Message-ID: <19990826163208.70774.qmail@hotmail.com> Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 09:32:03 PDT From: JC Wandemberg <mailto:sustainability@HOTMAIL.COM> Subject: DEJA VUE To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
This is no news to me and many, I have known the USAID as one of the biggest (if not the biggest) bureaucratic and purposefully incompetent entity in the world whose "contribution" has only enlarged the gap between the rich and poor around the world. Cheers, JC Wandemberg Ph.D.----Original Message Follows---- From: Bob Pyke Jr <mailto:repyke@akron.infi.net> Reply-To: mailto:repyke@akron.infi.net To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU Subject: Retiring USAID Head Vents Frustration Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 12:07:35 -0400
Bob Pyke Jr {Always inspiring when someone stands out and takes a stand!} > Copyright 1999 Associated Press/AP Online
> June 30, 1999; Wednesday 04:11, Eastern Time
> >
> HEADLINE: Retiring AID Head Vents Frustration
>
> J. Brian Atwood has a disquieting message as he prepares to step
down as head of the U.S. foreign aid agency: Don't believe those stories about democracy and free enterprise enabling developing countries to lift themselves out of poverty. >
> And part of the problem, according to Atwood, is what he sees as
> Washington's pinch-penny attitude toward Third World problems.
>
> ''What will it take to wake up our political leaders?'' he asked.
> ''More failed states? More wars? More south-to-north migration? More
> transmission of infectious diseases? More terrorism?''
>
> After six years as head of the Agency for International
Development, > Atwood will return to the private sector next week. He could have gone
quietly, as his predecessors have done, but decided not to. >
> He gave his valedictory Tuesday at a luncheon at the Overseas
> Development Council, which attempts to sensitize opinion-makers
> on Third World issues.
>
> ''The sad and even dangerous reality is that globalization and the
> democratic market economy movement have not closed the gap between
rich and poor,'' he said. >
> ''Much of the change we are seeing is occurring within the previous
> ruling classes of these societies. Some in the donor community seem
content to nurture reform without equity.'' >
> Economic growth, he said, can reduce poverty only with investments
in > health care, education, job creation, community development and food
security. >
> The industrial world is getting ''shamelessly rich'' while most of
> the world's people are losing ground, Atwood said. He put the ratio of
rich > to poor at about 65 to 1, or for every $65 earned in industrial
countries, $1 is earned in poor ones. About 1.3 billion people live in extreme poverty, he said. >
> Atwood called the government's international affairs budget ''a
joke. > There is no money to do anything,'' he said. ''It's outrageous.''
>
> He took aim at the congressional class of 1994, the election that
> gave Republicans control of the House and Senate. It was filled with
> ''nonpassport-carrying members,'' Atwood said, a not-so-subtle
suggestion that such people think provincially, not globally. >
> Another source of distress for Atwood was U.S. policy toward the
> United Nations. ''What we are doing to the United Nations system is
> unconscionable,'' he said.
>
> ''At a time when the U.N. is bending under the weight of human
> crises, most emanating from the developing world, we are sapping
> it of its vitality by refusing to pay our bills. Then we criticize it
for > not doing its job.''
>
> He described as ''shameful'' a recent compromise under which the
> Clinton administration would pay $819 million in arrears on the
condition that it pay a smaller share in the future. The congressionally drafted approach is 'designed to appease people whose real goal is to kill the United Nations,'' > Atwood said.
>
> Atwood was scheduled to become ambassador to Brazil after his
service > at AID, but Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee > chairman, refused to convene hearings on the nomination.
>
> Helms was smarting from Atwood's characterization of him as an
> ''isolationist'' and his accusation that Helms drew up complicated
> government reorganization plans ''on the back of an envelope.''
>
> Atwood withdrew his name from consideration for the Brazil post in
> May.
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