor Christine Fair is an assistant professor with the Center

for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University’s School

of Foreign Service. She previously served as a senior political scientist with the RAND Corp., a political officer to the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan in Kabul, and as a senior

research associate at the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention at the U.S. Institute for Peace.

Her current research focuses on political and military affairs in

South Asia. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Dr. Andrew Wilder is the research director for policy process at

Tufts University’s Feinstein Center. Prior to joining the center, he

worked in Afghanistan, where he established and directed Afghanistan’s first independent policy research institute, the Afghanistan

Research and Evaluation Unit.

4

Between 1986 and 2001, Dr. Wilder worked with several international NGO’s, managing humanitarian and development programs in Pakistan and Afghanistan. His research and publications

explore the politics of civil service reform and electoral politics and

policies in Pakistan.

He holds a Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy

at Tufts University.

And our friend, Dr. Samina Ahmed is the International Crisis

Group’s South Asia project director. She has testified from Pakistan to here, by video, before, as I understand, Dr. Wilder has also

done, on at least one occasion, and, maybe, Dr. Fair, for all I know.

You haven’t been on the video yet? We will get you there.

But we appreciate the fact that you have traveled all the way

here today, from Pakistan, to work with us.

Based in Islamabad, Dr. Ahmed oversees ICG’s work in Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Nepal. Prior to joining ICG, she held

research positions at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and the Institute of Regional Studies.

Her areas of expertise include South Asian affairs, democratic

transitions in authoritarian states, and ethnic and religious conflict. She holds a Ph.D. from the Australian National University.

We appreciate that all of you came here today, and that you are

going to share your testimony.

As I have said, we have read your written testimony with great

effect. I do note that if you were to deliver your written testimony

each of you would be significantly over 15 or 20 minutes. We would

like to have some time for questions and answers.

So if you could verbalize, in about 5 or so minutes—we are not

going to drop the hammer at exactly 5—but shorter than it would

be for the entire presentation of the written testimony—that written testimony will be put on the record by unanimous consent. And

we will have that and all those that haven’t a chance to read it will

read it.

So first let me swear in the witnesses. It is our practice to do

that before every hearing.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. TIERNEY. The record will, please, reflect that all of the witnesses have answered in the affirmative.

And, Dr. Fair, if you would be kind enough—to begin?

STATEMENTS OF CHRISTINE FAIR, CENTER FOR PEACE AND

SECURITY STUDIES, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY; ANDREW

WILDER, RESEARCH DIRECTOR FOR POLICY PROCESS, FEINSTEIN CENTER, TUFTS UNIVERSITY; AND SAMINA AHMED,

SOUTH ASIA PROJECT DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL CRISIS

GROUP

STATEMENT OF CHRISTINE FAIR

Ms. FAIR. This isn’t on? Oh, there we go. Sorry about that.

As a non-USAID practitioner, my comments will draw off my

own experience in Pakistan since 1991 as an Urdu speaker who

has traveled throughout the country, from survey work that I have

conducted with various collaborators, as well as from reviews of the

relevant secondary literature.

5

As we know, since 9–11, aid has become very much a tool in the

global war on terrorism. Yet, in my interactions with Pakistanis

since 9–11, many persons have communicated a deep awareness of

and, quite frankly, discomfort with Washington’s instrumentalism

of its assistance, as I note at length in my written statement.

Pakistanis complain bitterly about the modalities of USAID, noting the provision of large sums of cash without significant oversight and monitoring actually fosters corruption. This has fostered

a deep cynicism that Washington explicitly seeks to ensure that

Pakistan remains weak, riddled by corruption, and more vulnerable

to international pressure, generally, and that of the United States,

in particular.

As I described in my written statement, beliefs about corruption,

in some measure, drive Pakistani popular support for Sharia, and

that draws from the survey work that I have done recently. It is

not clear that these perceptions can be managed through a public

diplomacy campaign, howsoever sophisticated.

Arguably, if the United States wishes to move public opinion in

Pakistan, it will have to change how it works with Pakistan, and

engages its citizenry.

Moving forward, considerations for future USAID programming

in Pakistan, it is certainly, as you noted, easier to identify the

problem, than it is to offer effective solutions. Yet, I present a number of steps and considerations that may be useful as USAID reconsiders its future aid-delivering mechanisms in Pakistan.

First, there is a dire need to better discern Pakistani preferences.

USAID personnel have conceded that the pressures to execute does

not allow effort to discern Pakistanis’ preferences, which is critical

to generally demand-driven programming. This results in supply

driven programming that may not address the needs and aspirations of Pakistanis, and even engender frustration with the foreigndriven agenda. I provide lengthy examples of current efficiency in

this regard, in my written statement.

Equally important, USAID does not collect data to inform their

branding decisions, which is absolutely strange, given the technical

expertise to do this sort of market research in Pakistan. There is

a shocking paucity of robust data about Pakistanis, generally, the

views they have on a wide range of domestic and foreign policies,

the sources of information that Pakistanis access and which inform

their views, and the legitimacy and trustworthiness of various

sources of information.

For years, development economists have debated the vices and

virtues of community-based development programming. Unfortunately, there is no obvious way to resolve the debate between community-based development and those provided through sub-national, or even national channels, because there are really no robust studies of the relative benefits of any of these mechanisms.

World Bank analysts Mansuri and Rao have conducted an extensive review of community-based development projects. And they

conclude that the success of these initiatives depend critically upon

local, cultural, and social systems.

And, ‘‘It is, therefore, best done not with wholesale application of

best practices applied from projects that were successful in other

contexts, but by careful learning by doing. This requires a longVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:47 May 26, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\65128.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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term horizon, and willingness to engage in a monitoring-and-evaluation process that is not only rigorous, but is designed to allow

for learning and program modification.’’

This description is exactly what USAID seems ill-positioned to

do. Yet, the literature suggests it is not a luxury, but rather a necessity.

It is worth reflecting upon the role of NGO’s, in particular—certainly, since you mentioned them—given that one likely movement

away from a large institutional-contractor approach, with their

high overhead, may be to increasingly rely on Pakistan-based

NGO’s.

I think many people on this panel can attest that NGO’s are seen

with considerable dubiety in Pakistan, ranging from, ‘‘the personal

hobby of elite housewives,’’ to, ‘‘mechanisms to basically take

money from the U.S. tax dollars, and put them into the pockets of

those that run those NGO’s.’’

So it is absolutely critical that USAID discern which NGO’s are

credible and, most importantly, which ones are seen as credible. In

my testimony, I suggest that it might be useful for USAID to set

up the kind of mechanism that we have here in the states that

puts transparency into NGO’s—the way they use expenditures,

their service delivery and so forth.

Those sorts of systems might be able to, over time, increase public confidence in NGO’s because they can discern more credibly

which ones do their job and which ones are basically rent-seeking

organizations.

But there are other potential problems associated with using

NGO’s—and I cite some studies of this in my testimony—mainly

the civil-society organizations. Sorry for the abbreviation. Civil-society organizations that rely upon external funders oddly enough

become less capable of mobilizing social capital in strengthening

their civil societies. And that is because their constituencies become

the funders, not memberships. So this is certainly a principal-agent

problem that USAID will have to deal with if they pursue programming through NGO’s.

One of the methods that I have advocated with my World Bank

colleagues is actually using the markets and generating demand for

change. One of the examples that I give pertains to education.

Given the pervasive problems with some important ministries,

USAID may want to consider pursuing private-sector solutions to

public-sector problems, which are better pursued, quite frankly, by

Pakistanis.

I look at the education-sector reform. And I argue that Washington has very little scope to change either the madrassa curriculum,

or the public-school curriculum. And, in fact, Washington’s effort to

do so is really seen as efforts to de-Islamize. And this has produced

a number of backlashes against U.S. efforts, which I have written

about, at least, elsewhere.

One of the things that the World Bank has actually done in experiment is that they provide report cards for student and teacher

and school performance. And what is interesting—when there is a

cost-neutral way, parents actually shift to private schools. There is

a lot of misunderstandings about private schools and their cost

structures. As I say in my testimony, private schools are the fastVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:47 May 26, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\65128.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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est-growing segment in Pakistan. They are actually one of the most

efficient ways of delivering a higher-quality education, for reasons

I discuss at length.

Another way forward that work suggests to me is actually information-based programming. What USAID does, in many cases, is

it tries to supply a reform from some sort of government agency.

The example I give in my testimony is corruption. So efforts to

clean up corruption, be it in the police or in a particular ministry,

are likely to fail because Pakistanis themselves are part of the corruption system.

So any mechanism that engages in civic education to sort of communicate to Pakistanis that they, themselves, participate in the

corruption problem—that corruption is not simply done to them—

might be a way of buttressing the supply driven aid—so, in other

words, trying to create demand to support the supply driven effort.

The final set of issues that I look at, given that aid has been

securitized, especially since 9–11—but one could make the argument that aid to Pakistan has been securitized since 1947—is that

there is simply no evidence that demonstrates that securitized aid

actually meets these objectives.

I provide two examples that were conducted by a team led by

Jacob Shapiro at Stanford, and his colleagues. And he uses the case

of Iraq. And I want to note that he has to use the Commander

Emergency Response Program funds because USAID funds were so

encumbered with multilayers of contracting that it simply made

doing the analysis impossible, whereas CERP was actually much

more direct in assessing its outcomes.

What they found with the CERP funds is that delivering community service actually resulted in a a modest decrease in violence;

but that the monitoring and the understanding requirements of

achieving this modest result were really quite onerous.

In contrast, in a similar study that he did with his colleagues on

unemployment in Iraq, he actually found that unemployment was

negatively correlated with violence. So, in other words, the more

unemployment there was, the less violence there was.

So if you look at the literature, you will find that there is, ‘‘simply not evidence,’’ it says, that ‘‘securitized aid achieves the objectives that are specified in various documents, putting aid as a part

of the counterinsurgency problem. I think Dr. Wilder’s experience

certainly buttresses that.

So, in conclusion, a review of the literature, coupled with my own

experience in the country, does suggest that there is no magic bullet, and there is no substitute for experimentation and rigorous

evaluation. Indeed, there is a strong argument to be made for experimenting with different forms of aid delivery—through NGO’s,

through sub-national, as well as national, means, and different levels of involvement of local communities, as well as oversight mechanisms.

In subjecting these pilot programs to robust assessment, preferably with some degree of randomization to determine the impact

of these interventions on the treatment group—effective programs

should be retained and applied to other areas with appropriate

analysis and re-optimization. And ineffective programs—and, heavens knows, there are quite a bit of those—should be eliminated unVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:47 May 26, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\65128.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
8

less they can be implemented successfully elsewhere in the country, with suitable modification.

