Financial Times - USAID celebrates 50 years in Sri Lanka

When it comes to Golden Jubilees, they are normally something to be celebrated, be it being married for 50 years or just celebrating another kind of partnership that hopefully brings happiness to both partners.

Here in Sri Lanka there is a marriage that for the vast majority of the time has been of mutual benefit to both sides: the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and Sri Lanka. As in any partnership that lasts so long there have been ups and downs, but in general both sides have experienced the positives.

Since April 28, 1956, when the first agreement for economic assistance was signed between the two countries, the aid given has ranged in diversity over the years – economic development, agriculture development, environment and natural resources, health education and training, democracy and governance, transition initiatives, and humanitarian assistance – depending on what was the more needed at particular times, without neglecting projects already started.

In the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, essential aid was given, but that wasn't just it, as long-term projects have also been worked into the equation, where the building of a new bridge and a water system in Arugam Bay is just part of it. Vocational schools are also being rebuilt to ensure the continuing training of the people most affected by the disaster to move on and return to productive work that can only improve the social standing in the towns and villages as a whole.

To celebrate the jubilee, USAID has put together a book covering the success stories over the years, where here it has picked 50; one for each year.

As Dr. Carol Baker, Mission Director, USAID Sri Lanka, put it, among all the problems and sadness that the country has gone through, these 50 tales just show some of the many success stories that have been conducted. And over the 50 years, the money donated by the US tax payers is around $2 billion.

"Initially it was all about infrastructure and construction, that moved on to educating and empowering the people, but since the tsunami, we've gone back to what we were first doing here,” she said, adding that the aim was for sustainability and country ownership as a whole so that, hopefully, in the near future Sri Lanka can finally begin to function without the need of donors.

"It is the empowering of the people to understand and look after the knowledge brought from donors to benefit the many. It is people that make progress in the education they are given to make the progress worthwhile; to ensure things work.”

For Azmi Thassim, Director/CEO of the Hambantota Chamber of Commerce, the initial meetings with USAID introduced the idea of Chambers, which has benefited the country ever since. "Back in 1992 USAID brought the legal and technical assistance needed to start a Chamber of Commerce.

It also offered technical assistance to local entrepreneurs, where particular projects has participants sponsored to go abroad to learn first hand what was happening in the world as a whole to help improve life at home, where in Hambantota it was dairy,” he said.

"The setting up of the Chamber helped bring in investment to the district, especially through those overseas trips. USAID did things properly then and still does, as it provides advice and not just a cheque. Such advice is more beneficial than someone giving a gift and then leaving.”

One thing he was particularly happy about was that aid programmes offered the chance for provincial people with ideas to go abroad to see how to better their particular business, where normally that seemed exclusive for people in and around Colombo, where Thassim counts himself as one of the lucky ones.

The one difficult time was just before the cease fire talks after the years of civil war, where there was talk of USAID pulling out of the country, but luckily those talks came about and stopped such a move. James F. Entwistle, Charge D'Affairs, US Embassy in Sri Lanka, said that the success stories of USAID over the years helps explain to the tax payers back in the US that their money is being well spent.

As for how foreign aid has changed over the past 50 years, it's back to Dr Becker: “Participatory. Consulting with people first rather then just arriving thinking you know best, as used to happen. There were times when the donor thought he or she knew best while making no attempt to find out what the people's needs really were.

Then there are sustainable projects so that there are those long-term benefits, as in jobs, meaning there is the possibility of improving a person’s future,” she said.

When asked about the work being done post-tsunami, she admitted there were those groups who really wanted to help but had no idea about what the culture was like and had arrived brandishing their home ideals, “but the majority have done well and done their research or had been working in the country for a while”.

There aren't many Golden Jubilees that have had such a lasting affect on such a number of people. It seems USAID really does know what it is doing. Others can only but learn.