Joshua Foust: A Radically Different Way of Bringing U.S. Aid to Pakistan
In his column for the Atlantic, ASP Fellow Joshua Foust discusses a less conventional program to delivering aid to Pakistan with a focus on long-term projects.
One good model might be the Rural Support Programmes Network. A sprawling collection of local NGOs, the RSPN was founded by the Agha Khan Network in 1982, and has since become its own, separate program. While the stats about its reach are impressive — reaching millions of the poorest homes across a vast swath of Pakistan — what’s especially fascinating about RSPN are its methods.
Put simply, RSPN has a different focus than normal aid programs. They emphasize the development of institutions first, and only after that institution is established do they worry about its output or performance. The NGO also heavily invests in the smallest scale of the community, from conceptualization to execution, hiring mostly locals to administer projects. Lastly, they have extraordinarily long project timelines — sometimes as long as 15 years from start to finish.
Focusing on short term projects is a critical weakness of how the U.S. conducts both warfare and aid. Put simply, you make very different decisions if you have to show progress next year than if you have to show progress next decade. RSPN’s longer term focus lets it work on more difficult goals, such as creating institutional capacity that can exist without foreign input. It also means RSPN can build out micro-infrastructure projects like micro-hydro power plants that allow communities to finance their own development — again, without foreign input.
