USAID has come under significant scrutiny for its shady operations and providing financial assistance to jihadis and other vested interests in order to meddle in different countries, including India, and advance American interests around the world. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) headed by Elon Musk, is now looking into the misuse of American tax dollars. On the other hand, the “government industrial complex” fiercely opposes all attempts to foster accountability and transparency in the manner in which those funds were used in a system that is beset with issues.
Paul Vallas, who was invited by then-Haitian President Rene Preval to help in rebuilding the country after the devastating 2010 earthquake, provided first-hand experience with USAID and other international aid organizations, including the World Bank, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Red Cross, during his more than 40 trips to Haiti. Together with other non-governmental organizations (NGOs), USAID fell short of its commitments and failed to organize relief efforts as well as even embezzled money, reported New York Post.
At the very least, what transpired in Haiti demonstrates the incapacity, if not open corruption, of these international assistance agencies. USAID is allegedly the most corrupt government organization out of them. The United States government has sent around $4.4 billion in foreign aid to Haiti since the 2010 earthquake, which killed up to 300,000 people, but just 2% out of that reaching Haitian people..
An additional $3 billion was allocated for development, recovery and reconstruction, while at least $1.5 billion was doled out for immediate humanitarian assistance. Haitian groups or businesses received less than $50 million or 2%, of the at least $2.13 billion in contracts and grants for projects related to the country. The US capitol’s neighboring businesses have received $1.3 billion or 56%, in contrast. Hence, it is understandable why the sudden inquiry is so concerning to USAID.
The precise use of the billions and the long-term effects of US tax funds are still unknown. USAID and its vendors have not disclosed such information to the public. The distribution of donations has been ineffective and frequently dishonest as a result of this ambiguity. It is not necessary for USAID, other international aid agencies and their non-governmental partners to release financial and budget breakdowns in addition to project results.
It is practically hard to assess the effectiveness of the application and impact of these relief amounts on reconstruction and recovery with the little monetary information available. A year after the earthquake, in 2010, the Nonprofit Disaster Accountability Project made an effort to compile a report on the transparency of NGOs in Haiti. Only eight of the 196 groups they examined had easily accessible information regarding their operations in the nation. Only 20% of the organizations ultimately answered the poll.
According to the responding groups, they received almost $1.4 billion in donations overall, but only spent roughly $730 million or half of that amount on relief activities in Haiti. The answers are not forthcoming for the others. The absence of accountability is not unique to USAID. After the earthquake, the Red Cross, one of the biggest nonprofits involved in the Haitian emergency response, raised an astounding $500 million for the country.
Five years later, however, many people including former Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive questioned whether the majority of these funds truly made it to the Haitian people. The Red Cross, for example, claims to have housed more than 130,000 people, although they have only built six confirmed homes. On their website, the Red Cross merely breaks down the funds into broad, undescript “sectors” refusing to provide a list of the exact tasks they carried out in Haiti.
The Campeche neighborhood’s shelter sector, which promised people new dwellings, health facilities and sanitization systems, turned out to be especially deceptive. Nevertheless, none of these pledges were fulfilled three years later. According to a Center for Global Development report by Vijaya Ramachandran and Julie Walz, the “trickle-down” impact of humanitarian aid is the reason why USAID and its NGO partners like the Red Cross have underperformed.
Donation funds stream through “multiple layers of connected subcontracts and subgrantees” before they get to the people executing the actual work. Despite the significant sums of money expended, this virtually ensures that relief operations will eventually fall short of their goals. Money is lost when charities invest in other groups to implement their promised work. For instance, the Red Cross reserved a portion of the first Haitian funds for their own overhead costs after which a portion of their subsequent administration fees went to the outfits they had recruited. Lastly, the Red Cross imposed a supplementary cut defined as an oversight fee or “program costs incurred in managing third-party projects.”
The end result of this lack of transparency is that extensive donations that could otherwise have a significant impact on long-term relief are used in methods that are wasteful and deceptive. Further investigation of this money distribution and its long-term viability is further complicated by the absence of information that these organizations seek. With USAID as its principal agency, the United States gave $72 billion in aid to 180 countries in 2023. Since American resources have been regularly wasted, DOGE’s focus on USAID is well-earned and long overdue.
The finest example of the shortcomings of the American foreign aid program’s lack of accountability and openness is in Haiti. Governmental organizations like USAID and their non-governmental partners and collaborators behave as though they are independent entities with no obligation to report anything to anyone.