Admittedly, this will be difficult for USAID, given the pressure

that the Nation is under to execute programs, permission and priorities, given the security environment, as well as the potential

ethical concerns about risks inherent in fielding different experimental programs in different areas. But I want to point out there

is no a priori way of knowing that the non-randomized approaches

that they currently use offer any benefit at all.

Given the frustration that Pakistanis have expressed about U.S.

intentions, and the explicit securitization of aid, it is important to

assess whether the benefits of USAID interventions in mitigating

violence and anti-Americanism are sufficiently significant in size

and scope relative to the public-relations problems such securitized

aid appears to pose. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Fair follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. I note that we are one-third of the way through,

without the silver bullet. So we have to keep moving on this.

Dr. Wilder, please.

STATEMENT OF ANDREW WILDER

Mr. WILDER. Distinguished members of the committee, thank you

for asking me to testify today. I was born in Pakistan—lived,

worked and studied there for about 30 years. So the topic of today’s

hearing is something that is important to me personally, as well as

professionally.

I have firsthand seen some of the very positive effects of U.S. aid

to Pakistan. But I have also seen some of the damage done to the

U.S. image in Pakistan, as well as to development efforts in Pakistan, of the sort of feast-and-famine approach to development aid

to Pakistan.

These feasts and famines, I argue, have both been harmful. And

they result from what I believe is a misplaced faith in the effectiveness of aid in promoting security objectives, rather than just development objectives.

My testimony today is based on a study I am doing at the Feinstein Center, basically looking at the issue of: How effective is aid

in promoting security objectives? And our main finding to date is

that, while development assistance can be very effective in promoting humanitarian and development objectives, there is actually remarkably little evidence that it is effective in winning hearts and

minds, and promoting security objectives.

Developing an aid program first and foremost to achieve security

objectives rather than development often fails to achieve either.

And I will argue that it, in some cases, can actually do more harm

than good.

U.S. national security interests have always have a major influence over our foreign-aid programs, and how our foreign-aid dollars

get spent. But I think, not since Vietnam have we seen aid so explicitly viewed as a weapons system, especially in

counterinsurgency contexts. And I think this is illustrated by the

recent publication in April of this year by the U.S. Army of the

handbook called, ‘‘The Commander’s Guide to Money as a Weapons

System,’’ which provides guidance on how to use money to ‘‘win the

hearts and minds of the indigenous population to facilitate defeating the insurgents.’’

This assumption that aid can win hearts and minds is widely

held by policymakers and practitioners alike. And it is having a

major impact on our aid policies, as well as our counterinsurgency

policies. It is resulting in a sharp increase in aid to countries like

Pakistan and Afghanistan. And it has also resulted, within those

countries, in a disproportionate amount of aid being programmed

to the most insecure areas, rather than secure areas.

So when I am doing my research in Afghanistan, in the central

and northern parts of the country, you often hear bitter complaints

from Afghans there, as to, ‘‘Why are we being penalized for being

peaceful?’’ because the lion’s share of U.S. development aid is programmed to the insecure regions of the south and southeast.

And we see a similar thing in FATA—the $750 million over 5

years to FATA—the federally administered tribal areas—where

30

only 2 percent of Pakistan’s population live—I, think, also reflects

that tendency.

And I think policymakers should be aware that given how widespread this assumption is, and given its powerful impact on our aid

and our counterinsurgency policies, there is remarkably little evidence to actually show that aid is an effective weapons system, or

is effective in winning hearts and minds in contexts like Pakistan

and Afghanistan.

I think the Pakistan earthquake response is a very good example

of this. I was personally involved in that. I saw firsthand the tremendous response of Pakistani citizens, first of all, the Pakistan

army, and the international community, led by the United States,

to what was a very effective humanitarian response to the earthquake.

The United States was the single largest donor to that response—$510 million was fairly rapidly programmed, as well as 23

helicopters—provided lifesaving assistance in the aftermath of the

earthquake.

I think the United States would have responded with humanitarian aid to a disaster of that magnitude anywhere in the world;

however, there is no doubt that the scale of the response in Pakistan was affected by the desire to win hearts and minds and gain

additional support from a war-on-terror ally.

The Wall Street Journal, in an editorial shortly after the earthquake, referred to this as, ‘‘One of America’s most significant

hearts-and-minds successes so far in the Muslim world.’’ And there

is a widespread perception that this response did win hearts and

minds.

I am arguing, though, that, in reality, that benefit was actually

quite minimal. A public-opinion poll done just a month after the

earthquake did show a sharp boost in Pakistani public opinion toward the United States from—it went from 23 percent prior to the

earthquake, to 46 percent; however, the next time that poll was

done—6 months later—public opinion was back down to 26 percent.

And, then, the Pew CERP poll showed it was down to 15 percent.

And, today, I think we are around 16 percent.

So, again, there maybe was a very short-term benefit to that

$500 million in earthquake response, but not long-term.

And I think the point there is that was an incredibly effective

humanitarian response, but with limited hearts-and-minds benefit.

My research from Afghanistan shows similar results. We have

found that Afghanistan development aid, carefully programmed,

can have very effective and positive development outcomes. But

there is very little evidence that the billions now being spent on aid

to Afghanistan is actually translating into significant hearts-andminds benefits or stabilization benefits.

At a time when more aid is being given to Afghanistan than ever

before in its history, the popular perception of aid in Pakistan is

nearly universally negative.

Our field research in Afghanistan not only shows that aid is not

winning hearts and minds, and having a stabilizing effect, but the

sheer volume of that aid, especially in the insecure areas, can actually have destabilizing effects.

31

There are many ways in which it can do that—aid can create

winners and losers in that zero-sum society, or perceptions of winners and losers. There is mounting evidence about how the political

economy of aid and security contracting can actually result in significant amounts of money ending up being paid to the Taliban by

construction companies as protection money for their road-building

and other construction projects in these insecure areas.

But the most important way in which I think aid is destabilizing

in Afghanistan is its role in fueling corruption. And it is nearly inevitable in a highly insecure area with limited implementation and

oversight capacity that large amounts of aid in those areas are

going to fuel corruption.

This corruption, in turn, has a very corrosive, I think, and destabilizing effect, by reducing the legitimacy of the Afghan government. And while donors in the United States and people are rightly

criticizing the Afghan government in terms of its not cracking

down on corruption, I think we need to be looking at ourselves, because our aid money is contributing to that problem by, I think,

providing too much with too little oversight, in that context.

Although I have not done the research in FATA yet—but I suspect that—and similar environment, a highly insecure area in the

border regions of Pakistan—large amounts of aid could also have

similar effects.

So, in conclusion, I believe that prioritization since the 1960’s, actually, of security over development objectives has been one of the

main factors undermining the effectiveness of U.S. development aid

to Pakistan.

And with the passage of the $7.5 billion Kerry-Lugar Bill, an

amount that exceeds the total U.S. aid spending since the start of

this program in 1951 through 2007, it is more important than ever

before to question how U.S. aid to Pakistan can be spent more effectively and accountably.

With U.S. foreign aid now explicitly viewed as a weapons system

in counterinsurgency contexts, before appropriating billions more

dollars, I urge this subcommittee and Congress to demand more

evidence that it is an effective weapons system. It is hard to imagine that the United States would go to battle with any other weapons system whose effectiveness is based to such a great extent on

unproven assumptions and wishful thinking. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wilder follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Dr. Wilder. I appreciate that.

Dr. Ahmed.

STATEMENT OF SAMINA AHMED

Ms. AHMED. Thank you, Mr. Chairman—a pleasure to be here

and to testify at this very important hearing.

Let me start off by saying that: Is U.S. aid desirable in the Pakistani context? Yes, it is. Is it needed in the Pakistani context? Yes,

it is. How effective will that assistance be? That will depend on the

mechanisms that are used to provide that assistance. That will also

depend on the oversight of that assistance by the U.S. Government,

but also by the U.S.-Pakistani counterparts.

If these counterparts are indeed representative of their communities, are themselves accountable, and the processes that are used

are transparent, then, this assistance that has been allocated to

Pakistan—the $1.5 billion a year, under the Enhanced Partnership

with Pakistan Act, as well as the $750 million, of which, we know,

very little, as yet, has been spent on FATA—would that be effective? I don’t think there is absolutely any doubt about it.

The problem lies in the fact that we are looking at assistance in

the Pakistani context; also, in the context of Pakistan’s relationship

with the United States in particular. Relations with the United

States in the last 10 years—Pakistani perceptions were shaped by

U.S. assistance to a military regime, which is why this still is important—which is why, also, as this committee knows, they want

a push-back by those institutions within Pakistan that feel

strengthening civilian partners would undermine their own internal standing.

Specifically in the context of FATA, let me just say this: Having

spoken to FATA representatives, having spoken to FATA stakeholders, folks who belong and live and will be the recipients of this

community—do they want it? Yes, they do. Do they believe that it

is going to be effective? Under the present circumstances, no, they

don’t.

Is that because there is a flaw in the way assistance is being provided? I go into great detail in the testimony on the problems that

USAID and its implementing partners face in FATA itself. And the

real problem in the fact that this assistance cannot be delivered as

effectively as it should lies in the larger political framework that

exists, the mechanisms—the bureaucratic mechanisms that are

there in place.

If there is no political reform—and we have stressed upon that

very strongly—this is a civilian government. It is an elected government. It understands the importance of reaching out to the communities; it also understands the importance of winning the peace.

But without that reform agenda—and the first beginnings of that

reform agenda have just been suggested—there has been a pushback, again, by the military, as far as this reform agenda is concerned.

Until there is political reform in FATA—USAID and its implementing partners—it doesn’t matter if they are local NGO’s, international NGO’s, or beltway bandits—are going to have to work

through the FATA secretary, through the FATA development authority, and the political agents. This entire bureaucracy and its

42

clients do not have any links to the community, nor have they any

interest in consulting the communities.

Let me also say this: While we are talking about what is happening within the FATA context, we have a very large proportion—almost a third of the residents of FATA—who are now internally displaced because of the conflict, because of military operations, because they are caught between the military and the militants.

Delivering assistance to these communities, I think, is one way

to reach the communities that are still within FATA. It is a mechanism that can be used. What will be important is for everybody, I

think, to understand that as these operations end—when they end

and how they end—also matter. If they are just going to see militant leaders moving from one agency to the other to make a return,

with no safety and security for residents—it is not going to make

any difference.

