• Cover Story
• Table of
  Contents
• Contents By
  Topic
• Columns
  • Brownstein
  • Cook
  • Crook
  • Powers
  • Rauch
  • Stokes
  • Schneider
  • Taylor Jr.
• Regular
  Features
  • Hotline Extra
  • Inside Washington
  • Insiders Poll
  • K Street Corridor
  • People
  • The Week on the Hill

In his recent Capitol Hill testimony, Gen. David Petraeus acknowledged that in U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine, dollars are often more effective than bullets for bringing order out of chaos. But when the military applies the “clear, hold, and build” doctrine, the U.S. government frequently has treated the third component—the building and reconstruction phase—as an afterthought. Hard lessons learned on the front lines of Iraq and Afghanistan suggest that unless young men in particular in those countries can find legitimate work, and civilian populations see their lives improving, military efforts to seize and hold territory are temporary and too easily reversed.

The U.S. government entity responsible for coordinating development and reconstruction aid overseas is the U.S. Agency for International Development, a direct outgrowth of the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II. National Journal Staff Correspondent James Kitfield recently spoke with USAID Administrator Henrietta Fore. A former undersecretary of State for management and a former director of the U.S. Mint, Fore is USAID’s first female administrator. Edited excerpts from the interview follow.

NJ: As part of what is billed as the largest international development initiative launched since the Marshall Plan, USAID plans to double the size of its workforce and significantly increase its efforts not only in Iraq and Afghanistan but around the world. Why the dramatic increase in activity?

Fore: Well, this is an unusual period. We’re in a world that faces more ongoing conflicts and potential conflicts than before. We’ve also had more natural disasters than in the past. Both tear societies apart, and we’re in the business of rebuilding them. We’re being called on by many, many countries to help rebuild the social and economic fabric of their societies. That requires a surge in people, in assets, and in development resources. So in our budget we have a Development Leadership Initiative that will double the number of our Foreign Service officers around the world from around 1,000 to 2,000. That’s compared with more than 11,000 [aid officers] we had during the Vietnam War.

NJ: Has Congress supported your expansion?

Fore: Yes. I think there is a strong recognition that when our military deploys somewhere, it’s very important for diplomats and development experts to be by its side. Beyond the immediate crisis, for instance, development work can also focus on the long-term needs of a country. Take Indonesia as an example. It’s a modern Muslim country, and we’ve been working there for 10 years trying to improve their education system, because a solid education is so important. So a lot of this work focuses on the long term. That’s how you build nations and create friends and allies around the world.

NJ: Have you encountered opposition from lawmakers who see what you do as essentially international social work or welfare?

Fore: I think most people understand that this is tough and dangerous work. Most development experts, whether work--------ing for the government or for nongovernmental agencies, now do development work under fire. They work in some of the toughest conditions and places on earth. I also think there is a clear sense now that instability and fragile states create problems and make the United States more vulnerable. I’ve had generals tell me that they can win the peace, but without development, they can’t hold it.

NJ: Are the provincial reconstruction teams in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan a model for your efforts to coordinate the work of multiple agencies in the field, civilian as well as military?

Fore: Certainly the provincial reconstruction teams see the importance of that coordination every day. They see the skills, capabilities, resources, and equipment that all of these organizations can bring to bear when they’re working together to “clear, hold, and build.” That can be very powerful.

NJ: Don’t they also see the problems created when young men in these traumatized areas have no jobs or ways to support their families?

Fore: Yes. That’s why we are focusing on vocational training for both young men and women, so that they feel a sense of ownership and participation in their own societies. We’re also trying to bring the governments in these nations closer to their own people, so that people can participate in the rebuilding and feel trust that basic human needs will be met. Because all families around the world want the same things: education for their children, access to health care, the ability to work or open up a shop or store, a road to take products to market, etc. When you merge development, diplomacy, and defense, you can channel all of those desires in very productive ways toward the rebuilding of societies.

NJ: Has merging personnel from the State Department, USAID, the Defense Department, and other agencies required you to overcome significant institutional and cultural barriers?

Fore: Yes, because we haven’t done enough cross-training in the past. Sometimes these groups just don’t talk each other’s language. That’s why I support this concept of a National Security University. The more we cross-train and establish a presence in each other’s agencies, the faster we will come to speak a common language. But we’ve learned a lot since 2001, when we really started deploying together. We now have an office of military affairs at USAID, for instance.

NJ: Where do you begin, in terms of rebuilding societies crippled by war?

Fore: I was recently in northern Uganda, which is close to reaching a peace agreement for the first time in 20-plus years. They are really thinking through how to implement a peace, because all of the government services that disappeared during the war have to be rebuilt. And we’re finding that one of the most important things you need right away is economic revitalization. If people can go back to a community and reclaim their livelihoods, say by farming or opening up a shop, then they will return and become productive members of society again. They will build the peace.

On the other hand, if they can’t reclaim their livelihoods, they will head for another country, or join up with a militia. I was also recently in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and they are also confronting the same challenge of building the peace. Their primary focus was on building a major road, both because it offers constructive employment to former soldiers coming out of the army and because it’s important to restoring the local economy. So reconstruction and economic revitalization are very much interrelated.

NJ: How do you respond to criticism that, in Afghanistan especially, the international development and reconstruction effort is disjointed and often uncoordinated?

Fore: Well, this is a very complicated business, with big challenges. There are a lot of players that need to talk to each other, including the entire international donor community, nonprofit organizations, the private sector, as well as the Afghan government itself, because the country involved needs to take ownership of the development plan. I have a trip coming up to Afghanistan with other ministers from donor countries. We’ve already committed to three initiatives: trying to end duplication of efforts in terms of road-building and establishing educational clinics; better integrating civil-military efforts; and better linking international efforts to the Afghan national development plan.

NJ: What role does the private sector play in international reconstruction and development efforts?

Fore: The private sector is an enormous player, providing between 70 and 80 percent of the foreign assistance around the world at this point. At first, I think, most corporations were just looking to do something nice out of a sense of corporate responsibility. In the process, however, they’ve seen that it’s very much in their interest to help with foreign assistance in the developing world. Maybe it’s a Procter & Gamble selling individual personal care products in such places as India, which is a huge growth market. Coca-Cola has built water treatment plants. Information-technology companies such as Cisco, Intel, and Microsoft are putting broadband in places like Lebanon, or setting up youth centers in the West Bank. They are also offering training programs to certify local workers in their systems, which is also a big business opportunity. That’s important because their target audience is young men and women who want to be productive in their communities, and if there is enough opportunity, they will stay in their homelands and build their futures there.

NJ: In a time of rampant anti-Americanism abroad, the Bush administration is given wide credit for the $15 billion initiative to reverse the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa. What lessons do you draw from that?

Fore: PEPFAR [President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief] literally changed the lives of millions of people in Africa. Likewise, our malaria initiative dramatically reduced infant mortality there. We’re also starting to see great change as a result of the president’s Africa Education Initiative, which promotes the idea that education should be free and universal, understanding how very important it is for girls to go to school. They then become the teachers in their families. All of these initiatives have literally changed millions of lives. And a chief lesson is, you have to match your best practices with adequate resources.

Another lesson is, we need to talk about foreign assistance more. We need to talk about it in every country where we operate, and we need to talk about it more in America. We have good data showing that when Americans know their assistance is going for schools, or education, or disease eradication, they are very proud of that investment and the way we are using it to engage the world.