In two recent posts on MFAN Partner the Center for Global Development’s (CGD) blog, Rethinking US Foreign Assistance, CGD experts take on US aid in flood-raged Pakistan. Molly Kinder, senior policy analyst, takes a closer look at a recent study from Jishnu Das (World Bank) and Tahir Andrabi (Pomona College) that finds “trust in foreigners is malleable,” especially in response to a humanitarian crisis. This report specifically analyzed a four-year period following the northern Pakistan earthquake in 2005. It’s interesting to note that the authors acknowledge that winning hearts and minds is a priority of US foreign policy, and that aid is “a vehicle towards this end.”
Kinder disagrees with the findings of the report for two major reasons: 1) Conditions in Pakistan are worse presently than they were five years ago and 2) trust in foreigners does not necessarily translate to trust in US policy. See below for key excerpts:
“While these findings are powerful, the weakness in the authors’ conclusion is that trusting Western people is not the same as trusting U.S. policy and motives. A villager closest to the earthquake fault line may trust an American or Western relief worker who comes to his or her village, for instance, but may still vehemently object to U.S. drone strikes and oppose military action in the FATA region. Yet the survey questions did not ask whether the villagers trusted American policy – an omission that significantly limits the policy implications of the study. Das and Andrabi’s primary policy implication is that exposure to people matter more for attitudes toward people than does broader policy.”
“Today, Pakistanis are far more mistrustful of U.S. motives for giving aid. Consider, for instance, these quite typical newspaper headlines in Pakistan: “U.S. pilots fly Pakistan flood aid to win hearts and minds,” reported the Dawn newspaper on August 10th. “$224 million pledged to win ‘hearts, minds” said the Nation’s headline on August 24th. Rarely is U.S. aid mentioned in a newspaper article without the term “hearts and minds” right alongside it. On this point, I wholeheartedly agree with the study’s authors: the more the United States seeks out a public relations boost from its aid, the less likely it is that this will materialize In this context, the “first with the most” posturing of U.S. officials may in fact be counterproductive: the more the United States tries to take credit for their aid and aims to improve its image, the less genuine their motivation will be perceived.”