If there is no comprehensive relief, secure return and reconstruction plan for the IDPs, with U.S. assistance, the civilian government will lose whatever credibility it has. So that need for political

reform and the importance of making sure that the political structures in FATA are, indeed, accountable and transparent means

that there needs to be, first, support for the reform agenda, which

is just the beginnings of opening the doors to political reform in

FATA—but also an understanding that unless these—there are

mechanisms that are put in place for community and civil-society

participation, as well as—and let me emphasize this—with the

elected representatives of the Pakistani parliament in the province—Northwest Frontier Province—and in the center—in the national assembly—that is, I think, a mechanism that has, of yet, not

been used, and could be used to far greater effectiveness.

These are folks who know, as indeed, Members of the Congress

do, the needs of their constituents. These are also people who are

accountable to those constituents and will win or lose elections

based on their performance.

Bringing them into the process of aid delivery in terms of oversight would make a huge difference. Insecurity will be used also,

deliberately, to deprive even those international humanitarian organizations and development organizations that would want to risk

going into these insecure conflict zones. And there, I think, again,

international humanitarian law is something which is absolutely

essential when we are looking at how this conflict is playing out.

Preparing the ground for a safe and secure return for the IDPs—

and we talked about the situation after the earthquake—let us not

forget what happened after the earthquake. Right after the earthquake, the relief and reconstruction that was supposed to take

place was taken over by a military apparatus. There was no link

to the community. There was no understanding of the needs of the

people. That is what we don’t want to see happen again in these

conflict zones as people begin to return home; and, indeed, millions

already have in Malakand Division.

On the whole, as far as the entire project is concerned of USAID

assistance—there are going to be difficult choices. There are no silver bullets, unfortunately. But what does matter is that if they see

transparency, accountability, and the mechanisms—the democratic

institutions and mechanisms that are there now, in this nascent

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democracy, being utilized by the American partners on the

ground—that is, possibly, an effective way to go. Thank you, sir.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Ahmed follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Well, thank you, Doctor. I appreciate that. And,

again, you were very helpful to us when we were actually there,

getting some insight into the Northwest Frontier Province and

FATA.

I have to say, it is not entirely encouraging to listen to what we

have heard this morning, nor was it that encouraging, frankly, during our visit—a little short of a week that we spent there, talking

to any number of parties. It made some of us wonder—this

‘‘securitization of aid,’’ I think, is the way that Dr. Fair put it in

her testimony—this whole counterinsurgency theory that if we

somehow meld the security aspect with the development aspect,

and we are going to contain and combat and mitigate terrorism—

it doesn’t seem to have a great deal of validity in terms of studies

or reports or any evidence to support it.

It doesn’t seem to promote peace. It doesn’t seem to be mitigating

any conflicts. It certainly doesn’t seem to be dissuading populations

from embracing extremism. And, in fact, if I listen to Dr. Wilder

and Dr. Fair, in particular, it seems to be fomenting distrust and

encouraging rampant theories of U.S. animus toward Pakistanis, in

fact. It makes us wonder whether or not we are wrong, when we

look at our approach to counterinsurgency policy.

Do you see, Dr. Wilder—your work is directly contradicting the

counterinsurgency theories that are abounding?

Mr. WILDER. It is questioning a central tenet of the

counterinsurgency strategy. And I think there has been very much

focus, and all the debate is on troop numbers. But in the coined

mantra of ‘‘clear, hold, build,’’ the build piece actually doesn’t get

much questioning.

And I want to emphasize I have been a development worker most

of my life. I am a strong believer in the importance of development

and development aid. But I think that, you know, we shouldn’t assume that development aid can defeat these—or have a big impact

on what is driving conflict in some of these contexts.

And we are hoping to shift our research more into Pakistan during this coming year. But if you look at what is driving conflict in

Afghanistan, but I also suspect in the border regions, it is actually,

I think, not, first and foremost, poverty or lack of infrastructure or

lack of social services. All those things are important, and we

should be trying to address those because those are important for

development’s sake.

But those are not the things fueling the conflict. So I don’t think

we should assume that by spending hundreds of millions of dollars

quickly in a context like that, it is going to change the conflict dynamic. And, as I said, what is alarming from Afghanistan is, indeed, that actually that assumption is exacerbating the problem by

fueling corruption, which I think is a big issue that de-legitimizes

governments and actually creates instability.

Mr. TIERNEY. I ask this of all three of you—would I be

misreading your collective testimony if I said that I see in there

some indication that we ought to sever the concept of development

and aid from security? We ought to make sure that we take the

time to collect the data, analyze it and implement the best delivery

model—or whether or not any particular NGO or series of NGO’s

are the best people, or the government is the best people to deliver

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it—and recognize sort of a need for having quality projects with

great impact, as opposed to a large number of projects and a quick

disbursement of the money.

Dr. Ahmed, is that a fair statement to——

Ms. AHMED. There needs to be a framework within which aid is

dispersed. Let me say this: From my experience in Afghanistan—

and I have worked in Afghanistan since—actually, for the last 25

years, but I have had a standing office in Afghanistan since January 2002—our concern was with that big project, that ring road, all

that money put into that one high-profile project, when the needs

were quite different on the ground. So I do think that one needs

to do a little bit of a balancing act before all the money is put in—

for example, in the Pakistani context, as is being suggested—into

either energy or water—one high-profile $200 million project, without actually understanding the politics and more.

And I think it is going to be crucial—let me just say about one

issue—water. This is the most contentious of resources within

Pakistan. It is the Federal framework. All four Federal units are,

you know, basically, fighting over a very scarce resource.

So doing the homework beforehand, and then determining if this

is going to be desirable, without the kind of consultation you need

on the ground—I would hesitate to go down that road.

Mr. TIERNEY. Doctor.

Mr. WILDER. If I could just—I would—I also wanted to emphasize that—I am not saying that there is not going to be an effect

anywhere. I think you need to do that research, and look at each

individual context, because they differ. It could be that conflict in

some country is actually generated due to disputes over natural resources.

And a very conflict-sensitive aid programs that looks to try to address that, where the different competing communities can—you

can have a win-win situation. In that context, aid could mitigate,

you know, a conflict there.

My point is, though, in Pakistan-Afghanistan context, I don’t see

that those are the main factors driving the insurgency and, therefore, will not be the main factors that mitigate them.

And just in terms of the aid effectiveness, I think when we are

trying to spend it to achieve the security objective, as the security

gets worse and worse, we try to spend more and more. And that

is what we see in Afghanistan. We see no evidence that where we

have spent most of our money the security has gotten any better.

If anything, it has gotten a lot worse.

And I am not arguing causality there, but I think it creates this

vicious link.

Mr. TIERNEY. Yes, I mean, I think there is a lot of political pressure coming from this country, and the policymakers here or whatever, thinking that because we have had such theories of

counterinsurgency put out there now, and the idea of tying this development into security—we have this notion that, well, giving a

large amount of money has to go to work tomorrow; we have to see

something happening tomorrow.

And, unfortunately, what we have seen happening is spending,

but not necessarily results.

Mr. Flake.

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Mr. FLAKE. Go ahead. Did you have something to say? Go ahead

and——

Mr. TIERNEY. No, fine. Mr. Flake is going to do that. And we will

give him a little more time on the other side, so that is good.

Mr. FLAKE. Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thanks.

Go ahead, yes.

Ms. FAIR. So, in April, with my colleagues, we conducted a 6,000-

person survey which is—allows us to——

Mr. LYNCH. I am sorry. Mr. Chairman, could you——

Ms. FAIR [continuing]. Talk about things——

Mr. LYNCH. Could you pull your mic out just a little bit?

Ms. FAIR. Oh, I am sorry.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you.

Ms. FAIR. So, in April, with various colleagues, I conducted a survey of 6,000 Pakistanis, which allow us a lot of granularity at the

sub-national level. We were explicitly looking at: Why do Pakistanis support different militant groups?

And what we have really come—what we have drawn from that

survey—and I am happy to present different results to you, if you

are interested—it is really about the politics of the militant groups.

And they distinguish across the different militant groups, ranging

from the Kashmiri groups, all the way down the Al Qaida, the Afghan Taliban, and the sectarian groups.

And it is not driven by economics in any consistent way. It is not

driven by educational background in any consistent way. In fact,

those variables behave very differently when you look at different

militant groups.

So when I look at all of the policy documents that drive USAID,

using securitized aid as a part of COIN, I myself cited the interagency COIN manual. Again, there is just no evidence. It seems to

be driven by the politics of these militant groups in whether or not

people support what those groups do.

Mr. FLAKE. Thank you.

Dr. Ahmed, you had talked about, obviously, the problem in

FATA, in particular making use of the existing government officials

and institutions within government, as opposed to international

NGO’s. I mean, understanding that we need to move quickly there,

how do we do it? And, then this kind of goes into what Dr. Fair

talked about in her written testimony, about—you know, you ought

to have two tests—whether somebody is trustworthy in the eyes of

the U.S. taxpayer, for example, or the U.S. Government, and

whether they are trustworthy in terms of the target population

there.

How do you balance that in FATA, recognizing although it is a

small segment of the population, it is a troublesome area where we

do want to win hearts and minds, or whatever you want to say.

But recognizing we have to move quickly, how do you balance the

need to target the population directly there, and make use of organizations or institutions that are up and going? Or are there sufficient NGO’s that are ready to move, that we can ignore the troublesome elected officials or appointed officials, or whoever is within

government there?

Do you want to illuminate a little, in FATA, in particular?

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Ms. AHMED. FATA is a case apart from the rest of Pakistan. And

I think that is one thing that could—should be recognized from the

outset. The bureaucracy we are talking about in FATA is a separate bureaucracy because of the way that it is kept apart from the

rest of the country in constitutional terms.

The reason why this bureaucracy is in absolute control of whatever happens on the ground is because of the rules of the political,

constitutional, and legal game. And that is why this bureaucracy

is such an impediment. It is the least transparent. It is the least

responsive to local community needs because it doesn’t have to be.

You know, FATA residents have no political rights, no civil

rights, no legal rights because of the structures that are there in

place. Our concern is if you want to—if the assumption is that the

government of Pakistan is who we should be working with, yes.

The government of Pakistan is actually the provincial government.

It is a Federal Government.

And, then, you have a very separate sub-sect of that government,

which is the FATA bureaucracy. Our concern is——

Mr. FLAKE. Does——

Ms. AHMED [continuing]. In the specific context of FATA, is this

bureaucracy going to be an efficient way of dispersing assistance

that will reach the communities? This bureaucracy doesn’t even

have any links to the communities. It works through its own clients.

Are there NGO’s, local or international, that have a track record

of working on FATA? Yes, there are. Do they have the capacity of

dealing with large amounts of money? No, they don’t.

