[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
U.S. AID TO PAKISTAN (PART II): PLANNING AND ACCOUNTABILITY
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HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY
AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS
of the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 16, 2010
__________
Serial No. 111-162
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
index.html
http://www.house.gov/reform
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Chairman
PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania DARRELL E. ISSA, California
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York DAN BURTON, Indiana
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland JOHN L. MICA, Florida
DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
DIANE E. WATSON, California LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
JIM COOPER, Tennessee BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia JIM JORDAN, Ohio
MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah
Columbia AARON SCHOCK, Illinois
PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri
DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois ANH ``JOSEPH'' CAO, Louisiana
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
PETER WELCH, Vermont
BILL FOSTER, Illinois
JACKIE SPEIER, California
STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio
JUDY CHU, California
Ron Stroman, Staff Director
Michael McCarthy, Deputy Staff Director
Carla Hultberg, Chief Clerk
Larry Brady, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts, Chairman
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island DAN BURTON, Indiana
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland JOHN L. MICA, Florida
PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
PETER WELCH, Vermont LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
BILL FOSTER, Illinois PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio JIM JORDAN, Ohio
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri
JUDY CHU, California
Andrew Wright, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on March 16, 2010................................... 1
Statement of:
Feldman, Daniel, Deputy to the Special Representative for
Afghanistan and Pakistan, U.S. Department of State; and
James A. Bever, Director, Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force,
and Deputy Assistant Administrator, Asia and Near East
Bureau, U.S. Aid........................................... 8
Bever, James A........................................... 18
Feldman, Daniel.......................................... 8
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Bever, James A., Director, Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force,
and Deputy Assistant Administrator, Asia and Near East
Bureau, U.S. Aid, prepared statement of.................... 21
Feldman, Daniel, Deputy to the Special Representative for
Afghanistan and Pakistan, U.S. Department of State,
prepared statement of...................................... 11
Tierney, Hon. John F., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Massachusetts, prepared statement of.............. 4
U.S. AID TO PAKISTAN (PART II): PLANNING AND ACCOUNTABILITY
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TUESDAY, MARCH 16, 2010
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign
Affairs,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m. in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John F. Tierney
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Tierney, Kennedy, Van Hollen,
Murphy, Welch, Driehaus, Quigley, Chu, Flake, Luetkemeyer, and
Lynch.
Staff present: Andy Wright, Staff Director; Elliot
Gillerman, Clerk; Talia Dubovi, Counsel; Scott Lindsay,
Counsel; Steven Gale, Fellow; LaToya King, Fellow; Aaron
Blacksberg, Intern; Bronwen DeSena, Intern; Adam Fromm,
minority Chief Clerk and Member Liaison; Stephanie Genco,
minority Press Secretary and Communications Liaison;
Christopher Bright, minority Senior Professional Staff Member;
and Renee Hayes, minority Fellow.
Mr. Tierney. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on
National Security and Foreign Affairs, the hearing entitled,
``U.S. Aid to Pakistan, Part II: Planning and Accountability,''
will come to order.
I ask unanimous consent that only the chairman and ranking
member of the subcommittee be allowed to make opening
statements, and without objection it is so ordered.
I ask unanimous consent that the hearing record be kept
open for 5 business days so that all members of the
subcommittee will be allowed to submit a written statement for
the record. Without objection, so ordered.
Good morning.
I want to thank you both for coming here today. We are
going to continue our ongoing oversight of the planning,
accountability, and effectiveness of U.S. aid to Pakistan.
On October 15, 2009, President Obama signed the Enhanced
Partnership with Pakistan Act. It is informally known as the
Kerry-Lugar-Berman Bill, tripling U.S. civilian economic and
development assistance to Pakistan to $1.5 billion annually
until 2014. While Kerry-Lugar-Berman was a largely bipartisan
demonstration of U.S.' commitment to long-term assistance to
Pakistan, serious concerns remain regarding the ability of
USAID and the State Department to effectively and efficiently
manage and account for such a massive increase of assistance.
In November 2009, I led a congressional delegation to
Pakistan in order to investigate, among other things, the
status of the U.S. assistance programs and the State
Department's and the USAID's capacity to manage and oversee
Kerry-Lugar-Berman funding. After four trips, it is apparent
that the security environment in Pakistan has grown markedly
worse in recent years.
During the congressional delegation, we met with Pakistan
civilian leadership, its political opposition, and a wide
variety of civil society members, NGO's, and international
contractors. We also traveled to Peshawar to deliver aid
supplies directly to the principal hospital that had been
receiving wounded from the many bombings during the past year.
Following that trip, in December 2009 the administration
announced its new regional stabilization strategy for
Afghanistan and Pakistan. That plan will ``increase direct
assistance through Pakistani institutions,'' mainly the
ministries and local NGO's, and focus more money on high-impact
projects such as major energy and water infrastructure.
The plan also promises to reduce USAID's over-reliance on
large international contractors as implementing partners.
I want to state at the outset that I am supportive of
exploring a new AID approach and appreciative of the time and
energy that our witnesses and the administration have put into
crafting the administration's new strategy. That said, given
the importance of U.S. national security interests in Pakistan
and the magnitude of the U.S. taxpayer dollars authorized for
development and economic assistance there, it is critically
important that we carefully scrutinize plans for implementation
of the new strategy, and particularly its accountability
mechanisms. In short, we must make certain that the
administration's new strategy will not send more money through
weaker systems--systems that lack the internal controls
developed with time and experience.
This presents several challenges. First, how will the State
Department and USAID gain visibility into the operations of
ministries that have historically resisted robust oversight? In
light of Pakistan's sensitivities regarding impingements on its
sovereignty, this challenge will be particularly acute.
Second, I am concerned about USAID's internal capacity to
oversee and account for funds directed through Pakistan's
ministries and local NGO's. For years USAID has been
marginalized and stripped of personnel, while at the same time
U.S. foreign policy has increasingly emphasized aid delivery in
high-risk conflict and post-conflict countries like Iraq,
Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
This challenge is only made more difficult by the current
security environment that makes it very difficult for either
USAID personnel or western ex pats to see let alone actively
manage or oversee many projects, particularly those in the
federally administered tribal areas [FATA], in the Northwest
Frontier Province.
I plan to continue to work with Congress and the
administration to bolster USAID's internal staffing and
capability. We must reverse USAID's decline in the last decade
if it is to serve as a central tool of U.S. foreign policy in
South Asia or the Middle East, a task it has been assigned but
not given the tools to fulfill.
I also want to highlight the recent challenges that the
U.S. Embassy in Islamabad has had in obtaining visas from
Pakistan for critical U.S. Government personnel from State,
USAID, and the Department of Defense. Many of the visa
applications have been denied or delayed, including visas for
auditors, accountants, and inspectors--the very people that
both the agencies and the Congress rely on to make sure that
civilian assistance is spent as it is intended.
From the position as chairman of the National Security and
Foreign Affairs Subcommittee, I want to make clear to the
government of Pakistan that the U.S. civilian assistance comes
as a package: funding, programming, and oversight. Pakistan
cannot accept the funding but deny U.S. agency the personnel or
the access for critical oversight.
I asked both witnesses here today to keep the subcommittee
informed regarding developments with the visa applications for
their agencies' respective personnel and to only fund programs
and projects for which they have the personnel in place to
perform the proper oversight.
The third issue of concern to me is to ensure that U.S.
funds directed to Pakistan's ministries are supplementing
Pakistan's funding of those ministries, not simply displacing
it. At the end of the day, the government of Pakistan must own
and take responsibility for each of the projects we embark on
together. Instilling a sense of such ownership will be a
critical and delicate challenge going forward.
I am a strong believer that the U.S.' civilian assistance
to Pakistan is critical to the stabilization and the health of
Pakistan, and to long-term U.S. national security interests.
The Kerry-Lugar-Berman is a major down payment on our shared
future. In the best circumstances, however, it is an
extraordinary endeavor to create, manage, and oversee billions
of dollars in development assistance programs, and Pakistan is
not in the best of circumstances. That is why this subcommittee
has made a great effort to exercise proactive oversight in
order to ensure that critical accountability mechanisms are in
place from day one.
With that said, I would like to defer to my colleague, Mr.
Flake, for his opening remarks.
[The prepared statement of Hon. John F. Tierney follows:]
Mr. Flake. I thank the chairman for holding this hearing
and also undertaking the Co-Del a while ago. I wish I could
have gone. It would have been helpful, and I look forward to
the testimony today.
It was interesting, when this package was announced,
certainly in Pakistan, I don't think any aid package has been
met with such derision from the recipients. It certainly piqued
our interest here to see how it was played there. Obviously ,
we know it was for domestic politics, but I think it is safe to
say that it is difficult to see or to assume that any country
could receive this amount of aid and be able to transition that
quickly, as well as our aid agencies to ramp up this
substantially in this short period of time, as the chairman
said, in the best of circumstances, and these are not the best.
So I look forward to the testimony and all you have to say.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Just a quick aside to that. After the Kerry-Lugar-Berman
bill passed--and this committee had quite a bit to do with
that, as Jeff knows--we had an occasion to speak both in
Pakistan and back here at home, but what is indicative, I
think, is one occasion up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I
spoke before a few hundred Pakistanis, when I got through one
half of the room was mad that we had put these sanctions on,
not the sanctions but the conditions, and the other half of the
room was mad because they weren't strong enough. They were all
Pakistani, so it depends on how you break down on that.
With that, we'd love to hear from our witnesses. We have 5-
minute remarks, as you know.
We swear our witnesses in on this committee, so I ask the
witnesses to please stand and raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Tierney. Let the record please reflect that both
witnesses answered in the affirmative.
I would like to give a brief introduction of our witnesses.
Mr. Daniel Feldman serves as a Deputy to the Special
representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the U.S.
Department of State. He previously served as Director of Multi-
Lateral and Humanitarian Affairs for the National Security
Council, where he was responsible for global human rights
issues. A former congressional staff member, Mr. Feldman has
also served as counsel and communications advisor to the Senate
Homeland Security and the Government Affairs Committee. Mr.
