[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 83 (Monday, June 27, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 27, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                  THE AGENCY FOR AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT?

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, over the past year I have made several 
statements on the need for the Agency for International Development to 
redefine its goals now that the cold war is behind us. No longer is the 
threat of communism our primary security threat and motivation for 
providing foreign assistance. With the end of the cold war, the most 
serious problems facing us today are unchecked population growth, 
widespread poverty, ethnic and regional conflicts, degradation of the 
Earth's environment, and the proliferation of conventional and, still, 
nuclear arms.
  Under the strong leadership of Brian Atwood, AID has begun to 
redefine its mission and address some of the management problems that 
have plagued it for years. Administrator Atwood has tackled not only 
the bureaucratic morass that has impeded AID's effectiveness, he has 
refocused the agency's efforts on promoting sustainable economic 
growth, supporting democratic institutions and building foreign markets 
for American exports, and addressing basic humanitarian needs facing 
vulnerable groups like children and refugees.
  Mr. President, as chairman of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee, I 
know that foreign aid is not popular. But I have never believed that is 
because the American people are not generous. There is ample evidence 
that they are. Rather, it is due to foreign aid being used to prop up 
corrupt dictators or wasted on grandiose projects that fall into 
disrepair after a few years. None of us want to see that, and 
Administrator Atwood is determined to see that it does not happen.
  But while it is always easy to criticize, and there are grounds to do 
so, too little attention has been given to AID's accomplishments. 
Foreign aid not only helps people around the world who are less 
fortunate than we are, it also promotes American exports and it can 
even contain lessons for people here at home.
  Recently AID cosponsored a conference in Baltimore entitled ``Lessons 
Without Borders: Local Problems, Global Solutions.'' The conference 
focused on issues like family health and economic entrepreneurship, and 
how we can apply lessons learned through our foreign aid programs to 
problems here in the United States. Vice President Gore was the keynote 
speaker. Senator Sarbanes, Representative Mfume, and Mayor Kurt Schmoke 
also took part in what has become a partnership between AID and the 
city of Baltimore, a partnership AID hopes to duplicate with other 
American cities.
  The theory behind these partnerships is that some lessons are 
universal. In areas like agriculture, health and small-business 
development, America can learn from its foreign assistance programs. In 
fact, AID has been working closely with community leaders nationwide in 
an effort to find solutions to problems which know no borders.

  An example of this interactive sharing between cities in the United 
States and abroad is a program in Sarasota, FL, called school year 
2000. It was sponsored by Florida State University, funded through an 
AID grant, and directed toward a change in the school system in South 
Korea. The project created a new model for public education centered 
around the learner, based on competency and supported by technology. 
Originally started to reduce costs, the focus has expanded to improving 
the quality of education. The results of the program were so impressive 
that Florida legislators and organizations have used it to justify 
further investment in educational reform in their own State.
  In Baltimore, research has been carried out to combat diarrheal 
disease, which kills millions of children each year. As many as 600 
children in the United States die each year from this disease which, 
left untreated, can cause dehydration, while thousands of others are 
hospitalized. A solution of oral rehydration salts, developed through 
AID-funded research in Bangladesh, is being used to reduce these common 
ailments inexpensively.
  The lesson here is that many of Baltimore's citizens are not aware of 
the availability of this low-cost remedy. An astonishing 150,000 of 
Baltimore's 730,000 inhabitants are functionally illiterate, and unable 
to read the signs that were meant to inform them of programs to protect 
their childrens' health. AID, which routinely works in countries with 
high illiteracy rates, has years of experience in innovative 
communication techniques for getting the message out about child 
health, family planning and other programs. These same methods are now 
being used to educate needy people in Baltimore.
  These are just two examples of how what we are accomplishing with our 
foreign aid dollars abroad can be used for our own benefit here at 
home.
  The Florida State interactive program and the Baltimore conference 
show how AID is taking seriously its role in the global community. The 
focus is on solving problems that do not pay attention to State, 
national, or international borders. The Lessons Without Borders 
Conference demonstrates how our foreign aid programs can help us find 
solutions to current American problems, and to current foreign problems 
which may become future problems in our country. I applaud the Agency 
for International Development's efforts, While I do not suggest that it 
should change its name to the Agency for American Development, American 
taxpayers should be encouraged that it is putting these lessons to good 
use here at home as well as abroad.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that an article from this 
Sunday's New York Times about ``Lessons Without Borders'' be printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

