|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
  |
 |
  |
This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
Testimony of Roger Winter
Assistant Administrator for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance
Before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Foreign Operations
March 06, 2002
Mr. Chairman, members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me here today to discuss the U.S. Agency for International Development's democracy programs budget for Fiscal Year 2003. While I have appeared before the Senate on a number of occasions, this is my first opportunity to do so since becoming USAID's Assistant Administrator early last month.
While new to USAID, I have worked in international humanitarian assistance for several decades, particularly in Africa. I have seen first-hand what happens when democracy is absent and have devoted considerable time to considering how USAID's democracy efforts can contribute to our national interests and to those of the developing countries we seek to benefit.
The Bush Administration has a clear commitment to democracy. It is the one political system which, when effectively instituted, best fosters healthy political and economic competition and inhibits destructive conflict. Peace is the condition that makes economic and social progress possible, and democracy is the system that best assures that peace.
As you are aware, our Administrator, Andrew Natsios, has reorganized portions of USAID. One aspect of this has been the creation of the Bureau of Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, a process that is now well under way. That democracy is the first functional area in this new "pillar" bureau's name demonstrates the priority we ascribe to our democracy efforts. I am very grateful to President Bush, Administrator Natsios, and the Senate for giving me the opportunity to head this bureau and serve my country.
Helping other countries move toward democracy adds directly to our national security and contributes substantially to international stability. As we know, democracies seldom threaten their neighbors or turn their armies against their own citizens. They serve their people, not render them subservient. They seek trade, not territory; talent, not privilege; freedom, not tyranny.
But even in this country, it has taken generations - and plenty of rough and tumble - to refine our institutions and expand our democratic practices to where they are today. We should not be surprised, therefore, that other nations less blessed than ours have struggled along the way. Indeed, many have yet to taste the benefits of democratic government, while others have just begun to do so.
It is natural that the United States is the most important nation in the world when it comes to promoting democracy, the country others look to for ideas, leadership and guidance. USAID was one of the first international development agencies to bring democracy programs to the field, and we continue our pioneering work today throughout the developing world. We should have no illusions, though, that there are easy answers to the challenges we face. Encouraging democracy and good governance is slow, difficult work, even under the best of circumstances.
As the President said during his State of the Union address this January: "America will lead by defending liberty and justice, because they are right and true and unchanging for all people everywhere. No nation owns these aspirations, and no nation is exempt from them. We have no intention of imposing our culture, but America will always stand firm for the non-negotiable demands of human dignity."
This is what Secretary Powell had in mind when he appeared before the Senate Budget Committee last month and said: "Over the past year, I believe the broader tapestry of our foreign policy has become clear - to encourage the spread of democracy and market economies and to bring more nations to the understanding that the power of the individual is the power that counts."
The demands of human dignity and the need to encourage the spread of democracy that the President and the Secretary of State refer to is what motivates our agency, informs our programs, and guides our policies.
The need to do this more effectively was the reason that USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios created the Bureau of Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance (DCHA). As he told this Subcommittee last May, "our experience has proven that by promoting and assisting the growth of democracy, by giving people the opportunity to peacefully influence their government, the United States advances the emergence and establishment of societies that will become better trade partners and more stable governments. By facilitating citizens' participation and trust in their government, our democracy efforts can help stop violent internal conflicts that lead to destabilizing and costly refugee flows, anarchy and failed states, and the spread of disease."
Our democracy and governance (DG) budget for Fiscal Year 2003 is directed at doing precisely that. In doing so, we coordinate our budget plans closely with the State Department. For this fiscal year, USAID is asking for $963.6 million for our DG programs. This includes $199.9 million in Development Assistance funds; $251.1 million in Economic Support Funds; $276.7 million for Eastern Europe and the Baltics; and $235.9 million in FREEDOM Support Act funds for the republics of the former Soviet Union.
Using these ESF and DA accounts, we plan to devote $125.5 million on democracy and governance programs for Africa; $178.6 million for Asia and the Near East; and $117.2 for Latin America and the Caribbean in FY '03. Another $34.7 million for democracy programs will come from our Andean Regional Initiative funds. Approximately $240 million of these funds will be passed through to other U.S. Government agencies, such as the Departments of State, Treasury, and Justice for their democracy assistance programs.
