Quote:
Originally Posted by Ray
S2,
Developing countries want things that affect their lives immediately and uplift their population for the poverty, squalor and despondency. They do not want massive projects, which may be great in the long run, but do not really touch the misery of the population as such in the immediate reality.
Therefore, there should be a mix of these type of aid. Long term and short term immediate effect. The US normally does long term projects and it is believed that that is so because it allows big firms of the US a finger in the pie.
Small projects like improving agriculture and poultry or village amenities does not attract corporate munificence for the Administration, US and the benefiting country, and hence the interest is less.
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Brigadier,
I think some of these lessons have been learned. In HOA, most of the projects are small irrigation, well digging, school building, medical visits, or something similar. I didn't have visibility on all the projects going on, but from what I saw, most of the projects were small in scope, rather immediate in their effect, and spread around.
Interestingly enough, I did not see any CJTF-HOA sponsored projects in the city of Djibouti itself, most were done in the surrounding countries, with a smaller number done in the outlying parts of DJ. We, as a tenant of the base, then organized some projects locally and it was heartening to see a good number of the base personnel volunteer to help out. It was disheartening to see the amount of red tape it took to get one of these off the ground. First the CJTF staff had to approve, then the US Embassy, then the DJ's and French had to have their say...