Modernization/Development Theory, CORDS, and FM 3-24?

[Madhu]

History of Capacity Building
Since the early 1970's, the lead within the UN system for action and thinking on what was then called Institution Building was given to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and it has offered guidance to its staff and member governments. This involved building-up the ability of basic national organisations, in areas such as civil aviation, meteorology, agriculture, health, nutrition to allow them to perform their tasks in the best way possible. All UN specialised agencies were supposed to actively support capacity building in the areas for which they were technically qualified e.g. FAO in the rural sector and agriculture, WHO in health etc, but they achieved mixed results. By 1991 the term had evolved and had transformed into Capacity Building.

UNDP defined Capacity Building as "the creation of an enabling environment with appropriate policy and legal frameworks, institutional development, including community participation (of women in particular), human resources development and strengthening of managerial systems, adding that, UNDP recognizes that capacity building is a long-term, continuing process, in which all stakeholders participate (ministries, local authorities, non-governmental organizations and water user groups, professional associations, academics and others".(citation: UNDP).

http://www.coastalwiki.org/coastalwi...ilding_Concept

Hmmm, did all of this stuff start "embedding" itself in your military doctrine during the 90s, when we started to think about a post Soviet world and our peacekeeping duties as the main purpose of the American Army?

Loaded question, I know, I know. Just wondering how it all "came about".

[TheCurmudgeon]

http://www.coastalwiki.org/coastalwi...ilding_Concept

Hmmm, did all of this stuff start "embedding" itself in your military doctrine during the 90s, when we started to think about a post Soviet world and our peacekeeping duties as the main purpose of the American Army?

If I had to guess, it came about as a result of the collapse of Yugoslavia and the wars and interventions that followed. Although the UNDP stuff predates that, so it could be part of the effort to assist newly free post-colonial states.

BTW, the methods used in Bosnia etc. were exactly the methods that the Rumsfeld Defense Department were working hard to avoid during the planning for Iraq. Might be part of the reason we were so far behind the power curve (but only part).

[Madhu]

Defying expectations that it would drop into an ocean of public indifference, The Ugly American remained on the New York Times best-seller list for seventy-eight weeks, sold an astonishing four million copies, and was made into a block-buster movie starring Marlon Brando. The ensuing media frenzy put development on a par with the space race and created a new strand of populist internationalism that Senator John F. Kennedy seized to boost his presidential bid. Kennedy sponsored legislation to increase aid to India and announced the existence of an "economic gap" in Asia that was being filled by Soviet aid. In February 1958, Kennedy first met Rostow, and the modernization theorist moved into Kennedy's inner circle of advisers. Kennedy was drawn to the diagnostic precision of the CENIS model, and he adopted its language in his own critiques of foreign aid. The alliance of Rostovian theory and Kennedy-Johnson foreign policy ushered in the golden age ofmodernization theory in the 1960s. George Ball, undersecretary of state from 1961 to 1966, recalled in his memoirs the vogue for development economics in 1961 and "the professors swarming into Washington" who "talked tendentiously of 'self-sustaining growth,' 'social development,' the 'search for nationhood,' 'self-help,' and 'nation building.'"

In the first year of his presidency, Kennedy launched the Alliance for Progress, the Peace Corps, Food for Peace, and the Agency for International Development (AID). He declared the 1960s the "Development Decade" and substantially increased the budget for foreign assistance. Modernization theory supplied the design, rationale, and justification for these programs. Stages had called for an expanded foreign aid effort organized exclusively around the development mission. Rostow implied and Kennedy had declared during the campaign that State Department bureaucrats used aid for short-run diplomatic advantage, making the separation of the Agency for International Development from State an essential first step. Likewise, Food for Peace took established agricultural surplus disposal programs and organized them around a develop-mental mission. Rather than dumping the excess produced by federal price supports (or using the surplus to alleviate famine), the program's primary purpose was the generation of "counterpart" funds that could be steered into social overhead investment. At the administration's urging, the United Nations put food assistance on the same basis in its World Food Programme.

