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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. “Reformed Multilateralism” at the United Nations

Author:
Asoke Mukerji
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
Editor’s note: The author was the Indian Ambassador to the UN 2013-2015. Calls for “reformed multilateralism”[1] at the UN’s 75th anniversary session in September 2020 stressed the need for equal participation by member-states in UN decision-making. Five years earlier, when adopting Agenda 2030, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) acknowledged the inter-linkage between peace, security, and development.[2] With its universal scope, Agenda 2030 on Sustainable Development has become the central focus of the United Nations (UN) for the foreseeable future. Agenda 2030 requires a paradigm shift in the approach of UN member-states to global issues and underscores the imperative for an inclusive human-centric approach through the participation of multiple stakeholders in UN activities. This would enable the UN to pool resources through partnerships to meet the major challenges in all its three “pillars” – political, human rights, and socio-economic development.
Topic:
Development, Human Rights, Politics, United Nations, Reform, and Multilateralism
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. Water as a basic human right within the Israeli-Palestinian con ict

Author:
Erika Weinthal
Publication Date:
10-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
In the Middle East, water often crosses political borders; because water is a shared resource, its effective management demands cooperation among different users. In the absence of cooperation, conflict is likely. Indeed, conflict and cooperation over shared water has defined Israeli-Palestinian relations since 1967 when Israel gained full control over the Eastern and recharge zone of the western Mountain aquifer, as well as the southern Coastal aquifer. These resources, combined with water from the Sea of Galilee have provided about 60% of Israel’s water consumption. With the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967, Israel placed restrictions on the drilling of new wells for the Palestinian population in the West Bank, and instead chose to supply water to Palestinian households through its national water company, Mekorot. The signing of the 1993 Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements (Oslo I) and the 1995 Interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza Strip (Oslo II) between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization offered an historic opportunity to move from conflict to cooperation over shared water resources. Unlike many other peace agreements, water was codified in the Oslo Accords, as it was understood that water sharing was of critical importance for human security, economic development, and regional cooperation. Specifically, the Oslo Accords called for the creation of a Joint Water Committee (JWC) during an interim period before the final status negotiations, comprised of equal number of members from Israel and the Palestinian Authority, whose functions would include the coordinated management of water resources and water and sewage systems in the West Bank. Oslo II, Article 40 on water and sewage recognized Palestinian water rights in the West Bank and the need to develop additional water supply. Oslo II also detailed specific water quantities to be allocated to the Palestinian population, mostly from the eastern Mountain aquifer in the West Bank.
Topic:
Development, Human Rights, Natural Resources, Water, Conflict, Negotiation, and Sanitation
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and West Bank