So one will really have to look at how you can factor in—how do

you actually consult the communities? There are elected representatives from FATA. They don’t have legal parts under the present

political setup. But they have some links to their constituencies—

not great.

There is the Northwest Frontier Province, let us not forget. I

think Dr. Wilder talked about this. Let us not forget that, you

know, there are links between these areas.

It is an artificial distinction between FATA and the rest of the

Northwest Frontier Province. And, there are no real security issues

involved in actually ensuring that you can access the leadership of

FATA civil society.

Do you know there is a FATA union of journalists, a FATA union

of lawyers. It is not as though there is no civil society and no community that can be accessed. If you work specifically only through

this bureaucracy, you will lose that opportunity of accessing the

communities completely.

Mr. FLAKE. All right.

I mean, we have a problem in Pakistan, in general, with—when

aid is delivered via the government, that the target population

views that skeptically, because they don’t trust, particularly, some

of the military institutions. You are saying that is even more so in

the FATA, because they don’t have the links to the target population, so it is——

Ms. AHMED. Absolutely.

Mr. FLAKE [continuing]. Even more difficult.

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Ms. AHMED. And more so, let us not forget, as far as the IDPs

are concerned—and that is a huge number of FATA residents that

can be accessed today, if need be.

Mr. FLAKE. Right.

Ms. AHMED. The military presents access—full humanitarian access or access to development agencies—to these communities—and

I think that is a clear message that should be sent from Washington—that when we give our money—our taxpayers’ money—we are

not going to give it to institutions that are not transparent, that

are not accountable. And we, certainly, have no intention of bypassing the communities that will be the beneficiaries of this assistance.

Mr. FLAKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Luetkemeyer? You are recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In our paper on this, it indicates that aid to Pakistan is divided

into five different categories—economic growth, educational, health,

governance, and human assistance, as well as major assistance

with the development of the FATA areas.

Can you give me a breakdown of—any of the three of you—whoever wants to jump in on this—with regards to these categories—

the amount of money that we are spending on each one, the importance of that? Is one of a higher importance than the other—you

have pretty well touched on our problems with the FATA folks—

and the ability to use those funds?

Yes, Dr. Fair.

Ms. FAIR. Yes, unfortunately, I don’t have the numbers with me.

But one of the things—and it pertains to the FATA issue—that I

have been particularly dismayed by—and I know Dr. Ahmed and,

I think, Dr. Wilder, have remarked upon this as well—is that the

aid was never conditional upon encouraging the Pakistani government to change the constitutional structure that governs FATA.

And one of the things that strikes me where USAID might be

more effective is actually helping the Pakistani government make

that transition. So, for example, while there are civil-society organizations, the judicial system hasn’t been linked to the rest of Pakistan, because there is no right of appeal. There are no police in

FATA. There are these highly unprofessional tribal levies. And, of

course, the Frontier Corps is a paramilitary organization.

It has always struck me that the more effective way of trying to

reach FATA has actually been to incentivize the Pakistan government to incorporate FATA into the rest of Pakistan, as opposed to

keeping it separate.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Is that where most of the money is going

now—to the government of this area?

I mean, does any of the money go to the rest of the Pakistani

people?

Ms. FAIR. Oh, there is a huge aid program——

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. OK.

Ms. FAIR [continuing]. Apart from——

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. What percentage, then, goes to the development of FATAs areas?

Do you have any idea, just roughly?

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Ms. FAIR. There is $750 million that has been going to FATA.

And that is in addition to an additional security-assistance program that is supposed to be arming the Frontier Corps.

So relative to the rest of the programming in Pakistan, it is actually relatively modest. But you know, it is interesting; when you

talk to Pakistanis—you know, because USAID can’t be subtle about

its aid objectives in FATA. So Pakistanis have this belief that they

are largely only operating in FATA. And that fuels this additional

conspiracy about the securitization of aid—that if you weren’t in

Afghanistan, you wouldn’t care about FATA.

So, in other words, ‘‘You don’t care about Pakistan. You care

about FATA because of the insurgency.’’ But——

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. So what you are saying, you know, is that

most of the money goes to other areas of Pakistan, for economic

growth, health and other things like that. And my question, I

guess, is: How effective are we?

And, I mean, we—the FATA—the issue has been that—you

know, dominating the discussion, here. What about the rest of the

aid for the rest of the country, and the areas that it is supposed

to go into, such as economic growth, health, governance, humanitarian assistance? Does it go to those areas? Is it effective?

Ms. FAIR. Well, they don’t know, because they don’t do those

evaluations. And that is what I find so frustrating that you say——

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. And when you say ‘‘they don’t do those evaluations,’’ who are you talking about?

Ms. FAIR. Yes—USAID really doesn’t evaluate the impact of its

programs. You know, they will talk about how many schools they

have built. But, for example, there is no real meaningful measure

of how the quality of education has been improved. So there is this

tendency to focus upon outputs, not outcomes.

And, in fairness to USAID, evaluations are expensive, especially

when conducted through institutional contractors. And at the risk

of, you know, projecting self-interest, I think USAID should be

partnering more with the academic community because, A, they

have more luxurious timelines. They have a more competitive cost

structure. And they actually have the academic expertise—I am

talking about quantitative analysts, in particular—to help them

isolate the impacts of their programming upon outcomes.

And so the other alternative to think about is actually partnering

USAID with programs, for example, like what Dr. Wilder does, as

opposed to relying upon these institutional contractors. I have seen

institutional contractors grade other institutional contractors’

homework.

And when there is a limited corral of these contractors, it is pretty easy to tell who has done what analysis. And it is just game theory. You know, everyone is basically going to say that every program did, more or less, a good job, because they don’t want to,

then, be subjected to a negative critique by another institutional

contractor for their programming.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. So what you are saying is there are no measurable—there has been no measurement of the outcomes of the programs to date, with regards to the other folks here, with regards

to economic activity, health?

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In other words, there is no—there has been no discussion of how

many shots have been delivered, how many more doctor visits—

how many people have been taken to the doctor——

Ms. FAIR. But those are outputs, not outcomes.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. You know, whether the birth rate has increased, or whether the cause of other diseases have gone down?

None of that has been quantitatively measured?

Ms. FAIR. Well, you can measure outputs. Like, they can say how

many schools they have built and how many teachers they have

trained. But they can’t talk about outcomes, which is the quality,

for example, of the education.

The other problem is that because they don’t randomize interventions—so, for example, let us—right now, they are really focusing

on particular districts that are affected by insecurity. So since we

are putting more money into more insecure areas—and this is what

Dr. Wilder talked about—we are always going to have a causality

that more insecurity is correlated with more money being spent.

And it is very difficult to disentangle that because they are not

putting money into areas that are least secure. So, in other words,

if they were to randomize their intervention, they could actually

isolate the effect of the intervention. But for political reasons, and

for mission-driven reasons, they don’t feel that they have the luxury to do that. But, yet, it is absolutely essential to generally determining the impact of an intervention.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. OK. Thank you. I see my time is up.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Duncan, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I don’t really have any questions, but I do have some comments.

I want to read something from a Washington Post story of October

8th. In this story, it said, ‘‘The Obama administration’s strategy for

bolstering Pakistan’s civilian government was shaken Wednesday

when political opposition and military leaders there sharply criticized a new U.S. assistance plan as interfering with the country’s

sovereignty. Although President Obama has praised the $7.5 billion

5-year aid program approved by Congress last week, Pakistani officials have objected to provisions that require U.S. monitoring of

this package.’’ That was in October.

Then, on November 1st, when Secretary Clinton was visiting

there, the Los Angeles Times had this in one of their stories: ‘‘At

a televised town-hall meeting in Islamabad, the capital, on Friday,

a woman in a mostly female audience characterized U.S. dronemissile strikes on suspected terrorist targets in Northwestern Pakistan as de facto acts of terrorism. A day earlier, in Lahore, a college student asked Clinton why every student who visits the

United States is viewed as a terrorist.

‘‘The opinions Clinton heard weren’t the strident voices of radical

clerics or politicians with anti-U.S. agendas. Some of the most biting criticisms came from well-mannered university students and respected seasoned journalists, a reflection of the breadth of dissatisfaction Pakistanis have with U.S. policy toward their country.’’

Then, December 3rd, in the Washington Post: ‘‘President

Obama’s new strategy for combating Islamist insurgents in AfghanVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:47 May 26, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00062 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\65128.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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istan fell on skeptical ears Wednesday in next-door Pakistan—a

much larger nuclear-armed state—that Obama said was at the core

of the plan, and had even more at stake than Afghanistan.’’

What I am getting at is this: This weekend, I participated with

14 members from the House—and there were 26 members from

various European parliaments—in New York City, at what is called

the Transatlantic Legislative Dialogue.

The chairman of the European delegation, actually, at one point,

criticized the United States—and all these people were very nice

people—but he criticized the United States for not spending enough

on foreign aid.

And, for many years, I have heard people say that, ‘‘Well, foreign

aid is only a little over 1 percent of our entire budget.’’ Yet, they

don’t stop to think that about half of what the Department of Defense does now is just pure foreign aid. We have almost turned the

Department of Defense into the Department of Foreign Aid, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We are spending money to do things in other countries through

every department and agency of the Federal Government. That is

foreign aid that we don’t get credit for. We are actually spending

hundreds of billions in other countries, and—or have spent hundreds of billions in, really, pure foreign aid, over the last several

years.

And I asked a few days ago for the latest figure from the Congressional Research Service on how much aid we had given to

Pakistan over the last few years, since 2003. This wouldn’t even

count all the money that has been given through all these other departments and agencies. But people also don’t realize that, in addition to the traditional foreign-aid program, we come up with these

other bills, like the $7.5 billion one that we just passed. And, before

that, since 2003, we had given $15.439 billion—or $15.5 billion in

aid, to Pakistan.

Now, we have passed another $7.5 billion. This is money that we

can’t afford. We are over $12 trillion in debt. We have almost $60

trillion in unfunded future pension liabilities.

And, then, we come along, and we give all this money to Pakistan. And, then, what do they do? They criticize us. It seems to me

that it takes an extreme amount of gall for a country to accept

$15.5 billion in aid from us, and, now, $7.5 billion coming on top

of that, in addition to all the other things, and, then, come out with

just one anti-American statement after another.

It just really bothers me. And I would say to the leadership in

Pakistan: If they don’t like what we are doing, please turn down

this money. The problem is all these countries—Iraq, Afghanistan,

Pakistan, all of them—they all want our money. It is about money

and power. And it is not doing us any good at all. It just seems

to be increasing anti-American feelings.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Duncan.

