Foundation

PuraVida Post 21

Manuela, Chiapas, Mexico, February 2010. Independent, small landholders are essential to a thriving agricultural economy.

Traditionally, when Republicans find themselves in power they earnestly embark on cost-cutting and budget slashing adventures; disemboweling small agencies, imposing hiring freezes, and promising to balance the federal budget. One of their favorite targets was an independent agency where I worked for over 30 years, the Inter-American Foundation (IAF). Now that the Republican Party controls all three branches of government, its sights set on creating indiscriminate, budgetary chaos, the IAF is again caught in the crosshairs.

Created in 1969, the agency’s founders, a bipartisan collection of visionary foreign policy leaders, imagined an independent agency that provided support to non-governmental organizations and other community groups through direct action, including grants and technical assistance. Monitoring visits from the Washington-based IAF staff would ensure that taxpayer money was used in line with grant terms and conditions. Conferences, workshops, and seminars provided an avenue for peer-to-peer learning and collaboration. A robust publications program amplified the IAF’s accomplishments (and setbacks) beyond the development world into university classrooms and the general public. Outreach and collaboration with the academic community was facilitated through a fellowship program supporting original research into a wide range of grassroots development topics. For a federal government agency with a paltry annual budget that has hovered between $25 and $50 million, it is an extremely effective organization staffed by an eclectic mix of experts and generalists, all experienced in running a highly responsive, agile organization.

Comarca Guna Yala, Panama, March 2012. Panama’s Guna Indians are a symbol of resistance, and adaptation, to the dominant culture that has surrounded them for decades.

The IAF works at the grassroots, community level with economically disadvantaged people, responding to grant proposals and supporting solutions from community groups and nongovernmental organizations. On its website, grassroots development is defined as “the process by which disadvantaged people organize themselves to improve the social, cultural and economic well-being of their families, communities and societies.” I held various positions at the IAF (fellowship program manager, photographer/photo editor, translations coordinator, contracting specialist) and ultimately saw our role as facilitating the opportunity for beneficiaries to achieve economic and political power. Realizing early on that delivering grant funding, providing technical assistance (from teaching established accounting methods to workshops and training), and acknowledging grantees’ central role in their work, the IAF and by extension, the U.S. government, is putting its “full faith and credit” behind them. Additionally, by featuring grantees in its publications, social media posts, and public events, the IAF is saying, “you are important, your work is essential, and we believe in you because you know how to reach the solutions to your own problems.”

“Respect the Environment, Grow Organic Coffee,” Majomut, Chiapas, Mexico, February 2016. Taking its name from a small Tsetsal community in Chiapas, Mexico that means “Place of Birds,” Unión de Productores Orgánicos Beneficio Majomut Sociedad de Producción Rural de Responsabilidad Limitada (Majomut) helps small coffee producers get the best possible prices for their high-quality coffee harvests.

To put it bluntly, the IAF provides a pathway to economic and, ultimately, political power by channeling U.S. taxpayer funds to create and strengthen a democratic civil society throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. And it has succeeded. The record reflects numerous examples of individuals and organizations that have risen to influential and powerful positions in countries where the IAF works.

Thinking about the current wholesale, indiscriminate federal budget slashing, I always suspected that the cutting was never about budget balancing. The GOP’s domestic mandate to protect the wealthy at the expense of the working poor and other disadvantaged communities has largely (at least in my lifetime) been its, shall we say, prime directive. Extending that philosophy to international development work is merely, as we say in the biz, scaling up. Shuttering USAID, and similar international assistance, may work as a “cutting waste and fraud” propaganda move but will significantly set back by decades efforts to support civil society worldwide.

Part of the Foundation’s (as it’s affectionately called by staff) mythos was that being such a tiny agency (about 45 employees), we at times felt under siege. Though it consistently received high marks from grantees, the agency still got bogged down in government bureaucracy, staff burnout, and annual funding fights subject to the whims of a fickle Congress. The perennial question dogging the IAF, and international development organizations in general, remained, “You’ve been at this for decades and yet poverty still exists throughout Latin America. That’s not a very successful track record.”

Christian, Grupo Juvenil DION, Tegucigalpa, Honduras, February 2013. DION is a non-governmental organization that teaches marketable skills to young Hondurans to escape becoming entrapped in the world of guns, gangs, drugs and prostitution.

One example where quick fixes do not work: immigration. I was involved with dozens of projects aimed directly at preventing out migration from the various countries in which we worked. We supported projects ranging from education and occupational training to small business support and helping young people break free from the cycle of gang and drug violence, all designed to prevent succumbing to the desperate measures that drive people to immigrate. Approaches to long-term structural change never show immediate results but changing the realities on the ground yields results that over time can ensure the continued growth and strength of a civil society.

Asociación Amigas del Sol (ADS), Unión Victoria, Chimaltenango, Guatemala, February 2011. The solar ovens’ primary benefits, reducing carbon-producing firewood use and taking advantage of an increasingly lengthy, cloudless dry season to cook, proved fortuitous. And by mastering carpentry skills using screwdrivers, hammers, glasscutters, and various power tools, ADS members acquired important transferable expertise. Other unforeseen benefits soon became evident: community cohesion was reinforced during the construction process as groups organized themselves into teams working assembly-line style on different tasks: measuring, sawing, drilling, and painting.

