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Biden's Pick for the AID



President Biden's pick to be the new administrator of the US Agency for International Development (AID) has received Senate confirmation,  by a 68 - 26 vote. I'm assuming this means 6 (Republicans) did not vote so she received the votes of all Democrats plus 18 Republicans, with 6 Republicans NV and the others No. I can assume that without looking it up because this is my blog, dammit. 

At any rate, if she did receive a supportive vote of 18 Republicans, roughly 1/3d of the caucus, that is a remarkable show of bipartisan support as such things go in 2021. 

One neat fact about the now confirmed nominee, Samantha Power: she was a reporter for US News and World Report before she was either an academic or a civil servant.  She was a war correspondent covering the Yugoslavian helter-skelter in the years '93 to '96.  

I went to the US AID website, in search of a simple explanation for what the AID does, and accordingly for what Power will now be responsible. I can't report that I found it. It seems to be a catch-all agency for a lot of very different tasks that come under the heading "international aid." What a particular administrator makes of the job varies, I take it, greatly from one presidency to the next.

I did find, on that website, the following touching statement. "The purpose of foreign aid should be ending the need for its existence." 

That is in the category of other "should be" statements, though. The ones that don't have a lot to do with this world. AID is (and aid lower-case is) of necessity a matter of foreign policy and national self-interest. I am reminded of Machiavelli's shot at Plato. The Renaissance man said that it is easy to imagine and write about cities in heaven,  trickier and more important to understand the workings of the ones on earth.

Indeed.  But, for the sake of  Florence, and every place else, I wish Administrator Power well.  


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  1. HemantMay 13, 2021 at 1:23 PM

    Please read Peter Bauer and (more recently) William Easterly to really understand what it is that foreign aid really does:
    https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2015/09/28/04/54/vc083106

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    Replies
    1. ChristopherMay 13, 2021 at 8:43 PM

      Hello. Thanks for the suggestion. The point of this post was a limited one, and I deliberately didn't get into the policy issues. I am familiar with Peter Bauer's work on this subject.

      Delete
  2. HemantMay 13, 2021 at 9:20 PM

    Okay, I understand. Power is a good person, a well-meaning person. Wish her success, exactly in those terms that the AID website mentions.

    ReplyDelete

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