Report casts doubt on success of US aid to Pakistan

Report says US has failed to show progress since Congress approved a $7.5b five-year civilian aid package in 2009.

The US has failed to show progress since Congress approved a $7.5 billion five-year civilian aid package in 2009 to help Pakistan with basic needs like electricity, health care and education, said an inspector general’s report, according to the Associated Press.

The finding comes as some in the US have questioned the wisdom of lavishing Pakistan with financial assistance given the government’s reluctance to target the Haqqani group in North Waziristan. The US says the group poses the greatest danger to American troops in Afghanistan.

The massive civilian aid package was meant to help stabilise the country and also prove the US was interested in more than enlisting Pakistan’s cooperation in fighting militants by supplying it with billions of dollars in military support.

But the largest contributor of civilian aid, the US Agency for International Development, has not committed to a way to measure the success of its programmes, said the report released on Monday, which was written by officials at USAID, the State Department and the Defence Department.

“We believe that USAID has an imperative to accumulate, analyse, and report information on the results achieved under its programmes,” said the report, which covered the period through December 31, 2010. “One year after the launch of the civilian assistance strategy in Pakistan, USAID has not been able to demonstrate measurable progress.”

The US has committed nearly $4 billion to projects since 2009 to help the country address critical infrastructure needs, provide basic services and improve government performance, said the report. But some of that money predated the recent aid package.

The US Embassy in Islamabad has also failed to come up with a core set of indicators to measure the success of all American development programmes in Pakistan run by USAID, the State Department and the  Defence Department, said the report.

One of the reasons the US has struggled is that the embassy in Islamabad has had difficulty staffing the positions it needs to monitor and run its programmes, said the report. The USAID office at the embassy remained understaffed by more than 20 per cent, or 68 positions, as of the end of 2010, it said.

The office of the USAID inspector general conducted audits of two livelihood programmes in the tribal areas during the last quarter of 2010 that were aimed at fostering economic development to counter the rise of extremism.

“The audits found the programmes had made little progress in achieving the goal largely because of the hostile environment - the chief of party for one implementing partner was assassinated - but also because of a lack of baseline data and inadequate oversight, which resulted in questioned costs of $767,841” said the report.

Also, USAID terminated its agreement with one implementing partner, the US-based Academy for Educational Development, after an investigation revealed fraud stemming from false statements and claims, it said.

The problems raise questions about how effective future aid will be to Pakistan and whether it is the best use of American taxpayer dollars.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 9^th, 2011.