Talk:United States Agency for International Development

message: —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.53.157.171 (talk) 17:29, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  page does need some adjustments, but is a pretty good start! 

message: "Most claim that there was in the past, but no longer is, a relationship between the CIA and USAID. Others disagree."
So who exactly disagrees and who doesn't? That last sentence seems like it was added just to make the paragraph more neutral, but there's no argument backing it, and it just looks stupid the way it's put. Has the CIA or USAID said anything about the allegations? If they denied them then we could replace that sentence with their position.
Who does "most" referr to? 194.138.39.53 11:21, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Especially odd considering that the next paragraph confirmed the connection, citing the "Family Jewels". I've corrected the language, therefore, though I cannot speak to the claim's accuracy.Czrisher 12:30, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  USAID and CIA 

message: There has always been, is, and always be a relationship between the Agency and USAID. The apportionment of foreign aid to "particular" foreign groups, political parties, media outlets, labor unions (or their opponents), legal and student groups, etc... are the bread and butter of USAID. And only those groups that support the US agenda (political or economic) receive such aid. And what better cover for Agency operatives in foreign (and often hostile) climes than as the distributors of aid? There are no "ifs" about it. RM Gillespie (talk) 15:08, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: My God!

message: Apparently the Morales government has instituted a "concerted effort" to "discredit" US anti-drug operations. Ignoring the obviously biased word choice, do we have a citation for such a claim? Until we do, I'm removing a few sentences in the Bolivia section.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.253.151.192 (talk) 15:57, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV?

message: In my studies of a couple Latin American countries, I found a lot of criticism of USAID programs which is not covered here. Supposedly, USAID often supports the already rich and powerful instead of going to the people who actually need AID. For instance, in the book  "Inside Honduras" by Kent Norsworthy and Tom Barry, a former vice president of Honduras "chraged that 30 percent of U.S. economic aid was lost to corruption, and another 50 percent was misdirected, going to the business elite rather than to programs to help the poor" (pg. 167). Thus, USAID's programs "aggravate and accentuate the deep social and economic divisions in Honduras." (pg. 168).
USAID itself has acknowledged this, in "Honduras: Country Development Strategy Statement FY1986", May 1984, saying, "...implementation of a stabilization program will probably lower living standards and may well increase unrest among the country's already impoverished people in the short term."
How can we incorporate this into the article to show this viewpoint?
Rawgreenbean 22:12, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Important criticisms are missing 

message: Is anyone thinking of developing a list of USAID programs and projects (past and present)? There may be a summary list somewhere - the effort would itself be encyclopedic. I ask as I just started a stub on the Leland Initiative which seems too big an "ICT4D" program to have been without an article so long. --A12n 01:48, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  USAID programs & projects? 

message: Many intellectuals in Africa and, also, some in America (e.g William Robinson) so USAID as a key vehicle for contemporary imperialism. This is not explored on this page.  You should site real sourses if you plan to make bold statements like this.
Also missing from this entry are criticisms of USAID's aid effectiveness, and its self-serving programs such as the Food for Peace.  The level of tied aid provided by USAID should also be explored.  Tied aid is when USAID provides aid to a country to build, say, a dam, and it requires that country to use American contractors.  There is no open bidding process for the contract.  As such, the recipient country loses out on the economic growth that such a project could have generated.  Some actually deduct tied aid from the total aid provided to a country as a cost.  While most DAC donors have agreed to untie their aid as part of their committment to the Paris Declaration, the U.S. has not.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Elizabeth Delph (talk • contribs) 08:42, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Many important criticisms are missing 

message: To contrast with the discussion about how there's not enough criticism here, I would agree with that but also add that there is nowhere near enough positive information on USAID.
Looking through the History of the main USAID page, I observe that inputs from Wikipedia users from IPs that are connected with USAID are routinely deleted.  Information from USAID's web page are also routinely deleted.  This may be in line with Wikipedia policy, I don't know.
The end result is that the people who have the most direct knowledge of USAID are barred from contributing.  It does not improve Wikipedia to exclude authors with the most information.  That in itself biases the submissions in favor of critics who do not work for USAID, and who may have an axe to grind and thus provide biased or even unsupportable information.
I concur that this page should be different from the official USAID webpage, and yet it should not be amateurish and crappy like it is now.  Foreign aid is a very, very serious matter.  USAID has some successes and some failures.  Let's please move this Wikipedia entry forward by allowing disparate sources and points of view, not deleting anything that's positive.  This page is a travesty, and an embarassment for Wikipedia and American taxpayers who support USAID.  Moreover, it's an insult to the thousands of USAID staff--both Americans and local nationals--who are risking their lives every day in order to fight poverty, disease, corruption, illiteracy, and conflicts around the world.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rmbirkenes (talk • contribs) 09:15, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deleting input from USAID staff will lead to biased Wikipedia entry

