Publications

I recently hosted Ambassador Don Steinberg, Deputy Administrator of USAID, at an on-the-record CFR meeting to discuss the broad transformation underway at USAID. (You can view above a brief video interview that was filmed after the meeting.) This ambitious reform effort, called USAID Forward, is intended to reposition USAID as an “innovator” in global development, and also to establish a “relentless focus on results.” After years of decline (declining staff, declining expertise, declining reputation), USAID is adding personnel (850 new hires in the past 2 years), bringing experts in-house, gaining clarity around seven core priorities (food security, global health, climate change, sustainable economic growth, democracy promotion, humanitarian assistance, and conflict prevention), and introducing better measurement and evaluation (M&E) systems. Steinberg was optimistic about USAID’s ability to succeed in this transformation, although he spoke candidly about intensifying budget pressures, the imperative of convincing Americans that USAID can be “good stewards,” the rise of new actors in development (US official development assistance last year was roughly $30 billion, but private philanthropies donated some $36 billion to international development), and the ongoing cultural challenges involved in shifting the mission of this large bureaucracy (frankly, it’s hard to push innovation and risk-taking in a structurally risk-averse organization). (more…)

Earlier this year, I visited a women’s savings group in Darshour, Egypt, a rural community a few hours outside of Cairo. Every month, the women – almost all of whom are illiterate – come together to put their hard-saved coins and bills into a lock-box and carefully enter the amount on a worn ledger. One woman proudly told me how through this savings group, she had accumulated enough money to purchase a washing machine for her family. Her husband was stunned, her children were delighted, and she has freed up hours of her day to start a business.

This savings group, and millions of others like it, is a small part of an essential trend in development of leveraging new resources for poverty alleviation. As delegates meeting in Busan to discuss aid effectiveness noted, handouts from rich countries to poor countries are a shrinking part of the development picture. Indeed, according to the OECD, private capital flows from Development Assistance Committee members to developing countries between 2000 and 2009 were more than double bilateral official development assistance (57 percent versus 27 percent). Private philanthropy, double-bottom line investing, and the mobilization of local resources are also playing a bigger role.

Deploying these multiple financing streams effectively, however, is a formidable challenge. (more…)

The first time I visited Afghanistan was in 2002. Ashura, the holiest Shiite holiday, was in full swing. As we drove up into the predominantly Shiite central highlands of Bamiyan–Hazara country–my Afghan traveling companions were amazed at the open expressions of Ashura. Processions clogged the single dirt road passing through small villages and long black flags on poles flapped in the wind. During the Taliban years, expressions of Shiism were suppressed by the the Taliban, the hardline Sunni fundamentalists who ruled the country and decried Shiism as apostasy.

The past decade has seen a relatively peaceful coexistence between religious sects in Afghanistan, but that was shattered today by a series of brutal, coordinated bombings in three cities that killed at least 63 people and raised fears of renewed sectarian conflict. A Sunni religious group from Pakistan, Lakshar-e-Jangvi, claimed responsibility for the attacks, which targeted Shiite Muslims participating in ceremonies to observe Ashura. (more…)

Since the first cases of AIDS came to public attention in 1981, the virus has claimed over 25 million lives worldwide. Preventing HIV transmission and providing care for the 34 million people living with the virus remains one of the foremost public health challenges of our time. Even in communities with high rates of HIV/AIDS, the virus is still too often a source of deep social stigma, dissuading those infected from seeking help. Although combating the spread of AIDS requires coordination and support from all sectors, key stakeholders have often exacerbated the epidemic. In South Africa, former President Mbeki’s rejection of the basic scientific consensus on AIDS led to an estimated 343,000 otherwise preventable deaths from 1999 to 2007. While religious leaders are unusually well-placed to provide followers with guidance about this preventable disease, they have in many cases contributed to the epidemic by denying the importance of condoms in HIV prevention and contributing to the stigma that AIDS patients already confront.

Nevertheless, even in light of the ongoing devastation of AIDS, our mixed response to it, and the current funding crunch, we can find a few glimmers of good news. The 2011 UNAIDS World AIDS Day Report indicates that the number of new HIV infections throughout the world decreased by 21 percent from 1997 to 2010. Although 1.8 million people died of AIDS last year, the increased availability of AIDS-fighting drugs resulted in an estimated 700,000 deaths averted. Last month, I wrote about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s laudable call for the global community to create an AIDS-free generation, a goal once thought to be impossible. Moreover, historically uncooperative stakeholders are increasingly aligned with HIV prevention objectives. The government of South Africa, once the seat of AIDS denialism, now espouses mainstream scientific views about the virus. Despite many religious leaders’ reticence to support the use of condoms in HIV prevention, a variety of initiatives provide encouraging examples of how religion can serve as a vehicle in the fight against AIDS. (more…)