Feldman holds a B.A. from Tufts University in Massachusetts and
from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School and a J.D.
from Columbia University Law School.
Mr. James Beaver currently serves as Director of the
Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force of the U.S. Agency for
International Development, where he oversees more than $4
billion in U.S. assistance to Afghanistan and Pakistan. A
member of the Senior Foreign Service, Mr. Beaver previously
served as Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Middle
East, providing leadership for $2.5 billion in U.S. assistance
to the Middle East and North Africa. Mr. Beaver holds a B.A.
from Cornell University and an M.S. from Georgetown University.
Again, thank you both for making yourselves available today
and for sharing your considerable expertise. You both are
experienced witnesses before Congress, so I know you know the
drill. Five minutes if you can keep it reasonably close to
that. We have all read or will read your remarks, and then we'd
like to get to the question and answer period if we could.
Mr. Feldman, let's start with you, please.
STATEMENTS OF DANIEL FELDMAN, DEPUTY TO THE SPECIAL
REPRESENTATIVE FOR AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
STATE; AND JAMES A. BEVER, DIRECTOR, AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN TASK
FORCE, AND DEPUTY ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, ASIA AND NEAR EAST
BUREAU, U.S. AID
STATEMENT OF DANIEL FELDMAN
Mr. Feldman. Thank you very much, Chairman Tierney and
Ranking Member Flake, for the opportunity to be here and to
discuss our efforts to enhance planning and accountability of
U.S. development assistance to Pakistan.
I will give a more pared-down and focused version of the
written testimony, just so we have a kind of baseline for our
conversation afterwards, and then I will also welcome the
opportunity to speak afterwards once we start Q and A. I am
happy to address the visa situation or some of the other
specific issues you raised in your opening statement.
As you know, Pakistan faces threats of many forms. The
security situation weighs heavily on all Pakistanis. Too many
of the country's citizens do not have access to functioning
health or education systems. Pakistan's energy crisis leaves
businesses and homes in the dark many hours in the day, and the
looming water crisis poses an existential threat to Pakistan
and its neighbors. All these factors increase the stakes on the
effectiveness of our assistance programs. Your committee
rightly identifies the crucial role of proper planning and
oversight in the success of our efforts.
Since 2002 when the U.S. reengaged with Pakistan, a large
percentage of our civilian assistance has been tied up in large
contracts and grants with U.S. organizations that have produced
uneven results, have lacked flexibility, have not provided
optimum value, and have not built sufficient Pakistani
capacity. Much of our past programming did not address the
issues most important to Pakistanis, such as energy and water.
Pakistanis believe that a high percentage of U.S. resources
do not reach them, given our work and our people have been
mostly invisible to the average citizens of the country. The
average Pakistani has perceived our assistance as being too
strongly tied to their country's military and intelligence
cooperation with the United States rather than being aimed for
the long-term well-being of the country's citizens.
All this pointed to a very large and expensive missed
opportunity which we have tried to rectify over the course of
the past 14 months. U.S.G. assistance in Pakistan now aims to
expand our relationship beyond predominantly security issues,
providing instead a more balanced approach that will help the
Pakistani people overcome the political, social, and economic
challenges that threaten the country's stability.
As you referenced, in the regional stabilization strategy
that we circulated earlier to the Hill, we hope to address
first of all the immediate energy, water, and related economic
crises; second, support broader economic and political reforms
that are necessary for political growth, sustainable growth;
three, improve health care and education; four, help Pakistan
respond to the humanitarian challenges caused by extremist
violence and natural disasters, and; five, combat extremism.
We have a remarkable opportunity before us to deliver this
more effective and balanced environment for delivering civilian
assistance. This is formed, in large part, as you noted, by the
passage of the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act, the
Kerry-Lugar-Berman legislation, as well as the initiatives that
have been undertaken thus far by President Obama, Secretary
Clinton, Ambassador Holbrook, and others in the executive
branch.
How we are responding to these opportunities is through
several broad categories of reformulated vision toward
assistance. First of all is the emphasis on smaller and more
flexible contracts. To provide more flexibility and improve
monitoring and oversight, we are shifting away from large U.S.-
based contracts to smaller, predominantly Pakistani ones, with
fewer sub-grants and subcontracts. These will be managed by our
increased number of staff in the field.
Second is decentralization. Within the next few months,
USAID teams will be placed in Lahore and Karachi, in addition
to the current offices in Islamabad and Peshawar. A
decentralized programming platform will enable more location-
appropriate development activities at the provincial and
district level, make it easier for U.S. officials in the field
to oversee and monitor programs and prevent fraud, and allow
more regular engagement between our personnel and the
populations we aim to benefit.
Third is the meaningful assistance. Relevant and effective
assistance must materially address the issues that count most
to the average Pakistani. The overwhelming message conveyed to
the Secretary and Ambassador Holbrook during their visits to
Pakistan was the need for assistance with the country's chronic
power and water shortages. In response, we have begun projects
to reduce the hours of power blackouts, make more potable water
available to poor communities, and improve the availability and
management of irrigation water for farms.
As these projects move quickly from feasibility to
implementation, we will begin the same process for projects
that address other priority Pakistani needs, including medical
and educational facilities.
Fourth is the increased assistance, as you have mentioned,
provided through and to Pakistani institutions. In order to
maximize the amount of our resources that will remain in
Pakistan, we are transitioning our assistance modalities. We
will do so by decreasing our reliance on large international
contractors and aim instead to build institutional capacity and
sustainability by increasing direct assistance to Pakistani
implementing partners. While these arrangements involve
transfers to Pakistani institutions, this is not blank check
budget support; instead, they are the results of negotiations
with USAID regarding how the funds will be spent, how progress
will be monitored, and how the financial arrangements will be
implemented.
In the case of budget support transfers, there will be
targeted institutions and uses rather than general budget
support, as was previously provided in the past.
All this goes to the issue of improved accountability and
oversight. Our stated policy goal of working more through
Pakistani institutions does have the potential to contribute to
corruption, as we recognize. To mitigate this risk, we are
increasing the number of direct hire contracting staff and
Inspector General personnel that will reside in Pakistan.
We are also expanding the use of Pakistani public
accounting firms to conduct financial audit of funds, provide
to Pakistani NGO's, train Pakistani public accounting firms and
Pakistan's Auditor General on how to conduct audits to U.S.
standards, help the Pakistan Auditor General conduct financial
audits of funds provided to Pakistan government entities, and
build the capacity of the Pakistan government to carry out or
assist with investigations and coordinate audits and
investigations among the U.S. Inspectors General and the GAO.
In the past 2 months, over $26 million in contracts to
buttress audit and monitoring capabilities in Pakistan have
been awarded using ESF.
The Secretary, Ambassador Holbrook, our entire team at the
Special Representative's office who work on Pakistan believe we
have a duty to ensure that USG resources are used for the
purposes intended by Congress, and the reforms I have outlined
will, over time, decrease cost for assistance programs,
increase the amount of U.S. assistance directly benefiting the
Pakistani people and Pakistani institutions, and ensure much
better development effects.
I am happy to talk about any of the details during the
question and answer.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Feldman follows:]
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Feldman.
Mr. Bever.
STATEMENT OF JAMES A. BEVER
Mr. Bever. Thank you very much, Chairman Tierney, Ranking
Member Flake, other distinguished members of the committee.
Thanks for your invitation to USAID to speak with you this
morning.
Chairman, I particularly appreciate your longstanding
support for rebuilding America's Foreign Assistance Agency,
especially the staffing. Thank you, sir.
When USAID reopened its mission in Pakistan in 2002, I had
just come back from serving 4 years in India as the Deputy
Mission Director. I was then serving as the Director for South
Asian Affairs and, of course, Pakistan and Afghanistan had
become our biggest responsibilities at that time. As you know,
we started out with a very large cash transfer at that point to
the government of Pakistan, and then gradually grew that into
primary health care and education attention, in coordination
with other donors.
Following President Obama's strategy review, we now have a
focus on forging new partnerships with Pakistan and with
Pakistani entities, as well as rebuilding the capacity of
Pakistan public institutions, as well as its private
institutions, in affecting lives of individual Pakistanis.
I am going to talk just briefly about the civilian
assistance strategy, about local implementation through
Pakistani institutions, some of the safeguard mechanisms, FATA
development, and a little bit on democracy governance, as you
know, under the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act, which
authorizes tripling of U.S. civilian assistance, bringing our
funding up to $1.5 billion annually as a target.
Our three foci, if you will, for our assistance is on
infrastructure and constraints to infrastructure for
development in Pakistan; second is on building the capacity of
the government of Pakistan to deliver key and appreciated
services to its people and to improve the connectivity between
the people, the governed, and the governing; and, finally, to
improve the capacity of the Pakistan institutions to be able to
implement on their own.
Terms of our presence in the country. As you know, at the
time actually that I served in Pakistan, which was as a
Division Chief for energy assistance about 25, 26 years ago in
the War against the Soviets next door, we had many, many
American AID officers in Islamabad and elsewhere around the
country. And as a matter of fact, we were the second-largest
staffed operation in the world next to Egypt at that time.
Today, although of course we had a large hiatus in the 1990's,
we have about 30, 35 U.S. Foreign Service officers at our AID
operation, plus another couple dozen what we call U.S. personal
service contractors, and over 100 Foreign Service nationals.
This is much smaller than we had back in the years during the
1980's.
But thanks to the Enhanced Partnership Act, we do plan to
increase these levels, in consultation with the Embassy
colleagues and Ambassador Patterson and our colleagues here in
Washington. We will be increasing our American staff
significantly, as well as our Pakistani staff, which is
extremely important. Our Pakistani staff are world class, are
our eyes, our ears, and our brains, and our continuity from one
American rotation, if you will, to another.
So we will be building up our project management
capability, our financial oversight capability, and our
procurement capability, and our legal capability. I can go into
more of that if you would like.
We will also be focusing more on the provinces, not just
the Federal Government in Islamabad, which is extremely
important, but also the legitimate provincial government
authorities who, for example, have responsibility for education
in the country of Pakistan.
