Earmarking and Accountability: ‘A New Plan for Foreign Aid’

I strongly disagree with a key point raised in your editorial “A New Plan for Foreign Aid” (March 29). You implied that “earmarking and conditionality written into law” are the culprits in the U.S. foreign aid program and offered your support for broad general priorities recommended by a congressional task force report.

The existing foreign aid bill, originally written in 1961, has, in fact, laudably stated general priorities. Earmarking and conditionality crept in, it would seem, because even the most laudably stated priorities are prey to conflicting interpretations and inevitable tinkering. The public generally perceives foreign aid as being rife with corruption and inefficiency, lining the pockets of defense and development contractors and foreign leaders while doing little for the people it is intended to help.

What has been missing in foreign aid legislation and is also missing in the recommendations you endorse, is measurable accountability. More than a billion people in developing countries live day-by-day in the shadow of hunger, malnutrition, disease and ignorance. The toll (an estimated 15-plus million deaths each year) is most clearly reflected in child mortality and illiteracy rates which can be measured. They are the same things the U.S. had to conquer when it was a developing country.

Accountability through measurable goals should not be confused with inflexible earmarking. Specific goals for reducing child mortality and illiteracy should be cornerstones of U.S. foreign aid policy, and not merely implied in otherwise meaningless rhetoric.

RICHARD A. WEST

South Pasadena