message: Do these figures include the military shit, like bombs and stuff, we send to Israel as aid? Or not? Because I can't figure out why else Israel would get so much. 132.161.140.26 (talk) 15:51, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The University of Michigan political scientist A. F. K. Organski wrote a book about U.S. aid to Israel (36 Billion Dollar Bargain). This book concludes that substantial aid began after the 1967 War and especially after the 1973 War. Aid which has been continued by later administrations. Organski wrote that this was seen as providing a counter-weight against Soviet-allied or radical Arabic regimes, such as Nasser's Egypt. Aid was increased to Israel and of course to Egypt by Carter, as part of the Camp David Peace Accords. (Organski observed that American Jews had not suddenly increased in numbers or power in 1973, nor ran the Nixon White House, but that Nixon and U.S. strategists supported Israel for geopolitical purposes.)  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 18:37, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  USAID to Israel? 

message: United States Agency for International Development footnote #3 and preceding paragraph is in dispute.  Source in one editor's opinion is legit, in another source is non-neutral (biased) and information is dated. Rather than escalating an edir war, per Wikipedia:Third opinion, seeking 3rd opinion. Mikebar (talk) 17:47, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Edit Dispute

message: An opinion article by a syndicated columnist isn't wp:rs, except for the fact that it was said.--Work permit (talk) 02:59, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Absolutely correct, and that is the way it was cited. Having said that, I'll also say that it would have been better to provide cite-supported info from a more solid source. I have replaced the opinion-piece cite with a cite to a USAID statement about this. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 01:24, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: By the way, he wasn't notable, much less a notable expert on Iraq.  Thanks for getting rid of him and replacing with a more appropriate statement from an appropriate source--Work permit (talk) 05:48, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Iraq 

message: In Peru, former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) pressured 200,000 indigenous people in rural areas (mainly Quechuas and Aymaras) into being sterilized.[29] In July 2002, a final report from the Health minister proved that between 1995 and 2000, 331 600 women and 25 590 men had been sterilized. The program was mainly financed by the USAID (36 000 000 dollars) and the UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund).
How reliable is the source for this.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dmoloney (talk • contribs) 09:33, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sterilization 

message: the role of usaid in haiti gets only positive commentary? they played a chief role in the destabilization of a democratically elected government in 2004. they went behind closed doors to the preval government after that to prevent a minimum wage increase by threatening aid withdrawals. many haitians routinely refer to usaid economic preconditions as the "death plan." and they only get thumbs up from this article. what's the deal? 68.193.173.240 (talk) 02:42, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  haiti??? 

message: To illustrate that USAID is only one part, frequently a small one, of USG foreign relations: for example, in the years when the USG made civilian cash transfers to the Israeli government as foreign aid, each year's Congressional appropriation law typically required that the full (rather large) amount of the cash transfer be made in a single transaction within 90 days of the appropriation's enactment.  USAID acted as the transfer agent but obviously USAID as an agency and its staff had no role in making the policy and any USG agency could have executed the transfer mechanically as well as USAID did.
Wikipedia's "USAID" article should certainly include discussions of broader foreign relations topics that USAID is a part of, such as aid to Israel for example.  However, the article should also provide the public with information about USAID itself, which is much less well known than most of the hot topics in widely publicized world events.
I suggest that specific topics like USG relations with Bolivia etc. merit their own Wikipedia articles, in which USAID's role in USG policy would naturally appear.  Trying to squeeze all these topics into the "USAID" article, however, is not really possible and risks squeezing out the harder-to-find information about USAID itself.
So the important question for configuring Wikipedia's "USAID" article is "What are the things that are specific to USAID and thus should appear primarily in the USAID article?"  In my opinion, there are several.
1.  USAID's institutional organization and history.  Given the continuous history starting from the famous Marshall Plan, this should be interesting to the public.
2.  Operational capabilities in low- and middle-income countries.  On the civilian side, USAID is far ahead of all other USG agencies in this respect, especially since the U.S. Information Service (the American libraries abroad) was abolished.
3.  Development assistance.  While the public instinctively understands charitable assistance and disaster assistance, as well as cash grants made for geopolitical reasons, "development assistance" refers to a different thing that is much less well understood and that is almost unique to USAID.  There is a separate Wikipedia article on "Development Aid" (whose weaknesses illustrate the subject's difficulty), but USAID's predominant role in USG "development" work justifies including the topic in the "USAID" article, including some clarifying discussion of what is meant by "development" as distinct from poverty relief and so forth.
4.  Technical assistance.  While the public instinctively understands financial assistance (giving money away), technical assistance is quite different.  In the context of USG international development it is almost unique to USAID, so that making this distinction among modes of assistance is essential to understanding USAID as an institution.  Note also that Wikipedia's "Development Aid" article indiscriminately lumps "technical assistance" together with other terms like "overseas aid."  The "USAID" article may be the best place for a more professional discussion.
Jsryanjr (talk) 14:45, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  USAID is only one part, frequently a small one, of USG foreign relations 