In terms of local implementation, we will be moving to find
ways--and we are already aggressively pursuing this--to
diversify our mechanisms and our partners. I think this is
sound U.S. foreign policy. I think it is sound U.S. foreign
assistance technique. It is not to the exclusion of our
existing partners. There will be a role for them, too. But we
are trying to broaden and diversify the players who can deliver
the American assistance program and also strengthen their
capabilities, whether it is in the government, private sector,
or civil society in Pakistan.
In terms of oversight and monitoring, my colleague, Dan
Feldman, has already addressed those. I can go into some of
those in more detail later. I just want to stress that we
believe in AID and that the IG and the GAO are our best
friends. They are like our family physician that travel with
us. We may not always like the techniques they use to identify
what is needed in our health, but it is good to know what the
diagnostics are so we can deal with them. We coordinate closely
with them, accordingly.
In FATA, I will just say that we are very proud, despite
very dangerous situations in the FATA--the Federal Administered
Tribal Areas. We have been able to implement over $140 million
of social and economic support projects, mostly at the
community level, in all seven of the FATA agencies and in all
six of the Frontier regions.
I have to stress, Mr. Chairman and other Members, in my own
view, having spent 9 years living in South Asia and in other
dangerous parts of the world additional years, this is the
bravest, most courageous, riskiest, but most overdue action
that I can think of in the U.S. foreign assistance program.
In democracy governance, one thing I would like to just
state specifically is that we will continue to support the
government of Pakistan in its development of its own
parliament, and we are providing assistance to the government
of Pakistan to construct a capability so that there are staff
support for the members of its [foreign word], of its
parliament, and to help them with rule of law, however,
complicated and challenging that is, because it is those values
that connect most deeply among the Pakistani people when you
think of democracy and governance.
In closing, I just want to say thank you again for inviting
us, and I want to just dedicate our testimony today to those
very brave American third country national and Pakistani staff
at our embassy, including our AID mission, who risk their lives
every day to carry out U.S. foreign policy and to make Pakistan
a better, more representative government.
Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bever follows:]
Mr. Tierney. I want to thank both of the witnesses. Mr.
Bever, I appreciate your latter remarks. I am sure Mr. Flake
and the other Members here do, as well.
We don't mention often enough the serious sacrifices being
made by those families, the important role they play, even
though we do have Admiral Mullen and most of our generals over
there talking about the fact that this cannot be won solely
militarily and that we have to have people willing to do those
jobs, so I appreciate your bringing that up.
We are going to start the 5-minute rounds of questioning,
and I would like to start just by reading to you both a quote
from an economic officer at USAID who filed this dissenting
cable on October 2, 2009. In it, it says: the USAID mission in
Pakistan is receiving contradictory objectives from Ambassador
Holbrook.
On the one hand, it is expected to achieve high impact
counter-insurgency and broad-based economic development
objectives as quickly as possible, especially in those areas
more susceptible to radical Taliban recruitment. On the other
hand, it is asked to do this by working through national and
local government channels and host country contractors and
NGO's and not through U.S. contractors and NGO's, to avoid the
overhead charges of the latter and to improve the institutional
capacity and legitimacy of government agencies and local
institutions. These are all worthy goals and USAID can achieve
them all; however, they are contradictory objectives without a
reasonable transition period for the latter.
Can you give me your reaction to that statement, and what
we are doing to address those concerns?
Mr. Feldman. Chairman Tierney, we certainly value the
dissent channel quite a bit. This was an issue that came up at
the very outset of our move to push toward more local
Pakistani. We have had a variety of meetings in post and
briefings with staff and Members about this. I think that was a
concern at the very outset of this process.
Mr. Tierney. It was a concern while we were there at about
that time.
Mr. Feldman. Yes. The announcement initially was at the end
of the fiscal year, so right around September 30th, October
1st, at the time this cable was written, there was a lot of
anxiety I think because of a lack of communication about
exactly what would be done, how quickly we were going to start
this initiative. I think that we have certainly worked our way
through virtually all those concerns at this point.
Primarily, we started a review of every major contract
through--and I think there were a lot of existing contractors,
including NGO's and others, who were quite concerned that the
contract may end in 90 days and they wouldn't be able to do it.
We have thus far only terminated one contract in the last 4 or
5 months since this review has happened. It was only a $2.5
million contract. Everything else has continued through the
next year.
Mr. Tierney. Nobody has been asked to wind down or----
Mr. Feldman. None of them are winding down, and we said
that if they were going to wind down we would give them 45-day
notice. None of that has happened, and we don't have the intent
for anything like that to happen. What we have done is, I
think, put the international contracting community on notice
that for new contracts, and as we start expending and
disbursing most of this new Kerry-Lugar-Berman money and
others, we are looking to first issues to Pakistani
implementers and NGO's to fill the capacity, as I discussed.
We have always said that we will reserve the right that if
there is not the ability or capacity there that we will
continue using international contractors. We work actively with
the international NGO community, as well as the local Pakistani
NGO's. In fact, we have on Ambassador Holbrook's staff someone
dedicated just to NGO relationships and working with NGO's on
these issues. So we are in no way trying to terminate that, but
we are trying, as I outlined in the opening statement, to
really build local capacity and to do that as quickly and
effectively as possible.
So I think that we are well beyond those problems, but I
refer to Jim to see what his sense is.
Mr. Tierney. Thanks. Can both of you gentlemen assure the
subcommittee that you will keep it informed regarding the visa
issue, developments on that, and regarding your agency's
personnel, and give us some assurance that you will only fund
those programs and projects for which personnel are in place to
perform the adequate oversight?
Mr. Feldman. On the issue of visas, there has been a
backlog, and it was very problematic, but we have made very
substantial progress over the last few months on the visa
issue, working very closely with the government of Pakistan.
Ambassador Haqqani is in our office very frequently giving us
updates on that issue. I think there was a backlog of about 500
visas in January. It is down to, I believe, less than 200 at
this point. So we are actively moving through those, and we
have made it very clear that this is in the best interest not
only of us but of the Pakistanis, since many of these are
auditors, in order to be able to go through----
Mr. Tierney. That is exactly the point. We need some
assurances that we are not going to start spending this money
without those auditors and other people in place to monitor it.
Mr. Bever.
Mr. Bever. If I could just comment, I share Dan's concerns
about this. Of particular concern to us is when we have visa
problems for Inspectors General from Manilla or of our security
people that we need from our Washington security office who we
need to get out to post to consult with our own internal
security people to make sure that the lives of our employees,
be they Pakistani or American, are safeguarded as much as
possible.
Without the ability to have an independent Inspector
General function out there at post, or without the ability to
keep our people as safe as is reasonable given the risks, we
will not be able to function as productively, and we would have
to change the way we do our business or even think through what
business we do.
Mr. Tierney. Can I take that as a yes, that we will not be
spending this money where there is not the adequate personnel
for auditing and oversight in place.
Mr. Feldman. Yes, absolutely.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Feldman says yes. Mr. Bever, do you say
yes, as well?
Mr. Bever. Yes, sir.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Flake.
Mr. Flake. Thank you.
Thank you for the testimony.
When we are talking about building capacity with the
institutions there, you mentioned they are trying to hire
firms, Pakistani CPA firms and others, to audit a lot of this.
How is that going so far? How much capacity needs to be built
there before you can transition a lot of the work from
international contractors? Mr. Feldman.
Mr. Bever. Maybe I could start, Congressman.
Mr. Flake. Go ahead.
Mr. Bever. Well, AID has a long history of doing pre-award
audits, for example, and of seeking to build local capacity,
including through our Inspector General operations. They often
will reach out to local CPA firms affiliated with international
CPA firms, Americans in particular, so in many of the countries
we work, including in Pakistan, there is some depth there for
us to work with.
We now have in place a number of local Pakistani CPA firms,
and we have asked our IG to give us the--I would say the Good
Housekeeping Seal of Approval on those local Pakistani firms so
that we know that when we use them, they are ones that our own
IG, Inspector General, operation is comfortable with. So we
would often go to those that have also worked, for example, to
do the audit, financial audit work for the World Bank or for
the British or for the Asian Development Bank. So we try a
number of different ways to go about this to make sure we get
good, high-quality operations to do that internal audit.
Mr. Feldman. If I could just add, although I defer to Jim
on the specific numbers, but we have been actively seeking to
increase those number of pre-vetted Pakistani CPA firms. I
think it has gone from five or six at the end of last year to
close to twenty at this point. I have seen between 16 and 20. I
know we are in the process of vetting quite a number of them.
And then, in terms of the actually pre-award surveys, I believe
over 100 Pakistani organizations have been identified for pre-
award surveys, and about roughly 40 are completed or underway,
and so the process of vetting on the financial and accounting
side is very much underway at a very robust level.
Mr. Flake. We mentioned the reaction to the conditions that
was placed on the money by the Pakistani government. Have they
reconciled with that? Are they okay? And is their displeasure
manifested in other areas, or areas other than visas? Just tell
me how that process is going.
Mr. Feldman. I was actually very involved in the aftermath
of the Kerry-Lugar-Berman legislation and I worked with
Chairman Berman, Chairman Kerry, and Foreign Minister Karachi
when he was here to try to work through some of these issues,
including the ultimate production by the Congress of the joint
explanatory statement on Kerry-Lugar-Berman.
It was a backlash which we perhaps should have anticipated
but we didn't. It had been so long in the making and there had
been so much news about it, that we didn't expect this. I think
it is fair to say that a large part of this was jammed up for
domestic political purposes that, once we were able to get the
explanatory statement out and once people were actually able to
focus on what is actually in it.
I think there was so much misinformation about this
impinging on the sovereignty of the Pakistani government on
what exactly, how onerous the conditions might be, what sorts
of reporting there may be. Once we were able to get through the
initial few weeks and actually get people to read what the
legislation actually did and what it would require and what the
opportunities are, it has been a much more cooperative,
facilitative environment.
I think having Senator Kerry there to explain it was very,
very helpful, including with the Parliament. The Secretary's
trip I think really was a kind of turning point, and at one
point she said quite bluntly in a town hall, ``Look, if you
don't want it, don't take it.'' And I think since that point we
have really kind of turned the corner and we have not seen any
sort of kind of negative press like this over the last few
months.