We are also asking for $27.8 million for our human rights programs for the coming fiscal year. The promotion and protection of human rights are essential to our democracy-promotion efforts, just as democracy is essential to the realization of fundamental human rights. Of course, our democracy and governance programs contain many human rights elements within them, and we work closely with our colleagues in the State Department to ensure they are well-conceived and coordinated through the ESF process.
Our human rights program consists of three separate elements, each of which helps people with genuine and compelling needs: the Victims of Torture Fund, the Leahy War Victims Fund, and the Trafficking in Women and Children program. As you will recall, Mr. Chairman, we were pleased to announce a one million dollar contribution to the Afghan fund that bears your name when you visited our agency along with the First Lady and Chairman Karzai this January. For FY '03, we are asking for $10 million for this War Victims Fund.
In the coming fiscal year, we plan to expand our recent DG efforts in three specific areas: strengthening democratic political parties; fighting corruption, and developing independent media. As scholars like Tom Carrothers have pointed out, there is a lot more to democracy than just holding elections. Indeed, elections are often used to hide other, deep-seated problems in a country's political system.
Currently, we devote only about three percent of our DG budget to political party building. This needs to change. In the coming fiscal year, we expect to put significantly more emphasis on helping political parties become more democratic -- and less dependent on individual personalities - as well as broaden their political platforms and forge stronger links between local and national levels. To help us do this, we have awarded a major, multi-year grant to the Consortium for Elections and Political Processes, which includes the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute (NDI), and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES).
Nothing undermines a nation's natural vitality and limits its development the way corruption does. Fighting corruption, therefore, has become one of USAID's top priorities, one that we are giving increasing attention to throughout the Agency. As our part of that, DCHA will strengthen its anti-corruption programs in FY '03, furthering our efforts in public awareness and institutional transparency. One of our key partners in this effort is Transparency International.
A third area where we intend to increase our support is for independent media. For years we have provided technical assistance to national legislatures and media associations to help them craft better enabling regulations for the media. We also fund a number of training programs for journalists in emerging or partially democratic countries. Some of these have had excellent results, such as the one at Western Kentucky University which recently completed training a group of Indonesian radio journalists.
Democracy is an old form of government, dating from Periclean Athens, but managing democracy-promotion programs is something rather new. For all that scholars and political scientists have spent considerable time defining democracy and detailing its various aspects and paradigms, they have provided little insight into how countries like ours can actually assist non-democratic societies to change their way of governing. There is no single answer, of course, no policy or approach that works with every nation. Indeed, each case is different; each country has it own particularities.
But we have learned some important lessons over time. One is the need to evaluate programs very carefully, to analyze what works and what does not, and to determine the particular conditions that influence a country's behavior. USAID is pioneering this approach in the field of democracy promotion. Beginning in 1997, we developed a strategic assessment methodology that helps our field missions determine the constraints to a country's democracy efforts and the best approach to overcoming them. Thus far, we have completed assessments in 26 countries, about a third of the countries in which we have democracy and governance programs.
We have also begun a series of in-depth studies to determine what effect our rule of law, governance, and civil society programs have had on countries in various stages of transition. The first, now completed, looked at three countries where democracy has begun to take root in recent years: Bolivia, South Africa and Bulgaria. What we found in these countries, not surprisingly, was that the political will to make positive change was of critical importance. When that was present, our most effective programs were those that helped governments draft laws and regulations and reform legal and electoral institutions.
In FY' 02, we are continuing these studies in Ghana, Guatemala, and Croatia, and in FY '03 we will examine our programs' impact in three other states with less democratic governments.
There are always more countries that need help than we have staff and resources to help them with. So we must make difficult choices with our democracy and governance programs, as with every portfolio that USAID handles. However much the needs of other countries press upon us, our highest priority is - and must always be -- to serve the U.S. national interest. This means, in the first instance, harmonizing our programs and priorities with those of the President and Secretary of State. Beyond that, we look to countries that need our assistance the most, and to those where positive change seems most possible.
The events since September 11 have naturally given new emphasis to our relations with Central and South Asia. In response to these events, we have begun to shift resources toward the region, increasing our funding for democracy and governance programs in Pakistan, India, the Philippines and Uzbekistan. While the specifics are yet to be worked out, we expect our DG programs in the "Front Line" states will intensify in the coming year.
