Transforming Foreign Aid: United States Assistance in the 21st Century

Carol Lancaster is a foremost authority on U.S. foreign aid policy and practice. I only wish I had read her book before going to work at an NGO (non-governmental organization) because, quite frankly, I would have understood the big picture. It's amazing how people can work with such dedication at NGOs and not know the U.S. government processes that formulate foreign aid policy and the various issues that are forever debated within government, and I was one of them. I got this book in December 2001 while employed at an NGO. Our USAID-funded mission was to promote the rule of law in former socialist countries. Of course, 9/11 happened and it was apparent to everybody that major changes were afoot. This was when it would have been helpful to have a background in the politics of foreign aid, the various debates about how to reform the process and to know about all the responsible parties within the government. If you know anybody at an NGO, or better yet if you know anybody thinking about going into public service on the federal side, it will do them a world of good if they can grasp how things really work in the area of foreign aid. Foreign aid touches mostly everything federal, and you're not going to get sufficient information through the media. The number of federal agencies with a foreign aid mission is much larger than most people would imagine. One has to read works by experts such as Carol Lancaster to understand the use of soft power in foreign policy. This is not a dated book. Lancaster explains everything in historical context. You get to see how the various federal agencies under the Clinton administration developed their own foreign policy programs, sometimes in contradiction to each other. You get to see the fault lines of all the major issues and how the different players have responded. In addition to this book, I'd also give that special person other Carol Lancaster's books: George Bush's Foreign Aid: Transformation or Chaos?and Foreign Aid: Diplomacy, Development, Domestic Politics. You might see my short review on the first of these two books linked above. Actually, I enjoyed this book, the subject of this review most. The book on "transformation or chaos" is thoughtful and not a critique per se of the former president as the title might suggest. I took it as a clarion call to attract the best and brightest to public service in the area of foreign aid. Clearly, the U.S. has a dire need to fill many, many newly created positions both with gifted and motivated young people right out of college as well as experienced career-changers with a variety of relevant experiences.