Mr. Bever. If I might just add, there is one important
evolution now over about 8 years ago. Eight years ago, when we
did the first big cash transfers, $600 million, it was very
difficult to get the Pakistan government to cooperate with us
in certain ways we needed in order to have rights of audit in
the right places we had to have them, but we now have an
agreement with the Supreme Audit Institute of the Government of
Pakistan that will allow us, in fact, to audit and to have our
auditors and our CPA firms and the Pakistan CPA firms enter
into audit wherever we feel we need to have it. That is an
important step forward. And we have learned some lessons, and
so has the government of Pakistan in this regard.
Mr. Flake. Very quickly, Mr. Bever, the security situation
in the FATA for our contractors and grantees, is it improving
generally or does it go up and down depending on government
action in the area?
Mr. Bever. I would say the latter. It goes up and down. It
is, of course, a risky place and a sometimes dangerous place.
That has not stopped us from being able to help the FATA
Secretariat and the FATA Development Authority from being able
to do what they need to do with our help, but it requires a
great deal of sensitivity, and particularly in Waziristan, of
course, because of the fighting that has made it especially
complicated. We are very mindful of the risks at play there,
including for the Pakistanis that work with us.
Mr. Flake. Thank you.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Quigley, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Quigley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I join you and other Members in thanking your
efforts in Pakistan. We recognize how difficult they are, but
to get past the specific points today, how do we overcome what
seems to be overwhelming distrust by the Pakistani people
toward our Government and our aid?
My numbers may be old, but they are from last year that 64
percent of the public see the United States as an enemy, and 9
percent of them see us as a partner. Obviously, this comes from
many reasons. You would know better than myself, but obviously
the drone attacks contribute to this significantly, and whether
or not you can argue that those are a good idea, they seem to
be having a very negative impact on how people react to us.
And if, at least in large part, these efforts are to win
the hearts and minds of the Pakistani people, gentlemen,
doesn't it seem like they just blow away all your efforts and
no matter what you do and how much money we spend and how
efficiently we spend it, the drone attacks seem to be literally
destroying our efforts to win the hearts and minds?
Mr. Feldman. Congressman, I can't comment on the drone
attacks, but I would say that the effort to rebuild our
reputation and nation relationship with the Pakistani people is
the chief underlying framework of how we are proceeding with
our relationship there. And it goes back, again, to the
question, I think, that Congressman Flake asked on Kerry-Lugar-
Berman. There is a great degree of skepticism in Pakistan about
America, but it is----
Mr. Quigley. Do you think these numbers are in the ball
park?
Mr. Feldman. I think they are in the ball park, yes. I
think that we are working on moving them up. I think we have
seen some increases. When Secretary Clinton was there, they
certainly rose. I am not sure where they currently stand right
now. But yes, the perception of Americans is not a positive
one, and it is formed by a history where they have seen our
interest wax and wane based primarily on our security and
military interest. They see it as a very self-interested
relationship.
They don't believe that we are interested in a longer-term
relationship, and that is why so much of our work has been to
emphasize that this is a long-term relationship, that it is
based on a civilian relationship as well as a security one,
that it is a people-to-people relationship. This was the entire
theme of the Secretary's trip last fall, where she talked about
turning the page and building this civilian relationship.
I think that it will take time to do, but I think that we
are going in the right direction and it has already showed some
successes. I think it is, in part, given our many high-level
principal visits. Ambassador Holbrook has been there, I think,
eight times in the past year, is headed there again at the end
of the month. Admiral Mullen has been there a number of times,
the Secretary, obviously, President Obama referencing it.
Obviously, the interest of Congress in Kerry-Lugar-Berman,
but as well as the ongoing strategic dialog, which Secretary
Clinton is hosting here next week with Foreign Minister Karachi
leading the Pakistani delegation, and trying to demonstrate the
breadth and depth of the issues that we have to discuss, rather
than seeing it through the very narrow military security prism.
In terms of how we are seeking to use the Kerry-Lugar-
Berman money, it is to do exactly what you have said in some
part. It is to have impact, use the money, obviously,
efficiently and to build sustainability. But as we have laid
out in our regional stabilization strategy and others, we have
also highlighted these high-visibility, high-impact projects in
five or six different key areas, which is meant to demonstrate
what America's commitment is over the long term in energy, as
the Secretary announced on her visit, with $125 million toward
efficiency mechanisms that put many more watts on the grid, but
also in water and agriculture and health and education and
governance. And we are in the process of developing those right
now, as we are also continuing the work that we have done in
development in that country over the years.
So we are very cognizant of that relationship, of the
perception of the Pakistani people, and of trying to change
that, and we are there for the long term, and we think that
over time, as that becomes evident, that those perceptions will
change.
Mr. Bever. If I might just add to that briefly, Chairman, I
would just say what will be important to the Pakistani people,
in my own experience, is that long-term commitment, and that is
why I think the enhancing partnership with Pakistan is so
important.
Mr. Quigley. Excuse me. You don't want to react to my
question as to how much of an impact the drone attacks have,
either?
Mr. Bever. I cannot comment on that, sir. I just know that
what we are talking about here do not lend themselves to
dronable solutions.
Mr. Quigley. And, Mr. Chairman, I know my time is up.
Mr. Tierney. For some time now, yes.
Mr. Quigley. I appreciate it. I think mine might have been
30 seconds, but the point being a perusal of Pakistani
newspapers, despite all your best efforts, seem to show that
the drone attacks and, again, whether or not we think it is
rational, the trial of a female doctor just blowing away all
your efforts as it gets to the hearts and minds of the
Pakistani people.
Mr. Tierney. I would just comment on one thing on that. If
you read the Pakistani papers about the Kerry-Lugar-Berman
thing you have an entirely different impression from what
reality was on the ground, too, so I think there is----
Mr. Quigley. Which is frustrating.
Mr. Tierney. It is frustrating. It is hard to tell really
what is going on, whether it is manipulation or accurate
reporting on that.
Mr. Luetkemeyer, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In some of the information we have here, there is a quote
from June 29th to the New York Review, something to the effect
that says, rather, we can expect a slow, insidious, long-
turning fuse of fear, terror, and paralysis that the Taliban
had lit and the state is unstable and partly unwilling to
douse. With the recent arrests that have come about in Pakistan
and their seemingly different approach to dealing with the
Taliban, do you see an improvement in the government's ability
to control its own destiny here, or is it still as unstable or
more unstable than what the original comment was made almost a
year ago?
Mr. Feldman. We are certainly happy to offer any sort of
briefings to you or others about the arrests and include the
intel component which I can't really speak to. I think that
there are a number of indicators that our relationship with the
government of Pakistan is on increasingly stable and more
constructive grounds, due to actions on both sides. It is one
that both we and the Pakistani government have invested a lot
of time and effort into over the past 14 months. I think that
is beginning to show dividends.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. Mr. Bever, what is your thought?
Mr. Bever. I would just add that I think what we have seen
over the last year and a half is a more conscious effort by the
government of Pakistan, when it does have to take certain
military actions in populated areas, that they have learned
some lessons from the approach they took in the Mulakan and
Swat and Mongora areas.
As they have moved into Waziristan with better joint
civilian planning for better pre-staging of supplies for
populations that escape from those areas because of the
fighting, and for better pre-planning to go back in to try to
re-establish stability in those areas. To me that is a signal
of better consciousness, both within the military of the
Pakistan government and the civilian sides, of the importance
of doing these kinds of stabilization efforts for their
security and a more humane way and for more rapid recovery.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. Well, it seemed that the more stable a
government, the more effective our aid would be to the people
of Pakistan. I would assume that we would be supporting them in
those endeavors and hope that they will be able to do a better
job of controlling their country and the various factions in
there; otherwise, the aid is going to fall in the wrong hands,
I would assume.
Do you have any way to measure how our aid is being
effective, how effective it is, the number of schools or water
projects or more kids being educated or more people having less
disease? I mean, do you have some measurable way of seeing what
we have been doing, what the outcomes are?
Mr. Bever. Yes, in those areas where we operate, we do
baseline surveys, we do monitoring, we do interim assessments,
as well, to see how many more children are able in a certain
catchment basin, let's say of population, able to get some
minimal primary education, for example, how many more girls are
coming back in to school because we have combined a feeding
program, like our Head Start, for example, so that, in fact,
they are, in fact, more motivated to come in to school.
We do monitor the maternal child health statistics and
maternal morbidity and infant mortality. So those are the kinds
of measures we try to take as we operate how many--what kind of
community development activities, how much community
participation we are getting, including female participation in
the communities, especially difficult in areas of FATA, for
example. We do have ways to do that, and if you would like more
information we can make that available to the committee.
Mr. Feldman. I would also add that the White House has
undertaken their metrics process, which has been ongoing over
the past 6 or 8 months. I know that the first report due to
Congress I believe will come at the end of this month.
Regarding FATA, in particular, just to amplify what Jim
said, I think there is a sense that, because of the security
issues, because of other ongoing concerns, that there is not
necessarily much that we have been able to do there, and that
is very much not the case.
Just since September 2009 USAID and OTI have completed 32
activities totaling over $1.6 million. These have included
repaving seven roads, fifteen water supply and sanitation
activities, four flood protection walls, three electricity
system rehabilitations.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. Okay. Very good. That was my question.
Before my time runs out I have one more question. Thank you. I
didn't want to interrupt you here, but I do have one more
question I want to get to real quickly.
I know in Afghanistan we are using the National Guard
operation where we have National Guard individuals who have a
background in agriculture to come in and help train and work
with the Afghanis to try and teach them some different farming
methods, as well as help establish new markets for their
farming products. Is there something like that that is being
thought of as a way to implement in Pakistan, as a way to gain
the trust of the Pakistani people, the various factions there?
I know that seems to be what is working in Afghanistan, and
it is a great way to turn the people to realize that we are
there to help, not to harm. Is there anything like that under
consideration, or is that strictly something that is only used
in Afghanistan?
And, Mr. Chairman, I do appreciate your indulgence.
