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Begin New Search Topic Development Political Geography United States of America Content Type Journal Article Journal American Diplomacy Publication Year within 25 Years

1. Mission Strategic Plans: A Neglected Developmental Tool

Author:
Mark Wentling
Publication Date:
08-2023
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
US missions are required to prepare Integrated Country Strategies (ICS) every three years. In addition, missions with USAID programs are required to prepare Country Development Cooperation Strategies (CDSS) every five years. In developing countries, the strategies usually focus on increasing food crops and nutritional levels. I found during fifty years of work in a dozen missions that few read these strategies and even fewer apply them in their work. Missions go through a stressful period of completing these documents, but once Washington approves them they are often forgotten in a flurry of competing action requirements. Missions are usually engaged with applying the latest U.S. policy or assistance directives. And work priorities and budgetary allocations can shift dramatically with the installation of a new US administration.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Agriculture, Development, International Cooperation, and Food Security
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

2. Restructuring Our Assistance in Least Developed Countries

Author:
Mark Wentling
Publication Date:
08-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
U.S. missions abroad tend to adhere to a basic organizational structure, with an ambassador, deputy chief of mission, political, economic, management, consular and public diplomacy offices. While many embassies, especially those in Least Developed Countries (LDCs), also include development specialists from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), more focus on high-impact development assistance is needed by the poorest countries. Ideally, U.S. missions in seriously underdeveloped countries should be organized in such a way as to focus on developmental progress. For example, when it comes to appointing ambassadors to LDCs, consideration should be given to those qualified to oversee and participate in a development program aimed at moving the host country up the ranks of the UN’s human development index (HDI).
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, and Public Diplomacy
Political Geography:
United States of America

3. Doing Development Better

Author:
Christopher Datta
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
Across the developing world the United States runs aid programs that have met the laudable goal of reducing infant mortality and maternal death resulting from childbirth. We have done some astonishing things, such as completely eliminating smallpox. Now we are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic by working to equip local communities with the tools needed to fight back against the coronavirus. Effective and inexpensive vaccines are everywhere administered to countless children who would otherwise die or be crippled by disease. More vaccines are on the way, perhaps even one for malaria, one of the biggest killers in the developing world. It is nothing short of a miracle. And yet the impact of these efforts in many countries could well be a legacy of war, famine, misery and the creation of new and even worse diseases.
Topic:
Development, Diplomacy, USAID, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

4. IntraHealth and Global Development

Author:
Brenda Brown Schoonover
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
IntraHealth, originally known as Intrah, the Program for International Training in Health, was created in 1979 to train health workers and enhance the skills and champion health workers in overseas countries in areas where they are most needed. Intrah grew out of a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) cooperative agreement with the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (UNC). Much of IntraHealth International’s success in global development is due to its President and CEO, Pape Amadou Gaye, who is stepping down after 16 years heading the organization. I first met Pape Gaye in the late 1990s, when he was Regional Director for Intrah’s West and North Africa programs in Lome, Togo, where I was U.S. Ambassador.
Topic:
Development, Diplomacy, and Memoir
Political Geography:
Africa and United States of America

5. Swap-Shop: Time for a Deal in Kosovo?

Author:
Louis Sell
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
The overwhelming majority of politically active Kosovo Albanians remain committed to a democratic vision of their country’s future, anchored by eventual membership in the EU and NATO. But many are losing faith in the EU’s institutional structure, which they view as having reneged on a promised to provide them visa-free entry and failing to provide a clear path toward membership. Kosovars retain a strong faith in the US, which they correctly see as primarily responsible for their liberation from Serbian oppression and as their only reliable ally in an increasingly dangerous Balkan environment.
Topic:
Development, Diplomacy, Territorial Disputes, and European Union
Political Geography:
Europe, Kosovo, Serbia, Balkans, United States of America, and European Union

6. The Zombie Returns: Middle East Peace Plan Would Create Palestinian Bantustan

Author:
Edward Marks
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
The Trump Administration Middle East Plan appears to call for a Palestinian “Bantustan” (maybe two with Gaza) and legally enforced separation of communities based on ethnic grounds. It is difficult to believe that this resurrection from the discredited past could be acceptable to anyone but its authors, who appear to be completely oblivious to the history of South Africa. That includes Netanyahu, who has obviously been fully engaged in the plan’s development. However the plan will be unacceptable to everyone else, including Saudi Arabia and other Arab governments who have been flirting with Israel and the US in an informal anti-Iranian alliance. The plan would certainly exacerbate – if that is possible – the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians. The Kushner Plan would be like throwing oil on a fire; it will end badly for everyone concerned.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Apartheid, Development, Diplomacy, and Economic Growth
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Palestine, North America, United States of America, West Bank, and Golan Heights

7. The Marshall Plan: Seventy Years Since the Start of a Great Diplomatic Effort

Author:
Thomas E. McNamara
Publication Date:
04-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
We persistently promote each major development assistance plan or nation-building project as “a Marshall Plan for _(fill_in_name)_.” Once a plan is underway supporters and opponents play out their different agendas. Supporters of foreign assistance downplay “Marshall Plan” comparisons because expectations cannot be met. Opponents stress the comparison to highlight shortfalls. This happens because none of the nation-building plans ever measures up to the original, successful, real, Marshall Plan. And they never will. Not in Iraq, not in Afghanistan, not in Ukraine, not in Latin America, not in Africa. They won’t because the original Marshall Plan, contrary to popular myth, had nothing to do with development or nation building. It had everything to do with accelerating the reconstruction of already developed nations in Europe after two massively destructive wars.
Topic:
Development, Diplomacy, History, Foreign Aid, and World War II
Political Geography:
Europe and United States of America

8. Global Migrant Remittances – A New Development Finance Paradigm?

Author:
Eric V. Guichard
Publication Date:
11-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
For several decades now, global remittances – money that immigrants and citizens send to their families in countries from where they originate – have steadily grown in significance. The World Bank’s Migration and Remittances Unit recently pegged these global flows at $350 billion per year. Some estimates peg them as high as $500 billion annually – particularly when you include unofficial flow estimates and intra-continental transfers.
Topic:
Development, Diplomacy, Migration, Foreign Aid, GDP, and Economy
Political Geography:
India, Philippines, North America, Mexico, United States of America, and European Union

9. Africa’s Great Hunger Handicap

Author:
Mark Wentling
Publication Date:
10-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
Africa’s hunger problem is a long standing one that has been exacerbated by a rapid population growth rate that has outstripped the continent’s ability to feed itself. A number of countries in Africa are now experiencing structural food deficits. The population of Africa currently stands at nearly 1.2 billion, twice what it was in 1985, and it is projected to double again by 2050, surpassing the populations of both China and India by 2023. At the current population growth rate, Africans will represent half the world’s population by 2035.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, Health, and Hunger
Political Geography:
Africa and United States of America