Despite clashes in Egypt last week that resulted in over 40 deaths, Egypt’s first parliamentary election since the Mubarak era is progressing surprisingly smoothly. Polling places have not seen predicted violence and unrest since voting began on Monday, and independent monitors believe that voter turnout in this phase of the election “could easily rise above 50 percent.” The Egyptian stock market has also moved in tandem with the country’s recent political developments. Last week, stocks plunged amid uncertainty created by massive protests and violent crackdowns; on November 22, the EGX100 index dropped precipitously—about 5.4 percent—triggering an hour-long suspension of trading. However, Egypt’s stock indices rallied today in response to investor relief over relatively stable elections. This time, rapid gains in the EGX100 (5.01 percent) were enough to again suspend trading briefly. (more…)

Moroccans head to the polls today for their first parliamentary elections since the Arab uprisings began. It is also their first election since July, when a set of constitutional reforms giving more power to the parliament and prime minister, were approved in a referendum. In some ways, today’s election is a test of whether those constitutional reforms were sufficient to satisfy public opinion, which has grown increasingly disgruntled with the slow pace of reform in Morocco. (more…)

During the tense early days of Egypt’s revolution, crowds massing in Tahrir Square cheered the Egyptian military as a force of moderation. Protesters held babies up to be photographed with tank operators. People shared their tea with soldiers. That honeymoon ended pretty quickly as Egyptians of all stripes became increasingly uneasy about when and whether the military would actually hand over power. Egypt is scheduled to begin parliamentary elections at the end of November, but the transition to a civilian government still seems distant.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) continues to act in a pretty authoritarian manner. It has been accused of censoring both traditional media outlets like newspapers and print magazines as well as Al Jazeera’s Mubasheer Misr channel and a popular TV show with host Yousri Foda; it stirred up controversy recently by proposing a set of “supra-constitutional principles,” stipulating that the military budget would be secret, and allowing for the military to veto articles of the new constitution and to appoint a new constitution committee if the elected committee fails to draft a constitution in six months. It also continues to try civilians in military tribunals. Over 12,000 Egyptians have been tried this way, with 93 percent convicted. Among them is blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah, who is accused of inciting violence in the October 9 massacre at Maspero where 27 people were killed in a clash between the military and Christian protesters. SCAF has kept in place the much-loathed Emergency Law, a hold-over from Mubarak that allows the state to arrest and detain civilians with impunity. (more…)

Earlier this month, Pervez Musharraf, former president of Pakistan, visited the Council on Foreign Relations in a bid to burnish his image in advance of his intended re-entry into politics next year. Last week, I hosted Dr. Asma Jahangir, a remarkably courageous lawyer and activist, the recent president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, a relentless critic of Musharraf, and a stalwart champion of democracy in her country. The back-to-back meetings made for quite a contrast.

Dr. Jahangir, who lives in Lahore, was in New York to receive the prestigious Leo Nevas Human Rights Award from the UN Association of the United States. During her acceptance speech, she humbly demurred, saying that while she has devoted much of her life to airing human rights grievances, especially in Pakistan, she has not done enough to improve the dismal situation of human rights around the world. For decades, however, Dr. Jahangir has more than done her bit to defend the rights of religious minorities, women and children, and political prisoners. In the 1980s, she campaigned against the religious laws imposed by General Zia Ul Haq in his efforts to Islamize Pakistani society. In the 1990s, she took on several high-profile cases dealing with blasphemy and honor crimes, and during the past decade, she has tirelessly campaigned for a return to democracy. (more…)

In a speech on Tuesday at the National Institutes of Health, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for countries to work together to establish “an AIDS-free generation,” meaning virtually no children are born HIV positive, they would have a far lower risk of HIV infection when they become teenagers than they do at present, and where people who become infected with HIV are prevented from developing AIDS and from spreading the virus. These ambitious objectives seemed impossible not long ago, but recent scientific advances make the notion of an AIDS-free generation conceivable. In the speech, Secretary Clinton proposed three main HIV/AIDS interventions, all based on successful clinical trials: voluntary medical circumcision for men, drug treatment for infected pregnant women to prevent HIV transmission to the infant, and antiretroviral drugs for recently infected patients to reduce the risk that their sexual partners will contract HIV from them. Nevertheless, although the vision of an AIDS-free generation is tremendously exciting, generating sufficient funding for AIDS treatment and prevention remains a daunting task. At present, worldwide AIDS spending is about $16 billion each year. Even if only half of the 34 million infected individuals receive drug treatment by 2015, that would require worldwide AIDS spending to grow to $23 billion. Given the current state of the global economy, the challenges of increasing government contributions loom large. (more…)

At the end of this month, Egyptians will be heading to the polls to vote in the first of three rounds of elections for the lower house of parliament, the People’s Assembly. To put it mildly, the race is complicated: over 55 political parties and 6,591 independent candidates are competing for 498 seats. For two thirds of the seats, political parties will nominate a closed list of 8 candidates (meaning, voters get to choose the list, not individuals); 590 lists have been submitted (including 4720 candidates). The remaining third of the seats are reserved for individual candidates. To further complicate, districts for the independent candidates are drawn differently from the districts for parties. Confused? I haven’t yet mentioned that some seats are reserved for farmers and workers, a hold-over from Nasser’s days. The convoluted electoral law seems likely to favor established actors like the Muslim Brotherhood, whose mature organization can mobilize supporters, and remnants of the ruling regime who can finance larger campaigns and enjoy name recognition in rural districts. (more…)