AID Projects in S. Africa

* The Times ran two articles (Nov. 18, Dec. 5) concerning specific grants awarded by the United States Agency for International Development (AID) to U.S.-based African American organizations doing business in South Africa. The Times addressed allegations that AID’s program in South Africa engaged in a policy of racial preference, awarding contracts to less-qualified black groups in the United States at the expense of non-African American organizations. This is simply not true. AID’s inspector general found absolutely no evidence to substantiate charges that AID practiced a conscious policy of excluding non-African-American firms, and they were not excluded.

The South Africa development challenge is unique and the issues raised by your articles must be placed in perspective.

Both as a matter of law and policy, the U.S. government’s development mission in South Africa was to assist the underprivileged, previously disenfranchised black population to become fully functioning and productive citizens in the new South Africa. The African American experience with legal and economic discrimination in our own country, and their success in achieving nonviolent social change, was highly relevant to the South African challenge. AID’s desire to tap this experience and commitment was not only understandable; in my view, it would have been unforgivable to have ignored the potential contribution of this group of Americans.

AID helped to fund nearly 100 separate voter education programs in preparation for the historic 1994 South African elections, established South Africa’s first national housing policy, founded job training programs in conjunction with the AFL-CIO that have increased broad-based employment for the majority of South Africans, and improved basic and secondary education programs for South African students. These are only a few of the many positive results of AID’s involvement in the new South Africa. AID takes great pride in its achievements in South Africa, which are motivated neither by racism nor by a policy of excluding others, but rather by a desire to do effective development work in South Africa’s post-apartheid era.

J. BRIAN ATWOOD

Administrator, U.S. Agency for

International Development

Washington