The Peace Corps institutionalized a belief (traceable through The Ugly American to Lerner and Redfield) that exposure to modern personalities could induce change. Kennedy announced the Peace Corps during the campaign and asked Rostow and Millikan to draft the proposal. Volunteers were expected to create a catalytic effect by introducing ideas from a higher point on the developmental arc. The Peace Corps sought not specialists but "representative Americans" who could transmit values by example. Theory informed expectations of what volunteers should achieve. Performing their assigned jobs as teachers or agronomists was considered secondary to the task of catalyzing community involvement in a spontaneous project. Many volunteers experienced at first hand the chasm between the theory and reality of development.

http://www.americanforeignrelations....#ixzz2Ap6F7H8U

Has anyone at the Council noted the similarity between The Ugly American and Three Cups of Tea (haven't reviewed this thread in some time, perhaps it's somewhere here already....)

[Madhu]

The analogy with religion becomes quite explicit when the authors move on to recommend what both countries need to do to realize good outcomes: “They must redouble their efforts to make sure that money spent on development achieves its intended result.” There is no analysis here of what has kept the countries from redoubling their efforts all these years or why they would want to change course at this point in time. All one is given is the following concession regarding the US: “One of the biggest failures of the current US approach is the lack of overarching vision.” Take it or leave it; there is no explanation for why with all the intellectual firepower at its disposal the US continues to lack an overarching vision. Or could it be that there is an overarching vision that is not visible to the authors blinded by their unquestioning faith?

http://thesouthasianidea.wordpress.c...d-as-religion/

[Madhu]

The prime purpose of Oxfam and similar development agencies is to assist poor men and women in changing their situation and exercising their right to participate in the development of their societies. However, aid agencies that ignore peoples existing strengths may create dependency, and so make people more vulnerable than before. This book examines the concept of capacity-building and why it is such an integral part of development. It considers specific and practical ways in which NGOs can contribute to enabling people to build on the capacities they already possess, while avoiding undermining such capacities.

"Capacity-Building" reviews the types of social organization with which NGOs might consider working, and the provision of training in a variety of skills and activities, for the people involved and for their organization. The particular importance of using a capacity-building approach in emergency situations, and the dynamic and long-term nature of the process, are emphasized.

http://www.amazon.com/Capacity-Build...acity+building

I am adding this title to the thread because I asked up thread when certain language seemed to become standard, especially in doctrinal writing and thinking.

A lot of current military/stability/development thinking might come from the 90s-era stability assignments and development theory of that period? Around the time of MOOTW?

Well, I don't know. Continue to be intellectually curious about all of this.

[Madhu]

This has sort of morphed into a catch-all for international aid criticism but developmental and humanitarian aid seem to be important parts of international peace-keeping so I'll keep at it:

Economist William Easterly speaks with Hugh Eakin about the recent militarization of Western foreign aid policy, the dangers of this new "aid imperialism," and the role economists have played in its development.

http://www.nybooks.com/podcasts/issu...ilitarization/

I suppose for intellectual honesty's sake I ought to go dig up articles by critics of the aid critics....

[Madhu]

I proposed that the Mortenson book Three Cups of Tea was this generation's The Ugly American upthread but the following is a post with a different view:

I feel like I need to explain the background of “ugly American”-ness because, until I read Jon Krakauer’s essay Three Cups of Deceit, Mortenson fit into this mold. (Example: “We need more people like Greg Mortenson and his Central Asia Institute. He uses a budget of only a few million dollars to build hundreds of school. Imagine if the US could send hundreds of Greg Mortensens armed with tens of millions of dollars.”) An American with an inclination toward languages who could seamlessly blend between Pakistan and Afghanistan and America and builds hundreds of schools for several hundred thousand dollars each? Sounds like an “ugly American” to me, in the original, good sense of the phrase.

Unfortunately, it’s likely that Mortenson spends more time telling stories about his “ugly American”-ness then he does “ugly American”-ing. That, in short, is a shame.

So the question becomes, do Mortenson’s actions condemn the idea of “ugly Americans”? Does this mean that philanthropy and development and foreign aid are farces?

Not at all. If anything, good “ugly Americans” keep themselves out of the spotlight, which Mortenson clearly did not. And, more importantly, Mortenson will be replaced. As soon as the fiasco broke, Rye Barcott released his book, It Happened on the Way to War. Then NPR’s Planet Money podcast aired a few shows about their attempts to build a school in Haiti and the lessons they learned. And then the Economist ran an article about new, more intelligent ways to use philanthropic dollars.
http://onviolence.com/?e=450

On the other hand, I'm not sure that the two points are that far off. What does development mean and what is its place within "stabilization" operations, military or civilian? Perhaps the first question is whether to "do" development or not, does it help or hinder progress, however progress is defined?

http://kingsofwar.org.uk/2012/11/flo...longer-useful/