USAID To Require Security Checks of PVO Key Personnel?

Read "Foreign Aid Groups Face Terror Screens" by Walter Pincus, The Washington Post, August 23, 2007.

Lead: "The Bush administration plans to screen thousands of people who work with charities and nonprofit organizations that receive U.S. Agency for International Development funds to ensure they are not connected with individuals or groups associated with terrorism, according to a recent Federal Register notice."

The article suggests that officers and key personnel of PVO's receiving USAID funding will be required to pass a government security screening. The newly proposed regulations, scheduled to go into operation almost immediately, are apparently in response to new legislation which in turn was a response to concerns that USAID funding for activities in the West Bank and Gaza were ultimately reaching Hamas. Many NGOs are reported to be protesting the new regulations, including expressing concerns that compliance will be cumbersome and expensive.

Comment: This seems to illustrate decision making gone wrong. It makes good sense that the Congress exercise oversight to assure that the funding it allocates for poverty reduction is well spent. It makes good sense, if there are reports that some foreign aid funds have been misused to support terrorist organizations to put a provision in the law to prevent such things from happening in the future. It makes good sense in the bureaucracy to define regulations to implement the new provision in the law. Well intentioned people no doubt acted at each stage in the process. They did so under the various pressures on Congressional staff and executive branch officials. Non-governmental organizations then looked at the implications for them of the proposed regulations. Their staffs, no doubt well intentioned, acted under the pressures existing in organizations facing huge challenges, often with severely limited resources. The result is the proverbial horse designed by a committee that comes out with a remarkable resemblance to a camel. Perhaps it is more accurately an example that fully justifies the term of "garbage can" which has been used to describe a theory of organizational decision making.

As the cowboy said, when asked why he had shed all his clothes and jumped into a cactus patch, "it seemed like a good idea at the time."

JAD