Mr. Fortenberry, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And thank you to you all for joining us today. I am sorry I didn’t

have the benefit of your earlier testimony. Some of what I may ask

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you may appear redundant, given what you talked about earlier,

in my cursory review of some of your written comments.

But it seems to me that the outcome here is that this is a big

mess, if I could summarize it succinctly.

Dr. Wilder, I picked up on a statistic in your written testimony

that, basically, 75 percent of the aid is going to 2 percent of the

population. Is that a key finding? Is that correct?

Mr. WILDER. No. I think that was the—$750 million of U.S. assistance is going to the federally administered tribal areas, FATA,

which is—make up 2 percent of the population. But there is a

much larger USAID program as well, which is also going to other

parts of the country.

Mr. FORTENBERRY. OK. It is my understanding the total con- tribution is $1.5 billion.

Mr. WILDER. With the new Kerry-Lugar Bill, that is the pro- posal—is $1.5 billion per year, over a 5-year period. That has not

been appropriated yet.

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Yes, so framing it simply, then, half of the

money is going to a very narrow—narrowly targeted area. And that

is correct. And you have made the suggestion that the linkages between poverty mitigation and social services are not achieving—the

hearts-and-minds strategy there is not achieving security outcomes

that you would hope to be an intended consequence of capacitybuilding.

I am very much for cups-of-tea strategy, where you relationshipbuild and establish communications, establish trust—partnerships

that can lead, then, to mutual understanding and long-term continuity and capacity-building.

But given some of the complexities as to how this is targeted, as

to how it is institutionalized—it seems to me you are raising very

critical points that we may have to rethink some of this, with the

intended outcome of strengthening the partnership and alliance for

the long-term security situation of the region, not to mention the

social-justice outcomes we want to see for impoverished people

around the world.

Is that a pretty correct summary of what I have gleaned this for?

Mr. WILDER. Yes. The point I was trying to make is that there

is evidence that our development aid actually can have very positive development outcomes. I think where we don’t have the evidence is the positive security outcomes. And that is where I am arguing we probably need, in some of these contexts, to de-link those

two, and value development as a good, in and of itself, even if it

doesn’t end up making people like us.

Because FATA—the needs are tremendous. Although, I would

like to point out, it is actually not the poorest region in Pakistan.

There is things that can be done there. I personally, though, don’t

think that we can spend $750 million effectively in a 5-year timeframe in a highly insecure environment like FATA.

So I think, then, you can end up fueling corruption, and some of

your aid can end up having perverse and negative consequences. It

is not to say we shouldn’t be doing anything in FATA. It is certainly not that we shouldn’t be doing—trying to do lots in Pakistan.

But we should be very aware that where our aid—development is

good for achieving—promoting development objectives. There is not

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evidence that it is really good for promoting our security objectives

in Pakistan.

Mr. FORTENBERRY. All right. Yes, maybe I misstated that earlier.

Maybe I said 75 percent of our aid is going to 2 percent. I meant

$750 million of the aid is going to the 2 percent of it.

Mr. WILDER. Right.

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Let us unpack this a little bit further—the

other bilateral relationships that Pakistan enjoys, and, then, the

collective or cumulative effect of the aid that is pouring in there to

either further complicate your findings, assuming their objectives

are the same in terms of long-term security stabilization, as well

as social-justice outcomes—can you—can any of you give me any

insight into the other donor countries and the approaches there?

And I want to say this as well—and this dovetails with the question—it seems to me there is this raging dualism in Pakistan with

regard to the United States: ‘‘We want the money. We like your

money. But we don’t want to be your friend—maybe—except behind closed doors.’’

And so is that a distinction in terms of other bilateral relationships that the country enjoys?

Yes, Dr. Fair.

Ms. FAIR. Well, there are a couple of programs I am familiar

with.

DFID has an interesting approach. So DFID does the same kinds

of programs that we do. I believe there is coordination with DFID,

for example, taking the lead in Baluchistan. I am sorry—the British aid organization, DFID.

But they are also very interested in doing what I had suggested

in my written testimony, which is supporting their supply driven

efforts. So, for example, whatever intervention they are trying to

do, they are trying to support it with a civil-society outreach to create demand.

So the example I gave was corruption. So it is one thing to try

to clean up a particular bureaucracy or a particular service delivery. But unless you also engage in civil society to educate people

that, ‘‘Actually, while it may be efficient to pay a bribe to get a

phone line,’’ that, ‘‘in fact, it makes everyone’s lives more difficult.’’

They are really interested in trying to build this demand for

change, even while they try to supply it.

The Canadian agency CIDA is much smaller in profile. They

work primarily through NGO’s. And they seem to have a very different aid-delivery model. So one thing that USAID might want to

do is look at these different organizations.

The Japanese are also heavy investors. They have also heavily

securitized their aid. And when I have seen analysis of the Japanese aid program, there are very similar critiques to those of

USAID.

Now, Pakistan has a lot of other partners, which they tend to use

to bribe us. So, ‘‘If you don’t do XYZ for us, we will go to China.’’

Of course, they have a very important relationship with Saudi Arabia.

And it is pretty hard to discern—a lot of money through—we

can’t say that they get money from Saudi Arabia per se. They get

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money from remittances; they get money from religious organizations. So there is actually quite a bit of money going in.

You know, I have actually—one of the things that is so frustrating in dealing with the Pakistanis is that they tend to view our aid

as an entitlement. So when we cut the aid back, it is viewed as a

penalty. And because they view it as an entitlement, this issue of

sovereignty—you know, ‘‘How dare you? You say that we are your

important ally, but now you want to actually subject the way we

deal with your money to scrutiny.’’

And this has been a very longstanding problem. And it is pervasive not only in USAID. It is pervasive—we saw this with the coalition support funds—virtually any program that we have with the

Pakistanis, it is subjected to these problems.

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Mr. Chairman, if you could indulge me just

one more moment—is this a kind of a purposeful dualism, in order

to, again—because of the internal political dynamics—create a position of authority and power and legitimacy in the country, versus,

again, behind closed doors needing—actually needing the aid for

long-term governmental stability objectives?

Ms. FAIR. I actually do believe that to be the case. A really good

example of that is the drones. The reality is the drones do not kill

that many civilians. I have this from very well-placed Pakistani

sources. Their administration knows this.

The drones are run from Pakistani territory. It is done with their

permission. We are not, obviously, running drone operations in a

rogue way.

And, in fact, in Pakistan, the drone discourse has changed. During Swat, when 4 million people were being displaced—if you read

some of the op-eds, they were saying, ‘‘Why don’t we have drones,

because drones don’t displace millions of people?’’

But the civilian government, rather than taking advantage of

this, has continued to whip up anti-American sentiment over

drones. Yet, I assure you, if we stop the drone attacks, their security would be worse, not better, in my opinion.

So I think they do try to create this wedge, because it, then,

gives them an out to do less when we are asking them to do more.

And I particularly see this on the security side of things. They are

constantly asking for more. They are constantly talking about their

sacrifices, which is reasonably fair. But I think that we have not

struck a good bargain.

You know, on the main—you know, they have been marginally

satisfiers. And this is true across the board, in many of our engagements with them.

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

I want to give Dr. Ahmed a chance to talk about something here.

I think it would be helpful or—hopefully, helpful to all of us.

But when we were doing the so-called Kerry-Lugar-Berman Bill,

a number of us were adamant that there be conditions in that bill.

There was some sensitivity to try to give the civilian government

more authority, because we wanted them to extend their writ

throughout the entire country in a non-discriminatory way, and

sort of gain some ability to deal with the budget of the military,

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and to take some control over that, as most civil democracies would

have. So the conditions were put on the military money, all right?

And, basically, one of the conditions that must be met is that

they do extend their writ over the entire country if they are going

to continue to get the military assistance.

And, Dr. Ahmed, I would like you to talk a little bit about the

relationship between the military establishment and the civilian

government. Because it has been my distinct view as—and I think

you well know, and others—is that the recalcitrant here—be all

sorts of corruption issues and incompetence issues on the civilian

side. But we have some very serious issues on the military side

about just how much they want to impact all the policy decisions,

as well as the strategic and implementing decisions, and how much

control they have over it. And the push-back that you get, and how

they utilize this sort of narrative that, ‘‘Oh, you can’t put conditions

on us. You are interfering with our sovereignty. You are treating

us like a step-child,’’ and all of that—to get their way of not relinquishing authority that—in most democracies would be shared, or

primarily come from the civilian government.

Would you speak to that?

Ms. AHMED. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

You know, in all of the Q&A, the one thing that seems to have

been ignored so far is that this is a very young democratic transition. After almost a decade of military rule, you have an elected

government. And civilians might not be the—might not be the most

efficient of factors. But let us not forget they are also in government, after a very long time.

When we say ‘‘Pakistanis,’’ I think we also need to make a very

clear distinction here: Who are we talking about? Are we talking

about the elected civilian representatives, the Pakistani people, or

the military establishment?

On the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Bill—and I know

that this has been taken—taken a number of folks on the Hill by

surprise—‘‘Why is it that there was such an outcry on the military

conditionalities and, actually, certification requirements placed by

Congress?’’

It was a push-back. It should have been expected. You have a

military that is not either interested in sharing power, or in seeing

the United States actually engage with the civil, as opposed to only

the military, as an actor.

One of the reasons why you have an anti-American perception

amongst the Pakistani people is there was no engagement with the

Pakistani people for almost a decade. Why, then, is there, again,

surprise here, that there is neither any knowledge of, or any understanding, that the United States is a partner? Because they—the

Pakistani people, Pakistani civil society—have only seen U.S. Government partnered with the Pakistani military.

Here is, now, an opportunity, with a young democratic transition,

to change that equation, and to truly win hearts and minds in the

real sense of the word. And I do think Secretary Clinton’s visit to

Pakistan—yes, she faced some very difficult questioning.

And it was good because she, I think, began to understand that

a public outreach needed to have been done on an emergency basis.

And I think there will be a focus now in reaching out to the PakiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:47 May 26, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00067 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\65128.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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stani people, to an elected government, to elected institutions, as

opposed to only partnering in what was the war on terror with the

Pakistani military.

The conditionalities issue, again—you know, I personally believe

that there was not a sufficient attempt made in terms of public

outreach to inform the Pakistani public and opinion-makers that

there were no conditionalities on economic assistance.

Mr. TIERNEY. Can I just interject?

First of all, I would contest that a little bit, I think, because I

took several trips there and had a number of conversations with

those people directly. Any upset nature on that was perfectly willful on people not wanting to at that time.

But there is great control of the military—at least influence of

the military—on the media. And that was there. The media almost

exclusively sang the song of the military, and that drove public

opinion considerably on that whole notion as well. That was a large

part of the problem.