As Andrew Natsios noted when he met with the Subcommittee last week, our mission in Afghanistan is back in business for the first time since 1979. Already, DCHA has been providing assistance to the Interim Government, supplying badly needed textbooks and supporting the Women's Ministry. We have also set aside $5 million to help implement the Bonn Accords, and we stand ready to help the Karzai government as the country prepares for the Loya Jirga later this year.
In Pakistan, where Secretary Powell recently announced the reopening of the USAID mission, we are supporting the national legislative elections scheduled for the fall.
In the past year and half, USAID's democracy and governance programs have proven their effectiveness in several countries. In Serbia, for example, our USAID grantees worked with the opposition parties, playing a critical role in bringing them together so that they could combine their efforts and work together to defeat Slobodan Milosevic.
When scandal forced Peruvian President Fujimori to leave office, we mobilized a team within two weeks that helped pave the way for the honest and transparent elections that put Alberto Toledo in office last spring.
But not every country we work in affords us such opportunities.
In Cambodia, for example, we are just finalizing the strategic assessment of our DG programs. Obviously, as last month's elections demonstrate, the Cambodian government still has a long way to go before it can be considered genuinely democratic.
We are also looking very closely at this weekend's presidential elections in Zimbabwe. We have had democracy programs there for quite some time, supported through the ESF account we manage with the State Department. Some of our funds have supported the Southern Africa Development Community-Parliamentary Forum, which has some 40 monitors on the ground there now. As you may know, the government of Zimbabwe did not accredit the election observers USAID intended to finance. Given the climate in the country, we remain very concerned about how free and fair this election will be.
We are also concerned about the situation in Madagascar, where we are prepared to help make a second round of voting credible -- if we have the opportunity. Another country where we have democratic concerns is Venezuela, and we expect to send a DG assessment team from our Offices of Transition Initiatives and Democracy and Governance there later this month to see what might be done.
I have just returned from Burundi, Mr. Chairman, and would like to make a few comments on it. I have been involved in Africa's Great Lakes region for more than 20 years. When I visited Burundi last August, I was somewhat skeptical that the peace process could be implemented according to the Arusha Accords, which were signed in August 2000. Now, however, I believe there is a real opportunity that needs to be seized. While the transition process is quite complicated, it does provide a great deal of attention to strengthening the non-executive functions of government, including the creation of a senate, which is just in its infancy. Having seen the progress made over the last few months, I am convinced this is a process we should serious assist.
On November 1, Burundi began its 36-month transition. For the first half of that period, the administration is being led by incumbent President Pierre Buyoya and a new Vice President, Dometian Ndayizeye, who recently returned from exile. For the second 18-month period President Buyoya and Vice President Ndayizeye will switch positions and the country will prepare for provincial and national elections.
In my view, Buyoya and Ndayizeye - and many others who have returned from exile - are risking their lives to help Burundi move forward toward more democratic, accountable governance.
We at USAID are committed to helping them succeed. DCHA's Office of Transition Initiatives has already begun a series of new initiatives, our Office of Democracy and Governance is soon to deploy, and our Offices of Foreign Disaster Assistance and Food for Peace continue to make huge contributions to national stability and family survival. At the same time, our Office of Private Voluntary Cooperation is determining how best it can help Burundian NGOs. Also USAID's Africa Bureau and regional support office in Nairobi are working to help Burundi on a number of fronts, including HIV/AIDS.
Together, all these initiatives can have a positive impact on Burundi. They are surely needed. The suffering and poverty of the people of that country are excruciating. For everyone's sake, that needs to change. Last year, for example, the United States spent $106 million in humanitarian assistance to support the victims of Burundi's past failures. While such expenditures are an expression of our country's deep humanitarian values, it must be our goal to help the people of Burundi move away from that and toward more lasting solutions to their problems. Only internal peace can do that, and only a genuine transition to democracy can consolidate that peace.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I would like to express my appreciation for the support you and the Subcommittee have shown our democracy programs and assure you of my willingness to work with you and your staff on any issues that may concern you.
Thank you.
 |
|||
Last Updated on: January 02, 2009 |
