Senator Kerry’s Letter on U.S. Aid to Pakistan: Five Highlights for Ambassador Holbrooke

Last week, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry sent a letter to Ambassador Holbrooke about the U.S. aid program in Pakistan, highlighting the need for long-term development progress, more transparency and policy reforms in key sectors like energy. Senator Richard Lugar, ranking member on the same committee, expressed similar views in his opinion piece in Foreign Policy Magazine in May.  I’m thrilled to see this bipartisan push to improve U.S. assistance in Pakistan and that Senators Kerry and Lugar are focused on many of the same challenges—and offer the same recommendations—that we’ve made in our initiative on U.S. development strategy in Pakistan.Senator Kerry’s letter (originally reported by Farah Stockman in the Boston Globe) highlights five areas I hope Ambassador Holbrooke will pay particularly close attention to:1. Prioritize long-term progress, beyond short-term fixes. Senator Kerry emphasizes long-term development progress in Pakistan:

At the same time, we want to underscore that the (Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan) Act was passed by Congress to support Pakistan’s long-term development progress, on the grounds that doing so is the best investment in the long-term security of the United States and Pakistan.

I have worried aloud in previous posts about the short-term pressures on the U.S. assistance program in Pakistan.  Will the urgency of better U.S.-Pakistan diplomatic relations today compel the administration to go for quick wins, with little lasting impact?  Would this short-term emphasis come at the expense of progress towards a more developed Pakistan two, three, even ten years from now?  In light of this real tension, Senator Kerry’s strong endorsement of the long-term objective of the U.S. aid program is very encouraging. 2. Learn from past donor experience. Senator Kerry repeatedly calls for the administration to learn from past donor experience in Pakistan.   Our own analysis of donor disappointments in the energy sector as well as in health and education suggest it is just plain hard for donors to spend aid money well in Pakistan.  With so much attention and U.S. aid money flowing to Pakistan today, it is easy to forget that the United States had virtually no development presence whatsoever during the entire decade leading up to 9/11.  (See here for a vivid illustration of the dramatic ebbs and flows of past U.S. assistance to Pakistan).   In fact, until only this past fiscal year, the scale of the U.S. aid program even since 2001 was very modest, averaging less than $500 million per year (compared to $1.5 billion/year today).  In the meantime, the main multilateral donors such as the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank have maintained a consistently robust lending portfolio in Pakistan for several decades worth several billions of dollars.  Much can be learned from their experience and on-the-ground perspective.3.  Be smart on energy.  Pakistan’s energy crisis is a top priority of the U.S. assistance program.  Kerry says:

We must pay careful attention to sequencing: if we have not first tackled these critical policy issues, we dramatically decrease the long-term effectiveness of our larger energy infrastructure investments. Going forward, we should examine previous donor efforts to avoid past pitfalls, understand political limits on the group, and add value to existing reform efforts on the ground.  We hope the Administration will build on the long-standing leadership and work of the major multilateral partners like ADB and the World Bank to have a coordinated approach that better leverages our collective resources with the Pakistani government.  The Pakistani government will also need to take advantage of the domestic energy crisis and calls from its own people for relief to find the political will necessary to resolve the energy crisis if we are to make any real progress.

CGD president Nancy Birdsall recommended similar collaboration between the U.S. and multilateral partners on key policy and institutional reforms in Pakistan’s energy sector. 4. To foster lasting change in Pakistan, press for policy and institutional reforms. Kerry hits the nail on the head: long-term development progress in Pakistan requires greatly needed policy and institutional reforms.  He says:

To achieve long-term progress instead of short-term fixes, we encourage the Administration to think strategically about how we can best encourage policy and institutional reforms across each sector so that Pakistanis see long-term and sustainable benefits as a result of U.S. assistance.

As Nancy Birdsall and I have said before, incremental programs alone—whether for microfinance or other social services—can help people in Pakistan, but will not make a sustainable difference without politically sensitive economy-wide economic reforms and a focus on making government more accountable to people.5.  Be more transparent. Senator Kerry urges Ambassador Holbrooke to be more transparent about the administration’s objectives, plans and disbursements in Pakistan – a plea that Nancy has also made repeatedly.  Kerry says:

We urge the Administration to build on this approach by being more proactive and transparent with the broader public – both in the United States and Pakistan – on how funds will be spent annually by providing program descriptions and plans and sharing commitments and actual disbursements.  This transparency has been lacking so far.  Much has been made here and in Pakistan about the impact the Act could have on the bilateral relationship.  Yet today, the public has little access to detailed planning on how the funds will be spent.  This creates confusion and unnecessary speculation in Pakistan, and limits the potential of the policy community and allies at home.  The Administration should be fully transparent about how it will spend funds in Pakistan.  Given this Act is the centerpiece of our civilian engagement with Pakistan, without greater transparency, this valuable policy tool could lose much of its impact.

Kerry goes on to suggest the creation of an “easy-to-navigate website that provides detailed planning, objectives, and disbursement information.”  Nancy Birdsall put forth this idea in March in her first open letter to Ambassador Holbrooke, in which she cites the example of the MCC website as a possible model.  As Kerry points out, this level of transparency is important not only for a Pakistani audience, but also for those of us working in the policy community at home.  As my colleagues and I have struggled to obtain accurate information about U.S. assistance in Pakistan, we couldn’t agree more!Kudos to Senator Kerry and his staff for sending exactly the right message on our aid program. We’ll be waiting eagerly to see if his suggestions are put into place.