Mr. Bever. At this time no, although I must say we are
extremely grateful to the U.S. National Guard from, I think,
nine States now in Afghanistan that are operating there on
agricultural development teams, together with U.S. Department
of Agriculture and our own AID advisors. At this time, to the
best of my knowledge, we are not planning or thinking of that
on the Pakistan side. We have other ways to deliver
agriculture-related assistance, together with USDA, by the way.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. Well, the reason for the question was you
made the comment about building relationships with the people,
we have to earn their trust, and it seems to be working in
Afghanistan. I was seeing if that was something you would be
thinking about as trying a way to earn the trust of the people
of Pakistan, as well.
Mr. Chairman, I do appreciate your indulgence. Thank you
very much.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you for your comments. Thanks for your
questions.
Mr. Murphy, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I appreciate your testimony here today. I want to get back
to this question we have been tossing around about metrics. As
compelling as data is about the number of roads paved and the
number of children educated, it strikes me that that is
ultimately not why we are there. If just investments in social
infrastructure and in hard infrastructure were our end product
here, then we should be in a lot of places in the world. The
metric here ultimately is to Mr. Quigley's point, is whether or
not we are creating the conditions upon which people will feel
better about the United States and feel less inclined to move
into an extremist movement there that threatens both the
stability of the country and threatens the United States.
So I guess my question is: do you think about how we
measure that? And what are the ways in which we can do it?
I think I agree it is hard to do that on a national basis
because we have a lot of other competing factors that are hard
to measure for, but I wonder if there are ways to do that on a
localized basis in areas of the country that we have heavy
investments in and where we are paving roads and putting kids
to school and setting up health clinics. Is there a way to
measure what the sentiment there is to the United States and
what the local activity of extremist groups are in those areas?
I would be interested to hear a little bit about how we measure
what is our ultimate objective rather than our intermediary
objective of making the investments and making them stick.
Mr. Feldman. On the more macro picture, the combating
extremism is obviously a core reason, if not the core reason,
for part of our assistance programs, as laid out, again, in our
regional stabilization strategy; in fact, the kind of central
focus of the President's speech on Afghanistan and Pakistan on
December 1st. So clearly how successful we are in ultimately
combatting extremism is critical to this.
The metrics in terms of actually gauging and evaluating
that are obviously a lot more difficult. I mean, it is
something that is part of every conversation. There are more
specific aspects that we attempt to use in combatting
extremism, the new public diplomacy and counter-propaganda
programs that we have had in trying to get out more moderate
voices more frequently. But in terms of actually how we gauge
the moderating impact or even whether we will have access to
that information--and certainly not yet. I think at this point
it is a far longer-term process--is one that we are continuing
to evaluate how we best capture that information.
In the relative short-term, the outputs are the easiest
gauge, but clearly they don't tell the whole story, as well,
and we have to say not only how many schools are built, but how
they are then used and what the sustainability is and
ultimately what the literacy rate in that region is. And so it
is a constant process of adjusting that as we get the
information and over the course of time. But with the ultimate
goal, the combatting extremism, is certainly a core piece of
that.
Jim might have more specifics.
Mr. Bever. That is a very good question. I would just add
that in the end one of the metrics I kind of keep in my mind is
the continuity and the strength of the civilian government and
the existence of the civilian-lead government in Pakistan. It
is an indicator to me of their satisfaction with a civilian-
elected and a civilian-led government because, as you know, the
rotations over time of civilian government versus military
government and strengthening that relationship between the
people, as I said earlier, the governed and the governing, is
extremely important.
I think we will see indicators of that in the coming months
in Pakistan, because they are now going through, in each
province, decisions by each provincial assembly as to how they
will hold their own local elections, their equivalent of
district or they used to be called nauseam elections. That I
think will be--you asked at the local level--an indicator of
what are the people thinking about the way that Pakistan
government is moving forward in servicing its people. And it
will be a mixed story. I am absolutely sure it will be a mixed
message.
To me, rule of law is extremely important, and how they
perceive rule of law at the local level, how they perceive
corruption by local officials or not at the local level, and
how they perceive delivery of services and their demand for
those services at the local level.
Mr. Murphy. I understand how difficult this is, and I
understand even when you are talking about local measurements
like election results it is very difficult to extrapolate that
simply to U.S. aid versus a lot of other factors, but to the
extent, Mr. Feldman, you were talking about the White House's
new effort to try to implement metric strategies, I think to
the extent that we can try to get at our end goal and in some
way measure that back to where we have made investments and
where we haven't, it makes it a lot more helpful for those of
us who right now are operating on faith and who believe this is
the right strategy, to go back and translate that to our
constituents back home that are sometimes skeptical of us
spending this amount of money abroad instead of here at home.
So I would encourage you to continue to think about how to best
measure that.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Murphy.
Mr. Lynch, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank both of our witnesses for your help with
the committee's work.
We were in Pakistan several weeks ago meeting with some of
the USAID and some of our NGO's there, and there was some
concern raised about the--well, the focus is right, I think, in
terms of the federally administered tribal areas and the
Northwest Province; however, there was some concern about the
safety of NGO personnel in some of those regions, and there was
a sort of a reassessment going on, I guess you could call it,
where western employees were sort of hunkering down in areas
closer into Islamabad and trying to get services out to the
population in those areas through Pakistani nationals, and it
was a sort of a--they were changing it on the fly and there
were even sustained concerns about the safety of those
Pakistani nationals doing work on our behalf or on behalf of
the Pakistani people.
I was just trying to get a sense of how much is that
affecting the efficacy of our attempts here to bring capacity
to those governments in the tribal areas in the Northwest
Frontier Province.
Mr. Bever. I appreciate your question, Congressman Lynch.
It is one on our minds all the time. It is our preeminent
concern, frankly.
We have, both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, we have lost a
lot of people paid under our assistance programs, more, of
course, in Afghanistan than in Pakistan. The local nationals--
in this case Pakistanis--are the ones who are most exposed. We
know the head of CHF was murdered in Peshawar a year ago, along
with one of his Pakistani staff. There have been kidnappings of
staff from our NGO's, so what we----
Mr. Lynch. Sir, could I ask you to just speak up a little
bit? I am an old iron worker and I have bad hearing.
Mr. Bever. Sure. What we have tried to do now and since the
time you were there is whenever any of our partners come to
us--and it is usually at their initiative--to say, Will we
provide funding to them so they can adjust their agreements,
their contract or their grant or their cooperative agreement,
as we call it, to allow some expenses to improve their
security. We look at that very seriously and make sure, in
consultation with our security office regional diplomatic
security people at the embassy, that we come to a mutually
agreeable accommodation so that, in fact, they can try to
improve their security.
We also have to count on the Pakistani security services,
themselves, to assist us with the right kind of information
about areas where these people work and where they have to go
into and come back and commute back and forth. So we have done
that kind of coordination since the time that you were there
and raised some of these concerns and were responsive to them.
So it has not stopped us from being able to operate and to
be able to support FATA, Secretariat, and others, for example,
or even in the Northwest Frontier, but it is certainly
something that constrains us on any given day.
Mr. Lynch. Okay. All right. I am just about out of time.
Mr. Feldman, would you like to add to that, please?
Mr. Feldman. I completely agree with what Jim said. I mean,
it is a constant calibration between, obviously, having to be
mindful of the security situation and wanting to protect lives
while also trying to do the critical assistance work that we
continue to do in those areas.
I would give as a recent example the United States has
agreed to provide $55 million for reconstruction projects in
South Wajiristan, focused on roads, dams, rehabilitation, and
power grid. General Zubear has worked very closely with
Ambassador Rafo and our Embassy in Islamabad to ensure that
access for U.S.-funded Pakistani monitors would be one of their
top priorities. And so as we continue to try to put forward--
and there is a range of other oversight mechanisms we have
tried to put in place, which I would be happy to talk about
later, fixed reimbursement agreements and things like this--but
we have tried to work with and mitigate, to the extent we can,
the security situation while still being very cautious about
risking lives.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Lynch.
Mr. Van Hollen, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you both
for your service. I want to commend you and the whole team on
what I think has been significant progress over the last year
or so in Pakistan, and I think we are beginning to see the
results, at least with respect to responsiveness and engagement
with the government of Pakistan in fighting the most extreme
elements. It wasn't long ago that President Musharraf was
entering into non-aggression pacts with the Pakistani Taliban
in Swat Valley. Largely as a result in the change in government
and the engagement of the new administration, a diplomatic,
political, economic offensive, you have a much greater degree
of cooperation and engagement.
Not only has the military gone after the Pakistani Taliban,
but they have also taken very important steps in going after
elements of the Afghan Taliban based in Pakistan. We saw that,
obviously, with the arrest of Mua Omar's operation head and the
arrest of the shadow Governors and other signs of greater
cooperation.
That is a result, I believe, of greater confidence and
cooperation between the U.S. Government and the Pakistani
government, and a view on the Pakistani side that they have a
big stake, as well, in defeating extremism, whether it is the
Pakistan Taliban or ultimately trying to resolve the situation
with the Afghan Taliban.
So I think that is important progress, and I think it is
the result, in part, of engagement at all levels, including
economic engagement, and sending the signal that we are there
for the longer term.
I commend you on the idea of trying to channel more
resources through Pakistani contractors and indigenous
institutions, with the caveat, of course--and you have raised
this--that we have to make sure there is transparency and
accountability. As we put more funds through local
organizations and build capacity, we need to make sure that
those moneys are being well-spent.
So there is building this relationship with the government,
but we are all frustrated with the fact that if you take a poll
in Pakistan today among the Pakistani people, the United States
is held in very low regard. And, as the chairman pointed out,
the Kerry-Lugar-Berman legislation aid, it was like kicking the
gift horse in the mouth, although we don't see it as a gift, we
see it as part of our engagement and interest. At the same
time, it was something that was a good thing.
So while I like the idea of channeling more funds and
building capacity, at the same time those American taxpayer
dollars are not necessarily--we don't get the credit
necessarily for those investments in the mind of the Pakistani
people, and I think there is a real feeling what while we
pumped millions and millions of dollars into important things
like institution building and democratic building, that if you
were to turn around and ask the average Pakistani citizen, what
has the United States done in terms of economic development, it
is hard for them to identify something.