But here, we still have a problem with—and I listened to Mr.

Duncan’s comments—and they are always enlightening. You know,

he has zeroed in on some of the issues here. But people in this

country see a balance right now between what their own needs are

in terms of our economy—and they do see foreign aid as something

that, in one sense, they want to do, and they understand the implications of that—but almost a need to justify it.

And the easiest or most available way to justify it sometimes is

the security aspect of it. So I think that is where it gets tied in.

And we need to break that out and rationalize it better.

The whole idea of the—USAID’s capacity, Dr. Fair, is this: Look,

they don’t spend a lot of their money on monitoring and evaluation.

They spend a very small portion of their budget, unfortunately, visa-vis other agencies. And I think you would agree they have to

ramp them up. Am I correct?

And so we need to do that. But as long as they don’t have the

capacity—and we talked about education programs where, as you

said, they could tell the number of teachers that were in a classroom. But they had four people on their staff for the entire country

of Pakistan, to go around and evaluate the quality of the program—whether or not the teachers are actually teaching anything

worth learning, or even whether they were showing up every day.

Tell us a little bit about your remarks that you made in your

written testimony about education, and whether we ought not just

think about pulling back on education and redirecting our resources a little differently there. And I think that would be helpful

for us.

Ms. FAIR. Well, I have sort of become a fatalist on this education

issue. One, since 9–11, there was so much focus on this madrassa

stuff. Now, to be very clear, full-time madrassa utilization is actually quite rare in Pakistan. There have been a number of very interesting estimates that they aren’t supported by robust estimates,

using a variety of survey instruments.

And this has caused—well, in the madrassas, for example, that

are involved in terrorism—I view them as a law-enforcement and

intelligence problem. And they are well known to Pakistan’s intelVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:47 May 26, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00068 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\65128.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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ligence agency, because they have been using them to create militants for quite some time.

I have been, in principle, opposed to the United States trying to

get into the madrassa reform. It also undercuts those people who

are important that are seeking madrassa reform on their own, because it kind of makes them look like American, you know, lackeys.

On the public-education sector, which is a provincial subject, you

have—because of the capacity issue, trying to shove large sums of

money down a small pipe results in this outcome-driven stuff, you

know—‘‘How many teachers can we churn out?’’ There is no impact

assessment—‘‘Was there any impact on the training?’’ It is just,

‘‘How many teachers have we trained?’’

That is why I focus—I find a more interesting approach is an information-driven approach. The World Bank has done some really

interesting stuff reporting teacher absenteeism, reporting student

performance, school performance. And when there are cost-neutral

ways, parents actually shift as a result of this information.

I have also become a fan of doing what we do best. And that is

encouraging competition. The World Bank found that when there

are private schools in the mix, and when there is information about

school performance, it compels the public sector to also improve.

So I think we should probably be looking at doing what we do

best. And that is improving quality through competition. Now, this

does not mean that we should not be working with the ministries

to improve their effectiveness to deliver services. But simply relying upon those, given the pervasive problems—and, quite frankly,

they don’t want us interfering.

As you said yourself, they have resisted all sorts of monitoring.

And I think there are a number of reasons for it.

I am also somewhat skeptical of relying upon elected officials as

the silver bullet, in part because of Pakistan’s young democratic

transition, but also, in larger measure, due to the way legislators

are oriented vis-a-vis their constituents. They don’t deliver policy.

They deliver patronage.

So when you look at local governance initiatives, for example, we

supported that; although, it was really to support Musharraf, because he wanted local governance because it was a new way of patronage to create a series of supporters for his initiatives. But the

execution of aid, from what I can tell there—it really becomes—

contracts are given out to friends of the local administrators.

Again, this kind of goes back to—we really have to try a variety

of different mechanisms. All of the available mechanisms have a

number of various serious problems. And I suspect each of those

mechanisms have their own particular monitoring requirements

that would actually help them to be effective.

But the capacity at USAID—if you don’t have the capacity, it is

simply irresponsible to shove all this money down this system, because of the corruption. I have heard people complain about the

generosity of our aid because of the corruption. Whether I go to

some shopkeeper in Anarkali Bazaar in Lahore, or a newspaper

editor, they are all saying the same thing: ‘‘When you give money

on this scale to these ministries, you make things worse for us, not

better.’’

Mr. FLAKE. Let us follow on that talk of corruption for a bit.

66

In Afghanistan, we have seen a couple of types of corruption on

a large scale—both individual Governors or provincial authorities

pocketing money that is given, or NGO’s and others having to pay

people to get a load of freight from one city to another.

What type of corruption are we more likely to see in FATA, or

elsewhere in Pakistan? Is it the former or the latter, or all kinds?

Or what should we be more concerned about, given the pace at

which this aid is being distributed?

Dr. Wilder.

Mr. WILDER. I think in any country in the world, if you give vast

amounts of money with little oversight, you are going to end up

fueling corruption. And I think that is where I think we need to

be committed for the long term, in terms of our development programs, to building capacity so that, over time, we can spend more

money. But we need to link our funding levels not to the need,

which is great, but to the capacity to spend money accountably and

effectively. And I think that is what we are not seeing in the Afghanistan context and, I fear, is going to be the problem in Pakistan.

I am a firm believer that we need a long-term commitment in our

aid program to Pakistan. But I think we will be fueling corruption

if we try to give too much money too quickly, if it is not linked to

local capacities.

And I think, there, it will be across the board. In terms of implementation, who should be doing the implementing? The chairman

raised that in the opening remarks. I think we should—it is not an

either-or question.

We need to be working with NGO’s. We need to be working with

the government. We need to be looking at local actors and international actors, because capacity is limited. We need all of the capacity that we have. But, again, all of those will be problematic if

you try to push too much money through the system.

And I think that is what we are seeing. I mean, the idea that

we should do aid—only through local actors—I mean, I think that

is a problem. In Afghanistan, we are seeing that many of the local

actors don’t have a good face. I mean, they are all linked to the key

ministers and relatives. And it is creating, again, I think, very perverse negative consequences.

I also wanted to just touch on one thing related to Congressman

Fortenberry’s dualism point in terms of how different other donors

handle their aid programs. I think most of the European donors do

tend to securitize their aid to a lesser degree than the United

States. There is more distinction between their aid programs,

which have development budgets, and then there are more political

resources.

And I think that is, in a way, where I think we need to go in

the United States, precisely for the reason that it is easier to get

money if you justify that it is going to have security benefits. It is

also, then, very easy—and I think we heard that from Congressman Duncan—to de-legitimize foreign aid when it ends up not

making people like us. And if they don’t—if our money isn’t going

to make them like us, let us, then, stop giving them money.

And I think that is a danger I see with our current securitized

aid; whereas, in Pakistan, if we could distinguish our development

67

objectives, we could, then, be very happy that our health programs

have had a significant impact in Pakistan over decades in terms of

improved health indicators, reductions in maternal-infant mortality

rates.

USAID, in the past, contributed to a very effective development

of a health-management information system, which has been important; like support to the Lady Health Worker programs.

We need to be cautious not to assume that all the USAID programs have had no impact. There have been positive development

impacts over time. But I think if we are looking for them to like

us as a result of our aid program, then we are going to be disappointed. And I fear that is going to, then, over time, reduce U.S.

public support for our foreign aid programs.

So, again, I would argue for a greater dualism in our foreign aid

funding to Pakistan—between our development objectives and our

more political and security objectives.

And, last, in terms of local perceptions of conditionality, I don’t

think you will have any Pakistani, again, objecting to

conditionalities on how our aid money can be spent in a more

transparent and less corrupt way, so that we demand accountability for how that money is spent.

I think the problems are in the conditionalities in the political

realm, relating to the civil-military relations, the nuclear program—various programs like that. That is what generates a lot of

unhappiness in Pakistan. Thanks.

Mr. FLAKE. In my short remaining time, just—we are going to be

questioning administration witnesses coming up here soon—hopefully, early next year.

What is the one question—the most important question—we

need to ask in terms of their capacity to monitor this aid? I mean,

is it ramping up significantly the personnel, or the areas in which

they do oversight among themselves, or what? What is the most

important thing for us to ask, and to have them answer?

Dr. Fair.

Ms. FAIR. Well, you have kind of said it in your question: ‘‘Do

they have the capacity to execute this money responsibly?’’

This civilian surge—I mean I am wondering where these civilians are coming from. Yes, exactly. Many of them have no experience in South Asia. They are there for short-term contracts. So

even if they plus-up the numbers, this does not in any way, shape,

or form, make me confident that they are going to be able to execute this funding program responsibly.

Mr. FLAKE. Dr. Wilder, did you have anything to add to that?

The same——

Mr. WILDER. No. I just share the same concerns, again, that we

need that long-term commitment to support for Pakistan, but

linked to our capacity.

And I think if the security situation continues to deteriorate in

Pakistan—and yesterday’s news was not, you know, positive in

that regard—the capacity of USAID staff to actually do monitoring

and oversight is going to be limited.

So just more numbers of people sitting in the embassy compound,

with very severe constraints on their mobility is not necessarily, I

think, going to increase the capacity. I mean, I think—oh, in genVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:47 May 26, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00071 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\65128.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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eral, globally, I would argue we need to be investing a lot more in

rebuilding USAID’s capacity to program and implement projects so

that they don’t have to subcontract it all out.

But right now, in the short term, in Pakistan, I think that—and

similarly in Afghanistan—civilian surges—there are big questions

about what all these civilians are going to be able to do, in terms

of what capacities they bring to the table. But, also, even those who

would be effective are going to be so constrained in that insecure

environment that, you know, I don’t see that, in itself, is going to

increase capacity sufficient to monitor the sheer volume of money

we are talking about trying to spend within a fairly limited 5-year

timeframe in Pakistan.

Mr. FLAKE. Thank you. Thank you——

Mr. TIERNEY. No. No, thank you.

Yes, we have the capacity problem. Excuse me a second.

Oh, you are back. Excuse me.

Mr. Fortenberry—5 minutes.

Doing the disappearing act—the Houdini thing again, is it?

Mr. FORTENBERRY. It is life as a public official.

Let me go back to some of my earlier comments. They were not

intended—and I don’t think they came across this way, but let me

clarify—to disparage USAID outreach for capacity-building.

But I think as you further discuss the points—your comments

were very germane, Dr. Ahmed, in that this is a fledgling democracy. We work off of certain operational assumptions—premises—

that there is going to be capacity to absorb this type of aid quickly.

