Study: United States Should Delay Pakistan Aid (AFP)
CGD's report on U.S. aid to Pakistan was featured in an AFP article.
From the article
The United States should delay much of its multibillion-dollar package to Pakistan pending economic reforms as the aid has led to official inaction and public resentment, a study said.
A task force of the Center for Global Development, a private Washington think-tank, said Wednesday that US assistance to Pakistan has become "muddled" with a lack of clear goals and leadership and pressure "to do too much, too quickly."
"The United States is way off course in Pakistan," said Center president Nancy Birdsall. "It's heavily focused on security while neglecting low-cost, low-risk investments in jobs, growth, and the long haul of democracy building."
The study comes as more US lawmakers question aid to Pakistan -- which has totaled some $18 billion since the September 11, 2001 attacks -- after US forces killed Osama bin Laden near the country's top military academy.
The United States in 2009 authorized a $7.5 billion, five-year package named after Senators John Kerry and Richard Lugar and Representative Howard Berman, who hoped to fight anti-Americanism in Pakistan by switching the US focus from backing the military to building the economy and civilian institutions.
But the study, the result of research that began well before the bin Laden raid, said the aid drive had paradoxically soured Pakistani public perceptions of the United States as it raised false hopes for the future.
And with Pakistani leaders now assuming a steady flow of cash from Washington, "it makes sense for them to push for that money rather than to work with their political rivals to move on key reforms," it said.
"For these reasons, we recommend that much of the $7.5 billion Kerry-Lugar-Berman aid package not be disbursed immediately," it said.
"Especially in sectors where serious flaws in public administration are the binding constraints to success, it would be better to backload the bulk of this extraordinary aid investment, to wait until critical policy questions are resolved."
