Senior fellow Vijaya Ramachandran and research assistant Julie Walz's piece on improving the U.S. military's role in international development was featured in The Guardian's Poverty Matters blog.
From the Article
It's no secret that the thought of the US military conducting development projects makes many development people uneasy. Some are even up in arms – soldiers should stick to what they do best while development actors do the same. But let's put aside turf battles for the moment. The reality is that the US military is already doing development in conflict zones.
In Afghanistan, the US military has become the main player, disbursing economic and security assistance. Of that, $1bn in 2009 (almost one-eighth of total spending) went to pure development programmes through the Commander's Emergency Response Programme. To date, Congress has appropriated $2.64bn for Cerp in Afghanistan alone and, the programme has increased in size and scope since its inception in 2004.
Cerp is a congressionally-appropriated fund designed to provide commanders with "walking around money" for urgent reconstruction and development activities – everything from condolence payments to building schools and sanitation programmes. A sector by sector comparison between Cerp and USAid spending would be indistinguishable – they are operating in the same space.