And whenever you are not dealing with well-defined institutions—

institutions that aren’t necessarily fully reflective of the principles

of self-determination and, therefore, are not going to be more transparent, and have power consolidated into the hands of fewer institutions, fewer people who may be in a situation to manipulate—

your outcomes are going to be messy and difficult.

The benefit, though, of this hearing is actually staring that in the

face under the very real constraints, though, of the geopolitical urgency in the area, and the new evolving U.S. strategy of security,

capacity and stability, based upon a wedding of military operations,

as well as social outreach and institutional civil-society-building.

We have had other hearings when we have just directly talked

about whether or not the military itself, as they had to learn quickly how to do in Iraq, is better positioned, in some ways, to deliver

the types of social-service inputs for capacity-building in a very insecure situation, versus a civilian component, which may not have

the ability to deal with the security situation adequately.

So we are in a very constrained situation. I think that is the

point. The institutions simply aren’t sufficiently developed. We

have a policy based upon the nature of our government, where we

have to do things quickly based on changing policy dynamics but

the urgency of the security situation, as well, is compelling us to

make this move, as difficult as it is.

And I understand the intention that—what you are talking

about—to separate the outcome measures of how you might be implementing a health-care clinic and what the outcome of that is,

versus did it stabilize the institutional capacities for, again, governance and security for the people over the long term.

69

We just don’t have strategic long-term thinking. Everybody recognizes that. But it is very hard to have that with the nature of

our political system; with the nature of the, again, geopolitical

movements in the arena; and with nuclear weapons sitting over the

horizon, potentially falling into hands of people with very twisted

ideologies, who want to do us grave harm.

That might be beyond the realm of what your expertise is, given

the very good comments you had in terms of making our efforts

more effective. But that is the constraints that we are operating

under.

And I guess your recommendations, short of—I heard what you

said—‘‘separating the objectives of security and social-capacity

building, and measuring those distinctly.’’

I think, if we had time, the investment in social-justice outcomes

does pay security dividends. I think it is a matter of time. The

truncated allocation, though, of time, compresses this into an artificial period without the capacities to absorb it quickly, without the

experiential level, perhaps, on our side, as you were just suggesting.

The last thing we need is people holed up in an embassy, who

are spending a lot of money, who can’t get out and do good things,

or are doing good things, empowering the wrong people, that actually undermine the stability of the society over the long term.

So that is a long editorial comment on just how, I think, complex

this is. And if you want to talk about any other recommendations—

given, again, the constraints of time and the nature of the political

system there, as well as ours—that we improve the chances of

meeting the dual goals of social justice, but also security.

Yes?

Ms. FAIR. Mostly, my work is on security issues. So

counterinsurgency—and it is very—I understand what you are saying. But when there is no data that justifies that what we are

doing has any impact, and it seems to be having a negative impact

upon our strategic relationship with the country—I think that justifies calming down this faux timeline of urgency.

Let me give you a really good example of what is going on in

Pakistan. I don’t like to call it counterinsurgency, because what

they are doing is not population-centric COIN. It is actually lowintensity conflict, which is resulting in massive damage and huge

displacements of persons.

But even if they can clear an area, they have traditionally had

problems with holding. And this is because, for example, they have

inadequate police that are able to do this holding. And in

counterinsurgency, that is exactly the agency that should be doing

holding.

I know that Dr. Ahmed has done a lot of work on police reform

in Pakistan. We would like to bring DynCorp in there, and churn

out police in large numbers, over a week. That is not how you

make police. So if you want to do clear, hold, and build, you can’t

get to the ‘‘build’’ part if there is no security.

The Pakistanis have not shared with us their operational plans.

After they conduct an operation——

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Do they have them?

Ms. FAIR. They don’t, for example, in Swat.

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If you are going to think about ‘‘build,’’ you need to have, as a

part of your planning, the civilian component—for example, the relief to the IDPs. If they had coordinated with us their operational

plans, we could have helped them put into place the civilian relief.

Now, the army says that they are holding, and they are waiting

for the ‘‘inept civilians’’ to come in. That is their narrative. It is the

‘‘inept civilians.’’ Of course, the civilians are inept because they

have been hollowed out for 10 years. But if they had actually been

genuine partners with us, we could have helped them think

through what would be the civilian requirement.

So another concern that I have, other than this fake urgency—

and I say ‘‘fake urgency’’ because we imposed this upon ourselves,

when, in fact, I don’t believe we can execute this aid program effectively in the time constraints and in the quantity—with the quality, and given the security environment—this is—just seems an impossible task.

But we certainly can’t do it without Pakistani partners. And

when I look at different sectors—another good example that has

immediate security implications is justice sector. One of the things

that the Taliban do well is actually justice provision.

They go around. They can resolve disputes expeditiously—not

complicated things—family disputes, land disputes. There is no recidivism. Justice is really key. Yet, the Asian Development Bank—

and I believe Dr. Wilder is more knowledgeable about this than I

am—has spent millions of dollars doing justice-sector reform. What

they want is the computerized case management. They want the

courthouses to be redone. But what they don’t want is actual

human-capital development.

So I will make the other argument that it is not only the limitations of USAID numbers—their security environment—but it is

also the political system in which our partners are embedded. And

this comes to a much larger issue, which I think Dr. Wilder knows

a lot more about than I do—and that is civil service reform.

So you keep rolling back the things that have to happen before

we can effectively spend these sums of money effectively, and you

realize there is no substitute to anything but a long-term commitment to capacity-building.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

The point that was made earlier about USAID, in terms of the

numbers of personnel, the capacity, is well taken. And we have

spent some time.

I think as disturbing to those of us that were visiting there just

a little bit ago was they have those 6-month rotations—6-month rotations. If you are a USAID worker, how much oversight can you

do for a project that is 2, 3, or 5 years in a contract length? So I

think that is just another impediment—looking at the whole structure of how we—how we do staff-up USAID, and what their appointments are on that basis.

Do we run any risk—let me ask you this—in terms of security,

if we were to slow down the distribution of aid in the Northwest

Frontier Province and in FATA, until we had in place a system and

a mechanism for compiling the data that would tell us where best

to allocate the resources, to prioritizing them, putting together an

implementation plan, putting together an effective monitoring plan,

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an evaluation plan, and moving at a much slower pace than is anticipated?

Sometimes when we talk about this kind of insurgency, ‘‘We are

going to do it all at once. We are going to go in and secure, hold,

build the world again, and move on.’’ What security risk, if any, do

we run in slowing things down and doing it as I have described?

Doctor.

Ms. AHMED. One of the things we have to recognize—and I agree

with you, Congressman, is that these are staff choices—staff

choices for regional security and for global security—emerging out

of a very ugly conflict. So I don’t think we have the luxury of time,

frankly speaking, to sit around and look at the data—assess it, look

at the mechanisms, do all these studies, and then decide what

kinds of interventions are possible at all.

Let me also say this: Afghanistan and Pakistan are two different

countries. There is a different level of capacity in Pakistan from

that of Afghanistan.

What you need in Afghanistan is to build the institutions. What

you need in Pakistan is to reform the institutions. And, there, I

think you can actually use aid quite effectively to ensure that you

are building the capacity of the institutions in terms of reform.

There is a police force. There is a judiciary. There is a civil service.

There are political parties. There is a legislature. Nothing has to

be created by the United States.

But finding the partners that you will need in the meantime, and

building the capacity, quite obviously, is a multi-year endeavor,

which is why I think this bill is a good bill—because it is a multiyear investment in Pakistan.

But at the same time, we have to look at different types of tasks

that have to be undertaken. The IDPs—the internally displaced

people—do we wait another few years before we decide what are

their needs, and how do we access them, and how do we actually

make sure that there is a semblance of stability that returns to

what is, actually, a fairly large part of Pakistan—not just in FATA,

but also in Malakand Division.

Should we be working right now with the civil administration,

the ministries and the elected representatives? I beg to differ. You

know, these are not just patron-client relationships. These are

elected representatives. Let us give them their due here. They do

know their constituents. They meet their constituents.

We can use all the channels that we have right now to assess,

first of all, the urgent needs, and the urgent programming that

needs to be done, and then the middle—the medium-term and longterm.

Let me also say this: I agree with Dr. Wilder. I think we are forgetting one thing. There have been long-term programs that

USAID has run in Pakistan in the fields of health and education

and infrastructure-building. But what we have right now is a crisis. And we have to respond to that as well as talk in terms of

what we should be looking at in terms of a partnership.

Mr. TIERNEY. So I understand that you have a sort of a mixed

view. There are things that need to be done right now, and things

that can wait for a more nuanced and planned aspect. But if I

could press you just a little bit—what security risks would be conVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:47 May 26, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00075 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\65128.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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fronted if, in fact, we did just that—we just took care of some immediate needs—the crises aspect, and the humanitarian aspect—

and, then, had a more thoughtful approach in the long run, instead

of just putting all the money out there right now?

Ms. AHMED. I do think that if the programming is actually divided into the quick-impact—humanitarian needs, developmentneeds based projects—to the medium-term projects, with a certain

degree of consultation which isn’t there, and which—frankly speaking, there is another factor we should be looking at, which, again,

we neglected thus far in this discussion—is on the survivability of

the democratic transition, because if this political order disintegrates, we are not back to square one.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Dr. Wilder.

Mr. WILDER. Yes, I also think the situation is urgent and deteriorating. My only question is whether money is going to reverse that

if it is spent ineffectively. And I think that is where the real focus

needs to be: How do we spend the money accountably and effectively? Then, I think there can be positive benefits from it.

And I think that is where, you know, throwing money at the

problem in short timeframes is going to exacerbate matters. And I

think that is what we are seeing in the Afghanistan context.

I absolutely agree with Dr. Ahmed’s point that Pakistan and Afghanistan are very different. And I think the issue of the civil service is a critical difference there, where you do have a history of an

inherited institution which was very strong. And it has been weakened over time, overly politicized.

I included this in my written remarks, but I didn’t really have

time to comment on it today—but just the importance of

prioritizing civil service reform. And I actually think that this is an

area of opportunity where the United States can help. It is an area

where the U.S. Government has tended not to take a lead role, and

left it up to donors like the British and the World Bank.

I think it is maybe not a comparative advantage where the

United States has to lead on it, but certainly to support multilateral efforts for a long-term effort to strengthen the civil service and

public administration reform, in general, in Pakistan.

In the past, civil service—the problems in civil service reform are

not technical ones. They are political ones. The main actors who

need to push the reform have a vested interest in maintaining the

status quo, which is working quite well.

But the push for reform in the past has come at times when

Pakistan has been in crisis financially. IMF conditionalities and

the consequences are often viewed in terms of downsizing, and negatively.