           [From the New York Times National, June 26, 1994]

            Foreign-Aid Agency Shifts to Problems Back Home

                        (By Thomas L. Friedman)

       Baltimore, June 22.--It is hard to know whether this a good 
     news story or a bad news story, but here it is: The Agency 
     for International Development, which spent the cold war 
     fighting Communism with foreign aid and helping poor 
     countries like Bangladesh immunize children, has found a new 
     customer for its services: America's inner cities.
       The good news is that A.I.D. has something to offer. The 
     bad news is that parts of Los Angeles, Boston and Baltimore 
     now need it as much as Bangladesh.
       Over the years A.I.D. developed a reputation in Washington 
     as a bloated and ineffective bureaucracy. But the Clinton 
     Administration has been engaged in a major overhaul of A.I.D. 
     The Clinton team is trying to shed what the agency did worst, 
     supporting anti-Communist dictators, and focus on what it did 
     best--fostering cheap, low-tech methods for accelerating 
     immunization, literacy and agricultural development and for 
     nurturing small businesses.
       The agency's shift in focus from Bangladesh to Baltimore 
     was an accident waiting to happen. With no cold war, it was 
     eager to justify its usefulness to taxpayers dubious of 
     foreign aid, and it discovered American mayors so beleaguered 
     by the problems of their inner cities that they were ready to 
     take help from anywhere, even if it meant comparisons between 
     their inner cities and the third world.
       While A.I.D.'s charter prohibits it from actually financing 
     programs money in the United States, nothing prevents the 
     agency from sharing its expertise.
       While talking this past spring with Marian Wright Edelman, 
     the longtime head of the Children's Defense Fund, about the 
     health problems faced by American children, the agency's 
     director, J. Brian Atwood, was struck by the similarities 
     with the problems his agency was fighting in Mali and Egypt, 
     he recalled on Tuesday in an interview.
       Ms. Edelman, he said, was struck by how in some respects 
     Mali and Egypt seemed to be doing much better than the United 
     States.
       In particular, Mr. Atwood recounted, they noted that 
     measles vaccination rates among inner-city children under age 
     2 were averaging around 40 percent in the United States. Yet, 
     Governments in Egypt, the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka and 
     Indonesia, using some of their own programs and some financed 
     and planned by A.I.D., had achieved childhood immunization 
     rates in the high 70 percent range, according to the Unicef 
     Progress of Nations report.
       During an interview on C-span a few days later, Mr. Atwood 
     mentioned this discussion and mentioned that his agency hoped 
     to become more involved in sharing ideas with American 
     cities.
       An aide to Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke of Baltimore happened to 
     be watching, and the city immediately contacted Mr. Atwood 
     and volunteered Baltimore for the first test case. Other 
     cities followed.
       Mr. Atwood, recognizing a new market for his agency's 
     expertise, ordered aides to come up with a program, 
     eventually christened ``Lessons Without Borders.'' On June 6, 
     a team of the agency's senior health and development experts 
     held a day-long seminar with their Baltimore counterparts at 
     Morgan State University, discussing A.I.D. programs that had 
     worked or, often just as important, had not worked.
       Another conference is now planned for Boston this fall, and 
     the agency is laying out a two-year schedule for other cities 
     that have asked for advice.
       Still, it was not an easy thing for Mayor Schmoke. The 
     headline in The Baltimore Sun the day of the conference read: 
     ``Baltimore to Try Third World Remedies.'' In fairness to 
     Baltimore, it is one of the most thriving cities on the East 
     Coast, with its rebuilt inner harbor, National Aquarium and 
     downtown stadium of Camden Yards, anchoring a real urban 
     renaissance.
       But that renaissance is a work in progress. Just a few 
     miles from the inner harbor, areas of Baltimore's inner city 
     are rife with AIDS, illiteracy, family breakdown, joblessness 
     and drugs.


