U.S. Prerogatives on Development
U.S. assistance to Pakistan is a good example of how conflating political and development goals undermines development efforts. Pakistan is an important ally of the United States in the war on terror, receiving a generous share of total U.S. foreign assistance. Non-military assistance to Pakistan has totaled almost $1.9 billion since 2001.5
Such a large amount of U.S. assistance since 2001 is consistent with the history of U.S. engagement with Pakistan. The early 1970s saw a relatively high level of U.S. assistance because the Nixon administration needed Pakistan as an intermediary for its China opening and a counter to Soviet influence in India. When the geopolitical need passed, assistance levels fell. U.S. assistance spiked again in the 1980s as Pakistan served as a base for efforts to oust the Soviets from neighboring Afghanistan. When the Soviets departed, U.S. assistance plummeted and dried up completely after Pakistan successfully tested a nuclear weapon in 1998. Now it’s back up. Although clearly a number of other factors have prevented Pakistan from making sustained progress on development, one contributing factor is the “on again, off again,” politically-based nature of U.S. assistance.
A comparison with Bangladesh, a much poorer country, makes the point about consistency very clearly. Both countries have enjoyed roughly similar rates of per capita economic growth (4.9 percent in Bangladesh vs. 4.1 percent in Pakistan during 2005-2006), but Pakistan’s infant mortality rate, 84 per thousand, is 60 percent higher.6 Pakistan’s rate of child malnutrition remained constant between 1990 and 2006, while Bangladesh reduced its rate by almost one-third. Bangladesh has more girls in school and a higher primary school completion rate.
Unlike in Pakistan, U.S. engagement in Bangladesh has been based almost entirely on a development rationale—reducing hunger and poverty by ensuring adequate health care and family planning services, improving access to education, increasing agricultural productivity, supporting rural infrastructure development, and promoting gender equity. The United States has maintained a stable, consistent development assistance program in Bangladesh virtually since the country’s independence in 1971. Assistance over the past 10 years has averaged $75 million annually and has never fallen below $23 million.
It is extremely difficult for assistance programs to make progress on development challenges in the absence of a long-term commitment, something that has largely been absent in Pakistan. Given the history of dramatic increases and cuts in U.S. assistance, all governed by political considerations, Pakistani policymakers and the public might well be justified in concluding that our “assistance” is really more about us than them.
