U.S. hardly 'stingy' in disaster aid

Shortly after a killer tsunami struck Southeast Asia last month, a United Nations official from Norway criticized the United States for its "stingy" response to international disaster relief efforts. And here at home, the Blame America First crowd - those who blame the U.S. for everything bad that happens anywhere in the world - applauded loudly. Fortunately, however, they're wrong again.

The official, UN Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland, is the world organization's disaster relief coordinator. "It is beyond me why we (the developed nations; i.e., the U.S.) are so stingy..." he told journalists at a press conference, drawing an immediate response from outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell.

"The United States is not stingy," said Powell. "We are the greatest contributors to international relief efforts in the world." After President Bush categorized Egeland's comment as "very misguided and ill-informed," the UN bureaucrat apologized and backed away from his initial remarks. Perhaps he remembered that American taxpayers pay one-fourth of his bloated salary, which enables him to live the good life in New York.

The problem in assessing international relief efforts is that most countries measure such contributions solely in terms of governmental assistance, which is only part of the story. In the case of the Asian tsunami, the U.S. government pledged 350 million taxpayer dollars for disaster relief while private American citizens kicked in another $350 million for a total of at least $700 million.

At the same time, the U.S. military and American non-governmental organizations rushed additional personnel and resources to Southeast Asia, which is the traditional American response to natural disasters around the world.

Sometimes it seems that the countries that criticize us the loudest are the first to look to the U.S. for assistance when disaster strikes. This hypocritical attitude became very clear to me during my 28-year career in the Foreign Service. I can recall any number of natural disasters in Latin America - including floods and earthquakes - when the U.S. rushed life-saving assistance to the very people who were criticizing us loudly in the UN and elsewhere. And all too often, the recipients of our generosity forgot to say thank you. I never got used to such hypocrisy.

After the Asian tsunami struck, killing more than 200,000 people, American children raided their piggy banks and professional athletes and entertainers donated millions of dollars to disaster relief efforts and conducted celebrity fund-raisers, including an all-star telethon organized by actor George Clooney and the Hollywood glitterati.

Even combative Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly, who had sparred with Clooney over earlier charitable fund-raisers, participated in the telethon because "Americans have always helped the downtrodden, and continuing the tradition is worthy." Right on, Bill!

The usual criticism of the U.S. is that we don't spend as large a percentage of our gross national product on bilateral aid projects as other developed nations. For example, a recent UN-sponsored report noted that the U.S. spends only 0.15 percent of GDP on bilateral aid, far short of the 0.7 percent developed nations promised to contribute in 1970. But that's misleading since it doesn't include large U.S. contributions to multinational organizations like the International Development Bank and the World Bank. UN bureaucrats want American taxpayers to double annual bilateral development assistance to $135 billion by next year. No thanks!

I don't say that because I'm stingy but because I've seen how bilateral aid programs work - or don't work - in Third World countries. All too often the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which administers bilateral programs, is forced to work with corrupt and/or pathetically inept foreign officials.

During my career abroad, I saw too many USAID projects that weren't delivering much bang for the buck. For example, I recall when we (the U.S. Information Service Ð USIS) organized a regional anti-narcotics seminar in Lima, Peru, for less than $10,000 while USAID was spending $250,000 to study whether such a seminar was feasible. And so on.

If we want more bang for our taxpayer bucks - and we do - I heartily endorse U.S. Peace Corps programs as examples of cost-effective development assistance. American Peace Corps volunteers have accomplished a lot at relatively little taxpayer expense since President Kennedy initiated that admirable program in the early 1960s. Its projects range from community health to literacy education to potable water and the best part about them is that local citizens participate in the design and operation of the projects, which makes a big difference in how they view the U.S. and foreign aid.

As Grace-Marie Turner of the Galen Institute (a non-profit health policy research organization) has observed, "While cash pledges from the U.S. government and from American citizens and companies are vital, cash doesn't save lives; medicine, clean water and food do." Which is why U.S. servicemen and women have been dropping packages of food and medicine and setting up field hospitals in isolated Southeast Asian communities.

And it's also why American companies and organizations are not only donating cash to tsunami survivors, but also food and medicine. For example, the American Red Cross is vaccinating tens of thousands of children and FedEx is using its vast airplane fleet to transport more than 400 tons of relief supplies to the area.

So much for us being "stingy." Mr. Egeland should be ashamed of himself.

Guy W. Farmer, a semi-retired journalist and former U.S. diplomat, resides in Carson City.