So my question is: in addition to doing these kind of
things, should we not also think of doing some of the things we
used to do in the past? USAID used to do much bigger
investments that were important investments in the country, but
at the same time drew the national attention of the Pakistani
people, clearly identified as an investment being made in the
United States in the future of Pakistan and the future
relationship, because there is a concern that after spending
all of this money, especially as you channel it more through
the government of Pakistan, which builds capacity, that no one
in Pakistan, among the Pakistani population, can say, yes, the
United States helped us in this particular, concrete way.
If you could, respond to that and what ideas you have with
respect to some of these other projects.
Mr. Bever. Congressman, we certainly agree with your
comments. It is important that the Pakistani people have some
visibility and see the benefits of cooperation with the
American people and the American assistance with our people's
money. So we are looking and have already initiated the first
wave in the last few months of assistance to the energy center,
trying to rehabilitate and repair some of their existing power
systems. They will see that to the extent they see things
quickly in the press. They should also see it in terms of the
effects in certain parts of the country on their load shedding.
Now, again, these are just the first steps.
It is a country of 157 million people, plus or minus. It is
more than half the population of our country. So when you take
that, even with a very generous assistance program we have now,
it is still less than $8 or $9 per capita in the country. So we
have to do this extremely catalytically, and we have to be very
thoughtful on how we approach this.
So we will be working in energy, which all Pakistanis can
immediately identify with as a need. We will be working in
water, which is an extremely important feature for the
Pakistanis, both in agriculture, in quality of water, potable
water in their communities, but also on water distribution
systems and, obviously, because of base and treaty concerns
that are also political concerns in the country.
So those are just some quick examples, but we want to make
sure, as we do those more-infrastructure programs, that the
policy reforms are there, too, so that our people's money is
put into programs that, in fact, will be sustainable
financially.
Those are the two examples I would like to share with you.
Mr. Feldman. Thanks, Congressman Van Hollen. I appreciate
your stage setting, as well, because I think it is critical, as
we think about how we continue to move forward, what the
metrics are, recognizing that there is still a sense of great
skepticism about the American relationship among Pakistanis.
Just a year ago the Taliban were 100 miles from Islamabad. We
were facing a quite critical scenario.
And over the course of the past year, through the increased
cooperation at every level of Government, we have seen the
development of a far more cooperative, constructive, civilian-
based relationship, which I think is starting to yield real
benefits now, but it will take, I think, a significant amount
of time to continue to see these benefits, as per their earlier
questions about how do you actually engage something like
combatting extremism.
Your question on how these benefits help to accrue to the
United States, how people focus on what the United States has
contributed to them in our development projects is obviously
one that the development community grapples with all the time.
As we came to it in terms of looking at how we could best use
this Kerry-Lugar-Berman money, we also went through the exact
same calculus, and we have really tried to walk the line
between continuing to do the institutional capacity building as
we have done over time, but also demonstrate, and this is where
this whole term of either signature projects or high-impact,
high visibility projects has come from, but to do at least one
type of those projects in each of the five or six main sectors
we have identified that are most important to Pakistanis,
starting with energy, given the Secretary's trip last fall, and
the second one being water, showing that we are hearing the
concerns of the Pakistani people beyond just the border
regions, beyond where we are seen to have a more narrow,
targeted interest.
I think the process that evolved as we considered what we
could do in the energy field was a very instructive one. I
think we started with the idea of let's build something big
that we can stand on and have a ribbon cutting, and everyone
will know that America built this. And as we looked more and
more into it, first of all, the costs were exorbitant, the
sustainability issues were there. It was questionable what the
needs were.
As we started looking more at the actual needs, it became
far more clear that working on the efficiency issues, working
on getting more watts on the grid, avoiding some of the
blackouts in high consumer and commercial areas, which we could
do relatively quickly and easily through this $125 two-well
project, would be far more constructive, far more efficient,
and more sustainable.
And so instead of the kind of signature energy project, a
dam or something like that, we have come up with this signature
energy initiative. I think that the same process is unfolding
in many of the other sectors. In education we could have looked
at building an American university, but again how sustainable
is that over the long term. What is the commitment there? Does
that become a target in and of itself?
So I think, although we are still very much in the process
of trying to determine which direction we are going in and
USAID and State together are actively looking at a number of
these projects in the remaining sectors, something like a
center of excellence at an existing university or some sort of
faculty, which would be seen as this is a gift of the American
people or done in conjunction and cooperation with the American
people, helps to build that, but is also not necessarily the
grand bricks and mortar vision that we had of big development
projects.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Feldman.
Mr. Welch, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Welch. I thank you very much.
The dilemma I think all of us have is, number one, what is
the basic purpose of the aid, and it has to be tied obviously
to national security, however else we describe it, and, number
two, in order to deliver that aid, how can it be effective, how
can we get our money's worth. The models that we have used,
whether it was depending on international contractors or NGO's,
where there is a high overhead, whether it is dependent on
Pakistani ministries where there is a high level of corruption,
and whether it is dependent on NGO's, where there are huge
oversight problems. The only way we can be successful--and I
will just ask you this--is whether we have, Mr. Bever, and
honest and a competent Pakistani partner. I mean, would you
agree with that?
Mr. Bever. Absolutely.
Mr. Welch. So if we don't, I mean, there are disputes
between the military and the civilian government. There is a
weak civilian government that is up and down. Other than for
purposes of domestic consumption and the need that we have to
at least appear that we are attempting to win hearts and minds
through development projects, through economic opportunity
projects, through education projects, if we are honest with
ourselves and ask the hard question, can we realistically be
successful when the implementation and execution really
requires an honest partner in Pakistan.
Mr. Bever. Well, this is one of the purposes of our
financial pre-award assessments. It is our procurement
officers, it is our controllers, it is our project officers
also that check out these organizations before we----
Mr. Welch. See, this is my point.
Mr. Bever [continuing]. Provide assistance to them.
Mr. Welch. It is a real dilemma. I don't mean to be
challenging, because I know you are doing your level best.
Obviously, it is desirable for us to be doing projects that are
going to improve the lives of Pakistani people.
But there is a hard question that we have to ask. We can
have all the auditors in the world. We can have all of the
honest NGO's in the world. But if there is not a mechanism that
is solid in Pakistan, we are going to have Iraq all over again.
I mean, that is the hard question. And what you seem to be
acknowledging is that we really do need an honest partner
there.
Mr. Feldman, how about you?
Mr. Feldman. Of course I absolutely agree that we need an
honest partner. We are doing everything that we can to work
with the honest partners, to identify those, to vet them, and
to make sure----
Mr. Welch. And politeness requires that we say kind things,
but the mechanisms over there don't exist. It is our need now,
because we have an urgent national security need, things have
changed, apparently somewhat for the better, as Mr. Van Hollen
has mentioned.
But I think most of us would probably come to the
conclusion that it had much more to do with the self-interested
conclusion made by the Pakistani military that the Pakistani
Taliban were starting to cause trouble that made their lives
difficult. It was not a result of the Kerry-Lugar-Berman aid.
Would you agree with that?
Mr. Feldman. I think it is a combination of factors. I
think that it is an evolving, changing relationship that is
dependent on many things, and I think that the Kerry-Lugar-
Berman aid will be quite critical for that.
Mr. Welch. When I was there, I just was there with the
chairman, and what was really apparent when you are there is
how incredibly difficult it is to actually get a water project
and education project, you name it, how hard it is to actually
do it. And we can talk here, and we can talk about metrics, but
there is an abstract quality to it because the people on the
ground, the security challenges they face, the lack of
infrastructure, administrative infrastructure to make it
happen, these are enormous impediments to the best intention,
the best and hardest-working people.
For domestic reasons here, we have to act beyond military,
but on the other hand, with all of the practical problems, I
wonder whether it doesn't make sense to do a big, visible
project, somewhat like the approach described by Mr. Van
Hollen. It is easier to control the money, more confidence that
you will get a dollar's worth of--well, maybe 70 cents worth of
work for a dollar's worth of income. It is a substantial and
visible project.
I know my time is up, but I would ask each of you to
briefly comment on that.
Mr. Bever. I would just comment that in my experience with
Pakistan over a quarter of a century and half my career, there
are leaders in Pakistan, there are reformers in Pakistan.
Mr. Welch. Right. I know that.
Mr. Bever. There are many Pakistanis of very high
integrity, such high integrity that sometimes in past
governments they could not be trusted and they were sidelined,
and some of them are back. There is a growing, I think,
appreciation by the Pakistani business community and Pakistani
civil society that they have to take more charge at their
levels for the future of their country and to hold their
leaders as accountable as we hold our leaders accountable.
I think that is a very important phenomenon that is
evolving in Pakistan today, and obviously the extremist threats
to the country's future help to mobilize that, whether it was a
tax on universities or police stations in Lahore, regardless of
those things that were going on in the FATA and NWFP.
I think the real future of that country and our assistance
to it is linked to our ability to support those who have the
courage inside their own society to transform their own
society, and that is where we will be most effective and, over
the long run, getting to Congressman Van Hollen's question
also, that is where the Pakistani people will thank the
American people the most, but it will take time.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Welch.
Mr. Driehaus, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Driehaus. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you, gentlemen, for being here today.
I just wanted to follow up on Mr. Van Hollen's comments
about the Pakistani perception of U.S. aid in Pakistan. I am a
former Peace Corps volunteer, and I am curious as to how we are
engaging in soft diplomacy. There are many projects, massive
projects, littered around developing countries that were done
counter to the will of the people in certain countries, that,
because of one reason or another, were failures and they stand
out as failures of U.S. aid policy in those countries. Yet, we
know that soft diplomacy often works very effectively in terms
of changing opinion toward the United States of folks that are,
you know, obviously living in those countries.
So I was wondering just if you could start off by telling
me what we are doing to engage in soft diplomacy in Pakistan.
Mr. Feldman. I guess, Congressman, first of all I would say
it would depend in part on how we define soft diplomacy. But in
terms of if it also includes democracy and governance related
activities, whether it is just person-to-person contacts, which
is going to be one of the key areas for the strategic dialog
next week, and continuing to build those ties with NGO's,
obviously, continuing to build ties with both Federal and
provincial leaders, parliamentarians, and other elected
leaders, the democracy in governance program--and Jim can give
more details--has a parliamentary strengthening dimension to
it, a local governance dimension to it, an elections-based
dimension to it.
