The End Of Foreign Assistance - Adios To 'Development' Scams, The Fiction Of Doing Good, And Lining The Pockets Of Africa's Big Men

The New York Times recently ran an article chronicling the lives of former USAID foreign assistance workers whose jobs were eliminated by Musk, DOGE, and the Trump Administration's program to eliminate unnecessary, financially draining, and inefficient bureaucracies. 

'Former USAID workers,' the Times began, 'estimate that less than half have found full-time work.' Being fired once has apparently left them permanently scarred. A full year later, the Times explained, 'many said they were still dealing with mental trauma and a loss of confidence in their professional abilities.' 

They felt privileged.  The Times explained that 'they thought of themselves as ambassadors for American 'soft power' - meaning leftist regime change - and 'are still burning from President Trump's characterization of them as 'radical-left loonies'. 

This sympathetic portrayal of coddled, insular idealists is only half the story.  Not only were they executors of projects which were hopelessly fanciful, unaccountable, and little more than Christmas gifts to dictators, they led the good life while so doing.  Once 'the people' were served - half-completed rural wells, bare school kitchens, and empty training centers visited - they went back to their European-style hotels, dined on Brittany oysters, foie gras from the Périgord, and trout from the Pyrenees.  

Meanwhile their 'government counterparts' used the wealth of rare earths, oil and gas reserves, and geopolitical position to get and maintain 'favorable nation status' - a carte blanche to take development money, invest it in private offshore accounts, and to rule restive populations with an iron hand. 

The former President of Mali was a master at playing the West for fools.  It cost him nothing to wave the American flag while he bought, with their money, Chinese and Russian arms.  His secret police was as brutal as Sevak, Stasi, or the Tonton Macoute, and American dupes, like former American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton bought the charade hook, line, and sinker. 

The President promised Clinton to hold 'free and fair elections', reform the judiciary, and extend generous welfare programs.  The price for such reforms was small - only a few millions of dollars which the United States could easily afford. 

Of course the wool had been pulled over Clinton's eyes, so intent was she to tout a black African success story. The President had no intention of doing any of these things, and once the American money had been deposited in the national treasury and earmarked for 'developmental justice', the rigged election took place returning him to office with ninety-five percent of the vote, the people saw not a cent of the 'investment', the monies were distributed liberally to loyal generals, and life went on as it always had.

Aid workers cared little for these high-level political affairs.  They went to Africa to do good and to live well.  It was the one-to-one exercise of American fraternity that mattered.  In project after project, the ends - reduced malaria, tetanus, AIDS, tuberculosis - were less important than the means, and community participation was the byword. Local communities were consulted at every turn, but the projects were still executed as Washington handlers had designed them.  

Not only were scams happening in the Presidential palace, but 'on the ground'.  The people got nothing they wanted, nothing they deserved. Only the aid workers were happy that they were partners with their 'beneficiaries'. 

Project after project failed miserably.  No matter how contractors cooked the books and USAID managers looked the other way, the fact remained that the people got nothing.  It was enough, said these aid workers to have shown the people the value of diversity, equity, and inclusivity on a national scale.  They were not in Africa to tell the people anything - they were there to listen - but of course they did nothing of the kind and executed the meaningless, porous, and devious projects handed to them by Washington to deliver. 

So it is not surprising that cashiered USAID workers are whining. Not only was the rug of 'helping the poor' pulled out from under them, but the good expatriate life denied.  What was left? Trained in nothing more than idealism, armed only with an unwarranted and seemingly endless enthusiasm for 'the people', and used to the good life of airconditioned suites and clean sheets, of course they whined. Who in the private sector would have such a lot of airy idealists with no clue how the world worked?

Robert McNamara, former Secretary of Defense in the Vietnam War era, got religion after the conflict had ended and Ho Chi Minh and the North reunited the country.  'What have I done?', McNamara asked in his memoir, a windy volume of mea culpas and hopes for forgiveness.  He had blood his hands from Rolling Thunder, wave after wave of B-52 bombers dropping mega-tons of bombs on the country, firestorms of napalm, and punishing cannon fire - all to no avail as the little gooks in black pajamas huddled underground, emerged after the attack and went on to beat the American army at every turn. 

Having been chastened and hoping to make amends, McNamara became the President of the World Bank and immediately changed it from lender of last resort - i.e. directing countries to first appeal to private lenders on capital markets and then only to finance loans at commercial rates for worthy projects - to a hopelessly do-good institution were 'poverty reduction' was the meme.  This policy shift ushered in the new 'development of the day' - feel-good projects of health, education, and welfare and a rejection of projects for infrastructure.  

The die had been cast, and billions of dollars were authorized for unaccountable soft loans. African countries knew exactly what was what and took the Bank for a ride, a con of monumental proportions. 

Once the august World Bank had taken this turn, bi-lateral organizations such as USAID followed suit, and the whole Third World struck it rich, a bonanza of wealth safely secured in the Bahamas, Aruba, and St. Kitts. 

'What am I to do now?', said a tearful Belinda Marks, former USAID consultant, old Africa hand, manager of millions in health money, guest at the best international hotels on the continent, poolside lizard, and friend of Africans.  She was at a loss, at sixes and sevens, for all she knew how to do was to oversee projects which had no bottom line.  No matter how poor the success rate, USAID kept pouring money into welcoming African coffers.  '

We've learned from our mistakes and will do better next time', hapless USAID managers promised their superiors who authorized Phase II, Phase III, ad infinitum, so Belinda simply had to keep traveling to Africa, do her field visits, write reports about community engagement, and fly home. 

No one should have any sympathy for these disingenuous development idealists. It was a good life - no accountability, fictional reports, airy promises, drinks at the pool bar, buffet breakfasts and weekends at the falls, the mountains, the beaches, or villas. 

If they had worked in the private sector and got let go, they would not whine but regroup, retool, reconfigure, and move on. Government service is a shell game. The private sector means business. 

It is also not surprising that the New York Times, once the paper of record, the Grey Lady, the objective source for information, and an All The News That's Fit To Print reputation, has turned to such treacly, sob-sister reporting.  The paper has become a rag, a progressive shill which has lost all credibility; but this story takes the cake.  Millions of readers took a look and said, 'Good riddance', while the editorial room met to discuss a sequel.