Editorial | Focus on poverty

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) attained the ripe old age of 60 in November 2021. Founded by the late former president, John F. Kennedy, the agency was designed as one of the most important tools of US international engagement, with its central mission to expand free-market democracies, thereby making the US secure and prosperous.

Over six decades, the agency has built a reputation as a leader in international aid, saving lives from tuberculosis, smallpox, malaria, HIV/AIDS, and delivering humanitarian aid on a huge scale. The USAID is currently working in 100 countries through teams and partners to develop and support live-saving projects, reduce poverty, and drive social development.

Anniversaries are ripe for reflection, and USAID Jamaica Country Representative Jason Fraser outlined to this newspaper how the agency invested more than US$1.4 billion to support various projects in Jamaica, ranging from environment to health, energy resilience, and education.

The effectiveness of development aid and donor dollars is a hotly debated topic among intellectuals, researchers and aid experts, who often question the role of aid in nation-building. Fierce arguments are tendered on both sides of the debate. On one hand, critics say targeted aid dollars can contribute to poverty alleviation, depending on how the funds are allocated and managed. Others argue that foreign aid is ineffective, perpetuates poverty, and fails to meet its goals because of misallocation of resources, corruption, and poor governance.

Mr Fraser seems to answer concerns about misallocation of funds when he said the agency engages in extensive consultation with a wide range of stakeholders before any strategy is generated, as the programmes must match what Jamaicans want for themselves, as laid out in their Vision 2030 plan.

POVERTY ALLEVIATION

If poverty alleviation is the ultimate goal of development aid, then one is obliged to ask the question: How many people have been lifted out of poverty by the USAID in its nearly 60 years of engagement in Jamaica?

The official poverty rate in 2020 was 11.4 per cent, which is a percentage point above the previous year. COVID-19 was responsible for reversing pre-pandemic poverty declines for five consecutive years. The more people who are lifted out of poverty, the more the country benefits as a whole. Think of the reduction in criminal activities such as scamming, gunrunning and gang operations.

In 2015, when the 193 countries adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the United Nations General Assembly, they set about crafting a blueprint with targets to achieve a better future for all of mankind by 2030. No one contemplated having to manage the challenges of a global pandemic.

There was no built-in contingency to cope with the impact of a deadly, sustained health crisis caused by the novel coronavirus. Alongside the health crisis, countries like Jamaica face mounting debt service payments, looming shocks from increased oil prices due to the war in Ukraine, and the potential impact of new coronavirus variants lurking in the shadows.

These anticipated burdens may have prompted the World Bank to urge wealthy nations to come up with new debt-relief mechanisms, and to ensure that private-sector creditors are brought along as part of the solution. Other global institutions have also lamented that wealthy nations were not doing nearly enough to help poor nations.

The pandemic has clearly reversed gains against poverty; and the picture is not rosy as many, including children, face immediate economic hardships, health risks and interrupted education. The pandemic has left most countries in a bind.

If rich countries are really concerned about poverty reduction and wish to see poor countries achieve the SDGs, then swift action is necessary to refocus investments in areas that are critical to improving lives. If nothing is done, the consequences will be dire for future generations.