I know that NDI and IRI and other organizations are very
interested in continuing to do more. There is a whole range on
the softer diplomacy. There is a whole range of kind of
communications mechanisms. Our new Under Secretary of
Diplomacy, Judith McHale, has put together a very robust
communications strategy which has already started putting out
bids for children's educational TV programs in local languages,
other communications programming, radio, television, using new
social media networks, cell phones, and other things.
So there are a range of activities that are currently in
the works and starting to be implemented, but I am happy to
come back and----
Mr. Driehaus. Well, I guess I am concerned that those all
seem to be up here, and what are we doing at the ground level
and in the villages, in the cities in terms of touching people,
face to face, in terms of Americans on the ground and engaging
in some type of cultural exchange in addition to development,
because, when we talk about democratization, when we talk about
Federal Government intervention with the Pakistani government,
that is a bit different than being at the village level and on
the ground.
Mr. Bever. If I could just add, Congressman, one of the
evolutions you will see this year in our program, security
permitting, will be deepening our presence in the country. We
will be moving out of just Islamabad--I am talking about AID--
and establishing regional offices in Lahore to service the
people of Punjab and Karachi, to service the people of the
Sindh and Balujistan, in addition to a very modest presence in
Peshawar, which is constrained right now for American officers
by security.
That will enable American officers--again, I am talking
AID, and sadly we don't have a Peace Corps presence there--to
be able to get out with the people more, with the business
community, with the local associations, with women's groups,
with communities, with the Governors and the district
officials, the kinds of things we used to be able to do 25
years ago when I first served there, and that we have all been
wanting to do.
That is why we will be basically tripling over time, over
the next two fiscal years, assuming funds are available, our
American officer presence, but we are also going to be more
than doubling our Foreign Service national Pakistani staff to
also serve in Lahore and in Karachi and be able to help us get
out more, as well.
Mr. Driehaus. With regard to the AID assistance delivery
and the transference to local NGO's, what lessons have we
learned in terms of accountability and sustainability in terms
of Pakistani NGO's and how they are able to engage in
development? And do we have outcomes measurements that we are
using to hold them accountable, similar to what we would be
doing with international NGO's and American NGO's operating
with USAID contracts?
Mr. Bever. A number of questions in your larger question
there.
Mr. Tierney. That is a clever tactic Mr. Driehaus uses to
eat up his 30 seconds remaining. But please go ahead and
respond.
Mr. Bever. First and foremost, we do have to assess the
capability of these groups. We have to make sure they are
actually registered with their own government, that our
financial analysis and those of our Pakistani firms that we use
assure that, in fact, they are following their own law, first,
to make sure they are accountable.
We also have learned some lessons about how we do our
grants, because we are talking NGO's. They are usually grants.
So we don't necessarily always give it all in one big amount of
money up front; we tend to give an initial amount, see how they
do, give an incremental amount, see how they do, and then give
a final amount, those kinds of things to meter the flow of
money, to make sure we get the performance that they told us
they want to do, and we are assisting them in what they claim
they are good at. That is why we provide grants or cooperative
agreements.
In the case of cooperative agreements, we have a clause
that is called substantial involvement. It means the U.S.
Government has a much deeper relationship with the grantee than
under a normal grant arrangement, and we exercise that through
our assistance officers that have Federal warrants.
Those are just some examples.
In terms of measurement, every one of our program
activities has to have a measurement and monitoring plan, and
we make that available to the Inspector General to hold us
accountable in the way we do our business, as well.
Those are some of the lessons we have learned over time,
Congressman.
Mr. Feldman. May I just add one thing to it? I mean, one
thing which I think you are very right to focus on is the
impact on the ground, but in an example like Swat, just since
September the combination of the work of the Pakistani
government in helping to return IDPs, but also the USAID work
has really contributed to a resumption of normalcy there which
I think would have been unimaginable 6 months ago.
So helping to rebuild government of Pakistan offices,
helping to rebuild schools and thereby enabling people to
return and resume that degree of stability I think has been
very significant, from both a national security strategic sense
as well as what our overall development goals are.
Mr. Bever. If I can just add, we also vet our partners. We
are required to check to make sure that the partners we provide
assistance to are not on certain terrorist lists. We make sure
that our partner organizations are in good stead with their own
government from a financial perspective on their own, whether
they pay taxes or whatever their particular rules are.
And we are particularly mindful of what was called the
Negroponte guidance from the last administration, which
basically asks us to assess the risk in each of our partners
and to adjust our controls depending upon the risk we assess
with that particular partner in that particular geographic area
from a point of view of the money going to hands to whom it
should not go.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much.
Ms. Chu, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Chu. Well, last week militants stormed the northern
Pakistani offices of World Vision and killed six workers,
injuring five. It is the world's largest Christian charity and
works in some of the poorest and most politically unstable
places on earth, and also educates and employs local women. All
these factors make it a target for extremists.
My question is, concerning this situation, what
implications does this have for Pakistani NGO's that receive
aid, and what about their safety and security?
Mr. Feldman. Certainly we condemn the actions on World
Vision, and we are very, very sorry and troubled to have seen
that incident, but it is, unfortunately, not uncommon for NGO's
and others doing this type of work to be targeted. We are
continuing to work, as we discussed here today, within the
constraints that we have to walk that fine line between
continuing the very important assistance work, the work focused
on women's issues and some of the other things that World
Vision was doing, in the neediest areas with the security
concerns.
So I know Jim can talk a little bit more about the kind of
security mechanisms that we try to put in place or try to work
through in the most conflict-ridden areas, but it is, as I have
said, a constant calibration that post tries to work through in
terms of where we will continue to target our work, to target
our resources, to try to continue the assistance, while also
being as cognizant about the real risks that people are facing,
and trying not to put them directly into harm's way.
Mr. Bever. I would just add that in this case World Vision,
they were not a direct recipient of USAID, but where they are
we have urged our partners to come to us and say, If you
perceive security risks, please describe them to us. Tell us
what you feel you need for your people while they are
traveling, if it is the kind of vehicles they travel in, if it
is the protection around where their offices are, those are the
things we can help with financially as part of a grant or
cooperative agreement or contract. And we have had a lot of
experience in this, but they do have to take some initiative to
come to us if they perceive problems.
But we are not being just passive that way. We have also
reached out to them. I met with every chief of party of every
contractor, grantee, and implementing partner in Pakistan when
I was there in the fall, and I will be going out again soon. I
will meet with them again. And one of the things we did talk
about was security. Again, these were ones we support.
They, however, are in close touch with others who we don't
support, and they share information, and we have told them
anyone who is U.S. registered is welcome to come to, now I
think it is a monthly, briefing with the Diplomatic Security
Officers, and USAID has our own security officers at the post
in Islamabad, where they share information, they hear about
those concerns, they get advice, and there are ways to sort of
establish best practices, because their own network is faster
and better even than ours, frankly. And there are other
techniques that could be used, but this is not the appropriate
forum to discuss that. But we could discuss it offline if you
would like.
Thank you.
Ms. Chu. Just as a follow-up, I know that many of the
attacks have targeted local Muslim women who were involved with
American aid organizations. Is there a way to balance the
safety of these women involved in these programs without
compromising our goal of advancing the rights of women and
girls in Pakistan?
Mr. Bever. Obviously we encourage women's groups or women
to participate in all the programs of our assistance. It is,
first and foremost, the responsibility of the Pakistani
security entities to protect their citizens. That said, there
are some things, for example, in schooling and education that
we have learned that if schools need walls built around them to
protect the children, including the girls, that that is a very
legitimate thing for us to do with the American people's money
since we want the education to happen and we want more girls,
in particular, to participate in the education system. That is
a simple thing, very simple, that, in fact, does make a big
difference.
Another, frankly, is training female teachers. The more
that there are female teachers in the country, the more
families are willing to allow their daughters to go to school,
because they feel that the teachers will be more responsive to
them and less of a possible personal security threat to them.
These are things Pakistanis have told us, lessons they have
learned that we want to be able to help support.
Ms. Chu. Thank you.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much.
We have finished our first round of questioning. With your
indulgence, I am going to see if the Members want a question or
two more before we fold here today.
I am going to start that. Mr. Flake has deferred, and I
appreciate that.
Mr. Bever, we concentrate a lot in this committee on the
personnel over there and the ramping up of U.S. personnel. Many
of us have the impression that we were hollowed out over a
period of time and now we have to get our capacity back. So if
we are decentralizing, we are going to smaller predominantly
Pakistani contracts that need oversight from people in our
USAID, what is the recruitment process we have to get people in
and how is that going? What do our numbers look like? What is
the training process, so we get them up to the capacity that
they can actually supervise and manage other people, as opposed
to just do certain functions?
I think, last, that leads to a question that was discussed
a little bit beforehand: what, if any, legal authorities does
USAID need in order to do that recruitment training and
retention of sufficient numbers of personnel for service in
Pakistan?
Mr. Bever. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, if one looked at, say,
contracts officers or procurement professionals, for example,
we now have about a half a dozen in Islamabad. These are U.S.
contracts and agreements officers, not to mention Pakistani. We
expect to expand those procurement officials in country over
the coming year, probably doubling them. We expect to move them
out into the local areas, into Lahore and Karachi, as well, to
help oversee our projects as we get----
Mr. Tierney. So you will have a total of 12 in the entire
country?
Mr. Bever. It will be approximately 12, as I understand it.
Mr. Tierney. So do those 12 people essentially do all of
the procurement or overseeing all of the procurement?
Mr. Bever. They also have Pakistani negotiating assistants
and others that have experience doing this with World Bank or
ADB or others from whom we have hired some of these staff to be
able to help us, and we bring in----
Mr. Tierney. But you want those people, the procurement
officers, to be able to know whether or not the Pakistani staff
is performing up to sufficient----
Mr. Bever. Yes.
Mr. Tierney [continuing]. And knowledgeable.
Mr. Bever. Yes.
