Push Forces and Pull Forces

Here’s another example of a piece that I dismissed initially but on reconsideration decided it wasn’t so bad. I thought the title of Vince Bielski’s post at RealClearInvestigations, “How the Biden-Harris Migration ‘Fix’ Would Throw Good Billions After Bad”, made it sound like a partisan hit piece but actually reading it revealed a more thoughtful piece. This, for example, explains some of the “push forces” that are prompting Hondurans to seek entry to the U. S.:

Many of the region’s 1 million small farmers still live in adobe huts with no running water and suffer acts of humans and nature. Corrupt Honduran officials have invested too little in stabilizing or modernizing the region, allowing violent gangs to extort families. Recent droughts and hurricanes have created widespread hunger.

“It’s been one crisis after another,” says Conor Walsh, the Honduras representative for Catholic Relief Services in Tegucigalpa, the capital. “Many people have already migrated and others are evaluating whether they can stay on their farms.”

These longstanding problems throughout Central America are driving the current crisis on the southern U.S. border, where more than 170,000 migrants arrived in March in search of jobs and asylum. As the Biden administration grapples with this mounting surge, it’s also proposing a $4 billion long-term plan to attack the root causes of migration – corruption, violence and poverty in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.

and this touches on the key problem we have in trying to help poor people whether in Central America or in the Middle East:

The administration says fighting corruption is now the top priority since nothing will change until elected officials stop stealing and the governments become more accountable to citizens. Countries will have to meet stricter conditions, such as adopting governance reforms, before receiving aid, and officials face the threat of financial sanctions and revoked visas. The proposed $4 billion strategy, the biggest ever for the region, gives the administration some added leverage.

and

After five years, the Government Accounting Office was blunt in its assessment of the projects that were mostly run by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Those reviewed by GAO achieved only 40% to 70% of their own technical targets, such as the number of police officers trained. Officials didn’t even bother to evaluate most of the projects or whether they helped improve governance, security and economic opportunity.

However, hidden within the post are one possibility for finding success where we’ve only found failure in the past. There are not-for-profits that are actually ameliorating the situation. Specifically mentioned is Catholic Relief Services. What stops us from working through such organizations?

Power could start by changing the way her agency runs projects in places like Honduras, nonprofit veterans believe. Aid experts have criticized the agency for hiring U.S. and international contractors to administer most of the program funding. The setup marginalizes local organizations that better understand on-the-ground issues and misses an opportunity to develop local advocates to push for reforms, says Sarah Bermeo, who specializes in foreign aid in Central America at Duke University.

“U.S. contractors are certainly overused compared to their ability to deliver results,” Bermeo says. “There is certainly room to improve outcomes by increasing the involvement of local groups in the design and implementation of AID-financed efforts.”

Basically, ideology, politics, and lobbyists. As long as there’s a buck to be made from being a U. S. contractor whether they “deliver results” or not they will be an impediment.

1 comment… add one
  • Grey Shambler Link

    I’ve nothing against Catholic Social Services except that their goal always seems to be growing the flock. As long as it’s down there, fine.
    But then again, what can we offer CSS ? Money? They’re not short of that. Security? Not at any price.

Leave a Comment