Asociación Amigas del Sol (ADS), Unión Victoria, Chimaltenango, Guatemala, February 2011. ADS members, by learning to build and use solar ovens, reduced deforestation rates and acquired new skills: carpentry, entrepreneurship, and project management.

What the detractors of international development fail to understand (perhaps deliberately) is that economic, social, and political inequities will for the foreseeable future, continue to exist throughout the developing world (and sadly, the developed world, as well). In classic “missing forest for the trees” fashion, bean counters insist on positive results after two years when economic and social development is eternally on-going with progress measured over decades. Particularly frustrating is that foreign assistance is typically less than two percent of the federal budget’s discretionary spending, thus making any cuts miniscule relative to the overall budget.

Organizations like USAID, IAF, Peace Corps, among others, and the countless NGOs tackling health, environmental, agricultural, and economic issues continue to ensure civil society’s access to power; a mission the current administration aims to utterly break and destroy in the (unspoken, but inescapable) name of white male supremacy. Its hollow claims of rooting out fraud and waste disintegrate completely in the face of the reality that every taxpayer dollar spent on foreign assistance is repaid many times over in compensation to U.S. farmers, increased bilateral trade, improved health care, and peaceful conflict resolution.

The unavoidable effects of the colonial past throughout Latin America and the Caribbean (and around the world) and the continuing exploitation of “poor” countries for raw, natural resources is a powerful justification for supporting economic and social development. In addition to the moral and ethical dimensions, technologically advanced countries have an economic interest in supporting countries still struggling to modernize infrastructure, health care, education, and democratic reforms. The vandals (though they may be self-identifying as “Republican,” they clearly have no underlying governing philosophy or principles) now looting the government for self-enrichment have no interest in providing for the security of U.S. citizens, much less people in other countries.

Will the IAF survive this particular onslaught? During the 1980s and 90s, Jesse Helms (the ultra-conservative Senator from North Carolina) relentlessly targeted the IAF for budget reduction and even elimination. But we survived. The current attack feels more serious, though. For now, USAID is drawing the majority of the administration’s attention but the IAF, and dozens of other independent agencies will soon come under increased scrutiny. As we’re already seeing, cutting their budgets and firing staff will result in irreparable harm to thousands, if not millions, around the world.

More later…

(All photographs @ Mark Caicedo/PuraVida Photography; courtesy of IAF)

Grupo Juvenil DION, San José del Portrero, Comayagua, February 2013. Rosalba (center), trainer and DION graduate herself, inspects students' work during a beautician workshop.

Comarca Guna Yala, Panama, March 2012. The Guna are famous for their bright molas, a colorful textile art form made with the techniques of appliqué and reverse appliqué.

Julio, Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica, October 2015. A fisher with Asociación de Pescadores Artesanales del Caribe Sur (ASOPACS), uses traps (or nasas) to catch lionfish, an invasive species introduced into the Gulf of Mexico in the 1980s. A voracious predator and prolific reproducer, it has spread up the southeastern shore of the United States and into the Caribbean endangering reef ecology, native fish species, and the livelihoods of thousands of artisanal fishers.

Las Delicias, Suchitepequez, Guatemala, February 2014. Comité de Desarrollo Campesino (CODECA), works with farmers in Las Delicias, in the department of Suchitepequez, to prepare organic fertilizer, soil and the infrastructure (posts, wires, and wells) necessary to cultivate loroco, a key cooking ingredient used throughout Mexico and Central America, most notably for pupusas, a traditional Salvadoran dish made of a thick, handmade corn tortilla.

Aldea Global, Jinotega, Nicaragua, March 2013. Processing and preparing malanga, a high-fiber, nutrient-rich root vegetable similar to potatoes, for market.

Centro de Textiles Tradicionales de Cusco (CTTC), Accha Alta, Peru, May 2007. CTTC’s mission promotes the work of Cusqueñan textile traditions and the indigenous people who create them.

Rxiin Tnamet, Santiago de Atitlan, Lago de Atitlan, Guatemala, February 2015. Rxiin’s network of midwives and trained health volunteers has resulted in a drastic reduction in child malnutrition and the eradication of measles and smallpox in the region where the organization works. In October 2005, the organization was instrumental to recovery efforts when the neighboring community of Panabaj was devastated by a mudslide precipitated by Hurricane Stan that killed and injured hundreds of residents.

Elsa, Federación Comercializadora de Café Especial de Guatemala (FECCEG) Huehuetenango, Guatemala, February 2013. FECCEG works with several coffee cooperatives to improve the prices paid to its member farmers and promote the production of organic fair-trade coffee. Focusing on training and technical assistance, members benefit from expanded financing opportunities, fair trade coffee marketing assistance, and crop diversification to improve soil conservation and quality.

Finca Triunfo Verde (FTV), Jaltenango, Chiapas, Mexico, February 2014. Coffee cuppers test for quality at FTV's headquarters. Cupping is performed under controlled conditions and evaluates samples pulled for analysis that are identified by number only, thus ensuring the objectivity of a “blind” test. FTV farmers take advantage of the excellent climactic conditions to produce a rich, fragrant coffee that is among the finest in the world.