Mr. Tierney. So still you are going to get----
Mr. Bever. We are still building. We are still building, if
that is what you are saying.
Mr. Tierney. How many eventually would you like to have?
Mr. Bever. I would think we want to move up to 16 or 24,
something like that, between the American and the Pakistani
staff over time.
Mr. Tierney. So basically by the time we are in our last
year of this Kerry-Lugar-Berman money, you will be getting up
to a point where you want to be?
Mr. Bever. I think we can move much faster. We are trying
to do this this year and next fiscal year.
Mr. Tierney. I see. So you are going to do a half dozen
more this year, but then maybe double it up in the next year?
Mr. Bever. That is what we ought to be doing. And not just
in that case, but in terms of project officers and others I
think we have to face the reality--and you are aware of this,
Mr. Chairman, that after 7 or 8 years of working in these
highly risky conflict zones where usually they are officers
unaccompanied by their families, their spouses, it has taken
its toll on the agency, and that is why we appreciate the
support for the DLI part of it, development and leadership
program.
Those people do have to be brought in, trained up, and then
assigned to some of these more challenging posts. That will
take time. That is why we are moving to expand the number of
mid-career development professionals we are bringing into the
development leadership initiative, and we are also now
recruiting outside to bring people in under what we call
Foreign Service limited hire, which are Foreign Service
officers, but they are limited to 5-year appointments at a time
that can be renewed once.
So it is a technique we have developed in Afghanistan, and
we started in Iraq. I was also the Deputy Assistant
Administrator for Iraq for 2 years.
Mr. Tierney. Are these people experienced in particular
areas that you are going out for these 5-year periods?
Mr. Bever. We look for people who have had conflict zone
experience. Generally our requirements are pretty stiff. We
look for master's degree plus 8 years experience, of which four
has to be in conflict zones. When we can't get that, we then
ask for 8 years, even more years of work experience, and then
we do, of course, personal references on all of them.
But I guess the other thing I would just want to say here
is that, in terms of training them, this also takes time. It is
a difficult thing to do in the conflict setting, which is why
we try to find people who have already got some of this
experience to bring into the----
Mr. Tierney. Do you have any success in bringing back
former USAID personnel?
Mr. Bever. We have. We have reached out to former senior
Foreign Service and regular Foreign Service officers, and with
the help of Congress we have special provisions to bring a
limited number of officers back who can be sworn in again and
retain their annuity, as well. So in terms of certain
authorities that would be helpful to us, Congress has been
forward-leaning on that. We can bring certain personal service
contractors onboard, as well as Foreign Service limited
officers.
I think the time will come, though, when we need to find
ways to retain, how to retain these officers in these posts
that are both dangerous and they are away from their families.
What are the motivations to keep them there a second year, or
even a third year? For example, can we relocate families closer
by in that theater, which is what was done in the Vietnam war,
so that both military and civilian officers, in fact, would
stay longer?
Are there other financial incentives that potentially could
be provided, or caps lifted on the pay that they can earn?
These are just a couple of simple examples that we really need
to be looking at to retain the officers once they get there.
They will be four times more effective in their second year
than they are in their first year.
Mr. Tierney. Do you have somebody in your office that you
could delegate to deal with Mr. Flake's staff and our staff
here to maybe talk through some of those issues in more detail?
Mr. Bever. We would be happy to. Absolutely.
Mr. Tierney. The staff director, Mr. Wright, will contact
you and follow up on that.
Mr. Bever. Okay. I would just add that we have done
something unique in AID's history in the last 6 months, both
for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Recognizing the challenge to get
senior officers of the current corps to come to post, we have
designated all the office director positions, of which there
are approximately 10 in both posts, as what we call senior
management group officers, and that means the Administrator
personally approves who goes there, and they have to be what we
call FS-1, class one officers, at a minimum, or senior Foreign
Service Officers to go. So normally those designations are
required only for mission directors or deputy mission
directors, so we have stepped up to the plate here and stepped
up the internal incentives for our officers to serve there.
Mr. Feldman. Mr. Chairman, may I just say, in addition to
that, that the number of direct hires I believe throughout
Pakistan has increased 70 percent from 2008. I think it has
gone from 336 to 580, with plans to add another 125 by 2011. So
we also are closely monitoring the staffing situation, trying
to get the best people out there as quickly as possible, and
would be happy to join in any sort of briefing on those issues.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Flake. I was just going to ask if you can give us a
ball park number on how many you have been able to bring back,
the Foreign Service officers, through this program?
Mr. Bever. I am going to have to give that to you
separately, but I can tell you I spend a part of every day
calling colleagues who used to work for AID seeing if we can
attract them back, and they are serving in Iraq, they are
serving in Afghanistan, they are serving in Pakistan.
For example, our deputy director who is in Peshawar is a
rehired senior Foreign Service officer. One that we are
currently attracting, trying to bring to Karachi, will be a
rehired senior Foreign Service Officer. We also have looked to
other missions to loan their mission directors or their
deputies to Pakistan, and we have brought three other mission
directors out to Pakistan to help us over the past fall and
winter. So we are doing everything we can to bolster the senior
level of the mission.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Does any other Member wish to ask an additional question?
Mr. Lynch.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just to illuminate the problem we are having in attracting
former or retired members, Federal employees, up until about 6
months ago, we could not get very highly skilled Federal
employees to come back to work for the Government because they
would have to, under the law, forfeit their annuity.
Now, the corporate world has this right where if they have
a special problem they just pull people back in out of
retirement to go to work for them. That person has no learning
curve. They know the business as well as anyone. But we in
Government prevented some of our most skilled Foreign Service
officers to come back into Government because we would require
them to forfeit their retirement.
About 8 months ago, Senator Akaka and I got together. We
changed that under the Defense authorization bill, but only for
the last 6 months have we started to reach out to former
Federal employees. These are highly skilled folks that have 20,
30 years experience, but it has only been in the last 6 months
that we have been able to bring folks back.
One of the things I wanted to raise with you, sir, is I
think we only allowed them to come back for 2 to 3 years, and
then that expires. I am just asking, you are talking about a 5-
year, these special contracts. We might have to amend that to 5
years in order to get them to come back under your program. So
maybe that is something that we could work on together. I
happen to Chair the Subcommittee on Federal Employees, so maybe
that is something we could work on.
Mr. Bever. We would welcome working with the committee,
yourself, sir, and others on this. I am not aware of that
particular limitation, but if it is there--I'd have to check
the legislation again--and then we could extend it, that would
be helpful.
I will just toss one suggestion out. This is not Pakistan,
but it is really Afghanistan related and Iraq related up to a
certain point. Our brave soldiers that serve in war time, in
war theater, are exempt from Federal tax during the time that
they are there, as I understand it.
Also, our grantees and our contractors who are there under
our pay are exempt from the first certain amount of their
income on Federal income tax, though they have to pay some on
certain benefit kinds of packages. I think it is $75,000 or
$90,000. The only Americans in harm's way who do not receive
that financial incentive to serve and continue to serve are
U.S. Government civil servants and Foreign Service officers who
are in harm's way in these war theaters.
So I will just toss that out as something to think about,
whether there is a way for those officers who are in harm's way
in the same places where all other Americans who are there
receive some benefit as a representation of the risk they are
taking, might be able to benefit from this in the future is the
kind of thing that I think will help both attract and retain
officers in the field.
Mr. Lynch. I totally agree with you. We have, especially in
Afghanistan and in Iraq, where we have Agricultural Department
employees in there, we have a lot of civilian employees in
there, and they are not being treated nearly the same way in
benefits or even when they get injured in a war zone. There is
a whole different way of treating them.
It looks like I might have another minute left.
Mr. Tierney. A minute and 8 seconds.
Mr. Lynch. A minute and 8 seconds. Can you just give me a
real thumbnail on Swat Valley, because I know that we are
putting a lot of money in there. I had a chance to chat with
Ambassador Patterson a few weeks ago, and that is sort of a
microcosm of our effort there in Pakistan in terms of pushing
the capacity of the Government out into some of these tribal
areas. Could you just give me a thumbnail on that?
Mr. Bever. Well, I can give you my own historic
perspective. When I lived there I used to go fishing for trout
in Swat Valley, it was that safe, and it was a beautiful
tourist area. Now, of course, it is a different situation, and
I, too, was alarmed, as Dan said earlier in our testimony, at
how close the extremist elements were to Islamabad. That
resonated throughout the country.
Today we are working very closely with the Pakistan
government and the Northwest Frontier government, as well as
with General Nadim and First Corps and others, and with
Pakistani institutions, Parsa among them, to assist in the
Northwest Frontier, especially Mingora and Swat, with
everything from reconstruction of those facilities that were
damaged, but, more importantly, building back, actually
increasing the presence of the Pakistan civilian government.
Where they used to have one administrative center that may
have been blown up by the Taliban when they left, there will be
two or three administrative centers. Where there was one police
building, there will be two or three. Where there was one
clinic, there will be two or three. Those are ways to deepen
the government service delivery, and the Pakistan Civil Service
are returning to the area and working. So we have spent quite a
few hundred million dollars there, $350 to $400 million, in
relief efforts and reconstruction. There will be more to come.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much.
Any other Member wish to ask additional questions?
[No response.]
Mr. Tierney. There being none, let me leave this last
question with you gentlemen. Can you tell us how much of
President Bush's $750 million program for FATA has actually
been obligated or spent in that region?
Mr. Feldman. I don't have that information off the top of
my head, but we would be happy to----
Mr. Tierney. Could you give us a status report on that, on
how much has been spent, how much has been obligated, and how
much remains out there, and why it still remains?
Mr. Feldman. Sure. We will do that.
Mr. Tierney. And what his plans may be?
Mr. Bever. We will get back to you on that.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Flake. We thank our witnesses
very much for your testimony, both written and oral, and your
time and your staff's, as well. We appreciate it. We look
forward to dealing with you in the future, and we will
definitely ask Mr. Alexander and Mr. Wright from the committee
staff here to talk with Mr. Bever about some of those
incentives, as well as the tax situation that he brought up.
Thank you both.
Mr. Bever. Great. Thank you.
Mr. Feldman. Thank you.
Mr. Tierney. This meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:51 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]