message: It would be nice if the article explained the meaning of "FWD". Tad Lincoln (talk) 01:58, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  FWD 

message: Thanks for adding this - it's a great addition. I hope you'll be all right with me helping to take this article to GA and hopefully FA in the next year or less. To get it there, we would probably need to really take pains to make this as free of "AID speak" as possible, accessible even to a fifth grader writing a report about the US government. At the same time, we'd want to make sure it's fairly comprehensive. In the section you've just added, for example, we could rephrase the header to be more specific to mechanisms or (in less jargon-y terms) maybe "Modes of assistance" or something. Then we'd want to talk about the difference between grants, contracts and cooperative agreements, I think, and we could touch on things like LWAs etc. Then we'll have the challenge of identifying the sources we can use to support all of this content. This is really a solid start and covers important content that was missing before. Thanks for all your hard work on this article. - Lemurbaby (talk) 01:35, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  section on assistance projects 

message: The Citations for that part are now all dead links, I suggest a new link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/fogofwar/archive/post012891.htm  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.21.52.234 (talk) 23:22, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yemen expensive no vote 

message: "USAID spent $95,000 US in 2005 on a seminar in the Brazilian Congress to promote a reform aimed at pushing for legislation punishing party infidelity." Could this be clarified in the article? Thank you. First, I do not understand the syntax (very possibly it's just me), second, the idea appears to be presented incompletely (what infidelity? how to punish?) - 89.110.30.3 (talk) 05:52, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarify? 

message: Hello, all,
The use of USAID to supply food and munitions to Hmong guerrillas in Laos during the Vietnam War is well known. Among the sources available for this coverage are Shadow War: The CIA's Secret War in Laos by Conboy and Morrison, and Back Fire: The CIA's Secret War in Laos and Its Link to the War in Vietnam.
I might add that I was an eyewitness to this USAID supply operation. And before the screams of "ORIGINAL RESEARCH" begin, realize that while I mention my witness role here, there is not a smidgen of it in any article.
Georgejdorner (talk) 22:33, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  USAID support of the [[Laotian Civil War]] 

message: I will be soliciting input to the Wikipedia page on USAID from members of the USAID Alumni Association (UAA) through the Association's website.  The Association's members include mainly retired USAID officials who have long experience in posts in other countries and in Washington, DC, many of whom rose to executive positions.
Jsryanjr (talk) 14:37, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Just keep the conflict of interest guideline in mind. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:21, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Excellent point.  It would apply strongly to current USAID staff, who are subject to LPA's rules.  Jsryanjr (talk) 16:27, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Input Solicited from USAID Alumni Association 

message: THE declassified NSSM200 Implications of Worldwide Population Growth For U.S.  Security and Overseas Interests.
Is a VERY VERY DISTURBING DOCUMENT.
USAID is POPULATION CONTROL; more disconcerting is the focus on Population control of the Black Brown and Muslim peoples.  Its most notable that Brazil,Nigeria, and Ethiopia are areas designated for USAID investment.  As well as Egypt,Indonesia,Phillipines.
What is MOST disturbing is the report states that educating people and providing contraception would not be enough and they needed to use additional strategies for population control...  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.19.143.113 (talk) 10:51, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Poverty Alleviation and Poverty Reduction" ARE euphemisms for POPULATION CONTROL 

message: to be Administrator of the USAID: 
whuitehouse.gov 
Where is the best place to mention that in the article ? --Neun-x (talk) 19:48, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trump nominates [[Mark Andrew Green]]  (May 10, 2017) 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  Iam mir agha rahimi 

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thread_title:  What is your fesbok nam 

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