I think that now that there are resources, there is an opportunity

to have a politically smart strategy of incentivizing some of the

critically important reforms that need to take place. I would put

this forward as one concrete way where I think the United States

could engage and support a multilateral initiative to push civil

service reform in Pakistan.

A more general point is, I think when you are the lead donor,

and have lots of money to spend quickly, there is also a tendency

to try to do it alone. I think this is an area where the United States

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is not always very good in working with the other multilateral and

bilateral donors in Pakistan. And I would urge that as a concrete

recommendation—that our aid effort there try to work more closely

with the multilateral and bilateral partners.

And I think, in that—that is one way of trying to ensure that it

will be more effective. Thank you.

Jeff, you have any more questions?

Mr. TIERNEY. If there are not, let me just close with one question—if you will indulge me for a second—so I am hearing very

clearly that we need to take immediate care of the humanitarian

urgencies and crises. And I clearly understand that we also need

to—with respect to the rest of the moneys—not be so anxious to

just put it out there somewhere, but to get together a plan of how

we are going to engage local people and really get their cooperation

and input—have them take some responsibility and accountability

for it, and develop your plan for implementation, oversight, and all

that, which is good.

I don’t hear anybody saying there is going to be negative security

implications if we take that path. Am I correct?

You seem to think there will be negative security in place—no?

OK.

So my last question to each of you is: Can you give me examples

of the types of incentives that could be used to facilitate the civilian

government moving forward on reform, and to the extent necessary—of course, having the military not impede that—what types

of incentives might be put in place to make that happen?

Because I think one of the problems is their will. Is there a will

within the current structure, who is, I think, benefiting quite a bit

from the chaos and the way we are distributing money right now,

and the inherent corruption.

So if we could just go once over, we will let you go. Thanks.

Ms. FAIR. Well, FATA, for example—that aid should have been

conditional upon the Pakistan government having a plan for political integration. The FATA Development Plan, which they marketed

as integration, had nothing to do with political integration. Something as simple as extending the Political Parties Act so that FATA

has genuine representative of the kind that Dr. Ahmed talked

about, would have been incredibly valuable.

I think that whatever ministry we engage—they need to come up

with a plan.

Now, so often, when I have read these plans, it looks as if an

international contractor wrote them, because of the particular idiomatic English that has been employed. The Pakistanis themselves

should come up with outcome measures, and we should agree upon

the data that will be used to monitor success along those outcomes.

And there needs to be a pretty serious plan for remediation if those

outcome measures aren’t met.

So what I am basically saying is that we need to incentivize the

Pakistani government to be partners, rather than merely, you

know, recipients.

Mr. TIERNEY. And I am only just now imagining what the reaction will be when we do that. We had a visit of about 30 military

people at one point in time. They came in with their hair on fire.

And I had an opportunity to speak up in Cambridge, MA, on anVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:47 May 26, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00077 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\65128.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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other occasion, and when I finished speaking in defense of the conditions, because we had been involved in putting them on, one half

of the room stood up to berate us for treating them like children,

and the other half of the room stood up to tell us, ‘‘You should have

had stronger conditions on there. You can’t trust us.’’ So it goes on.

Dr. Wilder.

Mr. WILDER. Yes, again, just to reiterate, don’t ignore the civil

service. I think that is an opportunity.

I would also say that there is a tendency often, of the U.S. Government, to prefer to work with executive authority and the military. And I think we should not ignore the parliament in Pakistan.

And I think USAID is supporting a parliamentary-strengthening

program.

But I think that this is an area—it is linked also to the issue of

center-periphery relations, or the relationship between the Federal

Government and the provincial government in Pakistan, where

there has been a tendency, I think, to overly centralize powers at

the Federal level.

And I think working through parliament and trying to strengthen parliament could be a positive—it is something I think the

USAID should continue doing.

And finally, just to also—to end on a positive note—is that——

Mr. TIERNEY. Ah, the silver bullet arrives.

Mr. WILDER. USAID has provided valuable support to the electoral process in Pakistan. And as someone who did my Ph.D. research on electoral politics in Pakistan, and has been present at

virtually every election since 1970—I was monitoring the last one,

and it was, you know, a considerable improvement over previous

ones. And I think that there was valuable support from donors, in

general, and the United States, in particular, for strengthening

that process.

But just to end, I think it is important that we, again, try to

move away from this feast-and-famine approach. Because of the urgency of the moment—the tendency to, in some ways, often spend

too much money in the short term. I mentioned in my written testimony, a Pakistani friend, last week, told me, ‘‘Try to convince them

to view their support to Pakistan as a marathon, rather than a series of unsustainable sprints.’’

And I think, if I could just end on that note—let us take that

long-term approach to our aid program for Pakistan. Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. And, Doctor, you came the longest distance. The

final word goes to you.

Ms. AHMED. [Off mic.]

Mr. TIERNEY. How do you envision that support?

Is your mic on, by the way? OK? And how do you envision that

support? We hear a lot of times they need support—the civilian

government needs support. Do they have the will to accept the support and do something with it? What exactly would that support

look like to be effective?

Ms. AHMED. This is a public program that was announced from

a public platform. This is not behind-closed-doors discussions. The

reform package also came as the result of consultations with FATA

representatives.

75

Mr. TIERNEY. But I think you said that the military push-back

has stopped it from being implemented.

Ms. AHMED. Absolutely.

Mr. TIERNEY. So how do we get beyond that?

Ms. AHMED. All you need right now is the president’s directive

to be—it is called a notification, sent to the Governor—and it is

law. And that is where, I think, the president does need support.

As you know, that is not the only front on which the president

is being attacked by the military and other opposition power circles. That is one issue.

The second, in terms of the legislature—and I have said this in

our report. We have said it in the written testimony, and we have

said it in our reports, and repeatedly—that in delivering assistance, make sure that there is a legislative connection to the monitoring aspects and the planning and the implementation aspects.

Now, through the public account committees of the provincial

and the Federal parliaments—and let me say this: These are very

good committees, and they are functioning well. I think you can—

you will have stakeholders, then, in a process that will also provide

that missing link not just in terms of monitoring, but also in terms

of community consultation.

So let us go beyond—and I think it is great that USAID is helping build the capacity of the Pakistani legislature. But let us involve the legislators, the parliamentarians, in the kind of process

that we are involved in, in Pakistan.

You know, their collective history, if you look at how may parliaments they have served, it would be quite a couple of hundred

years. So these are not novices. It is just that because there was

no opportunity at constructive intervention, they were left out of

the policy loop. And I think we can engage them now.

Mr. TIERNEY. At the risk of being painfully obvious on this, but

for the record, you talked about President Zardari needing only to

issue a directive for that to become law. And, then, you talk about

our support. Are we talking about the need for the U.S. Government, through the secretary of state or the president to make some

public declaratory statement, or to work through our Department

of Defense with the military to get them to back off?

What types of support are you thinking of there?

Ms. AHMED. I do think publicly welcoming the reform effort

would be a useful way to go—so at a high level, coming from the

U.S. Government.

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, I am going to have to ask for the panel’s forbearance, here, for a second.

Mr. Lynch, would you like to make an opening and a closing, and

your questions?

Mr. LYNCH. I am sorry. There is a lot going on here at the same

time. But I have been following the testimony in the anteroom.

The question I had is: The problems that we have seen on both

sides of the border, along the Pakistan and Afghanistan borders—

at least what we have seen visiting the federally administered tribal areas and the Northwest Province area—Frontier Province—are

similar to what we are seeing on the Afghan side—and that is very

weak government institutions that don’t get out into those areas.

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And we seem to have seized upon a model where we pair USAID

or some other NGO with a military-support group in order to get

that done—a PRT model. And that is the model we have been pursuing here. And from what we have been hearing and seeing in

Pakistan—is this the right model? Is this the right model that we

are using here, because it doesn’t seem to be the case from this

end.

And I worry about squandering the resources that we are dedicating toward this effort. And if we have to come up with another

model that allows us the accountability and the transparency that

we need to make sure the money is going to the people that we

want to help, and that it has been used effectively.

Then we have to come up with the right idea before we pump

more money into their system, because, otherwise, it will just be

wasted. And I wouldn’t blame the American people one bit if they

grew frustrated with, you know, just continually pumping money in

here. We have to show some progress.

You know, Dr. Wilder, you mentioned some of the areas that received the greatest amount of resources have shown very little

progress. I am wondering, is it the model that we are trying to

use—is it the wrong tool for this job?

Mr. WILDER. Well, there is a serious problem between the need

for quick results, when we are not going to get quick results. Statebuilding can’t be done on the quick. It is a generational thing. It

is a long-term process. And that is the critical——

Mr. LYNCH. Just to distinguish—some of the PRT models are

very long term. And so it is not an idea that we are going to go

in there with a PRT and turn things around in a matter of months,

or even a couple of years. It is capacity-building.

I am more concerned that framework—the pairing of a military

unit with the capacity to allow some of the development work to

go forward—is that the wrong model here, or should we be trying

something different?

Mr. WILDER. Sorry—are you talking about Afghanistan? Because,

in Pakistan, I think the PRT model would certainly not be a good

option.

I mean, I think part of my problem with the PRT model in Afghanistan is that Afghanistan has never had much in the way of

government, and the same in FATA, in these areas.

So I am not sure that it is actually the weak government in some

of these areas which is also fueling the insecurity. My concern with

the PRT model is the more we end up doing with this civil military

teams, the more we end up, in a way, setting up the Afghan government to fail, because they don’t have the capacity to come in

and take over.

The more we end up doing with our PRTs, the more it complicates an exit strategy, because who is going to step in and do

this eventually?

I mean, I think we do need a long-term process of trying to buildup government institutions and capacity. But that is not going to

happen in the timeframes within which—even the 5-year or 10-

year timeframes we are talking about, in terms of our troop presence in places like Afghanistan.

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I think this is where the problem is. There isn’t a quick fix. And

the military—civil military—the PRT model is a stop-gap measure.

It is not a long-term solution.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. I do want to say thank you for your willingness

to come before the committee and help us with our work. This is

a very complicated situation. And your insight and your astute observations are very helpful to us. So thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Lynch.

Again, I thank all of you very much. Your work has helped inform what we will be discussing with the administration’s witnesses when they come.

And Mr. Flake and I were discussing the need for us to try and

make sure that some of what you shared with us gets reflected in

our work going forward. So you have been tremendously helpful.

We thank you for coming to Washington, and thank you for coming all the way from Pakistan, as well; and for the written testimony, as well as your verbal testimony. And I know that we can

take the liberties of coming back to you again, as we do so often.

But your help is important. And thank you very, very much for it.

Meeting adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:01 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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