                       like a third world country

       ``We have to let everybody know that we are not suggesting 
     that our entire city has the same problems as a third world 
     country,'' said Mayor Schmoke. ``But we ought to recognize 
     that there are sections of the city that are similar to the 
     problems of less-developed countries.''
       Baltimore officials say they learned a number of things 
     from their A.I.D. visitors. Although Baltimore has well-
     financed social programs, many people do not come in to use 
     them. One reason is that 150,000 out of Baltimore's 
     population of 730,000 are functionally illiterate.
       ``We found that people could not read the signs,'' said Mr. 
     Tawney. A.I.D. operates in so many countries where illiteracy 
     is taken for granted, and at the conference A.I.D. officials 
     discussed many of the techniques they have developed for 
     getting around illiteracy and promoting immunization, 
     population control and other remedies. These ranged from 
     using soap opera characters to entice people into clinics, to 
     cartoons, to jingles, to having beer truck drivers distribute 
     condoms as they drop off beer kegs at pubs in Jamaica. They 
     also discussed A.I.D.'s ``barefoot foctor'' program of paying 
     local villagers to go out and recruit people to come to 
     clinics.
       ``You want to know what the real irony is?'' asked Dr. 
     Peter Beilenson, Baltimore's Commissioner of Health. ``The 
     company that develops these communications programs for 
     A.I.D. is from Baltimore. Its office is about three blocks 
     from here.''


                         a small grant goes far

       Another big issue discussed was job creation. Twenty years 
     ago, the biggest employer in Baltimore was Bethlehem Steel, 
     with about 35,000 employees. Today, the biggest employer in 
     Baltimore is Johns Hopkins University Medical Center. Twenty 
     years ago, a high school dropout was able to get a job at the 
     steel plant, and buy a house and raise a family. Today, even 
     a college degree would not guarantee a job at Johns Hopkins. 
     This has left many inner city youth in Baltimore stranded, 
     but one of the things discussed by A.I.D. and the 
     Baltimorians, was trying to fill the void with a program 
     A.I.D. has fostered with third world governments, called 
     microenterprise development.
       In Bolivia, for instance, the Banco Sol, partially 
     supported by A.I.D., has been giving tiny loans, sometimes 
     only $10 or $20, to men, and particularly women, who are 
     working out of their homes and who, with just a little 
     capital, might not only be able to sustain their own business 
     but employ others as well. Sometimes the money goes for a 
     sewing machine, sometimes it goes for teaching bookkeeping or 
     commercial laws.
       Michael A. Gaines Sr., head of Baltimore's Council for 
     Economic and Business Opportunity, said What he learned from 
     the AID seminar was that ``Third world governments did not 
     provide a social security net, but their policies 
     increasingly allow for free flowing microentrepreneurship. We 
     provide a social security net, but it comes with policies, 
     restrictions and guidelines that preclude entrepreneurship.''
       Mr. Gaines is now running a pilot project in Baltimore 
     intended to show how microentrepreneurs--the mother who does 
     hair styling out of her home or the mechanic who works out of 
     his garage--can grow with a small loan and a business plan.
       Mr. Gaines said he would like not only A.I.D.'s advice, but 
     also a slice of its $7 billion budget. Indeed, there is such 
     a hunger for its expertise, and money, that it may justify 
     itself right out of existence or be asked to become A.A.D.--
     ``Agency for American Development.''
       Mr. Gaines said: ``If your were able to fold some of those 
     AID resources and knowledge with the Housing and Urban 
     Development agency and the Commerce Department, and start 
     working in a coordinated way in this country, oh man, the 
     potential would be tremendous.''

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