Tag: History (Page 1 of 2)

Shocked, but not Surprised: The End of USAID in Historical Perspective.

Cross-Posted with ActiveHistory.ca

by Jill Campbell-Miller

Image of a Student Working for the Instagram Account of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). United States of America National Archives. NAID: 236741847.

Shocked, but not surprised.

It’s an ambivalent set of emotions that I, and I’m guessing many others, have become well acquainted with since 2016, when Trump first took charge of the White House. And it’s something that I felt acutely when I heard the news about Elon Musk gutting the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). After all, this is happening under the same President that once referred to Haiti and some African nations as “shithole countries,” so I could not be truly surprised. But it was still a shock when I read that as the unofficial head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a group that has no Congressional authority, Musk began to shutter USAID operations at the beginning of February. Musk bragged on his social media platform that he was putting USAID “into the wood chipper.”  At that time, the USAID website went dark, and as I am writing this, it is still down.

President John F. Kennedy created USAID through an Executive Order in 1961. Though many historians have pointed to earlier origins of humanitarian aid, stemming from imperial, colonial and missionary roots, the government aid programs that developed in mid-century North America were geopolitical and economic expressions of the post-war period. USAID consolidated the growing but piecemeal technical assistance, food aid, education and healthcare-based development programs already underway in parts of the US government throughout the 1950s. A similar consolidation of the Canadian program occurred when the Liberal Lester B. Pearson government created the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in 1968.[1] As I’ve written about in this forum in the past, the government of Stephen Harper dismantled CIDA in 2013 to more explicitly align aid with the government’s foreign policy goals. While many observers disliked this change, no one could argue it was outside the norms of traditional democratic governance. Aid continued to be a feature of Canadian foreign policy. What is currently happening in the United States is quite different.

Clearly, self-interested economic and geopolitical considerations of the Cold War, such as the need to dispose of food surpluses and support American soft power influence against Communist powers, provided the political currency and motivation to spend aid dollars. Nonetheless, USAID and concomitant support for the Bretton Woods and other multilateral institutions reflected an ideal, emerging from the Second World War, that rejected the autarky of fascism and economic isolation of pre-war America, and sought to build international relationships. Of course, successive US administrations exploited the country’s economic and political power to support anti-democratic and autocratic regimes, including support for the military coup in Iran in 1953 and  the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile. Many critics argue that global trade arrangements have allowed those in wealthy countries to profit enormously from cheap and exploited labour within countries that receive aid.[2] But USAID and other contemporary nation-based development agencies did at least represent a vision of the global order that saw the prosperity and security of the rest of the world as relevant to the prosperity and security of those at home.

Aid has always been vulnerable to political winds of change and, indeed, fads. From the focus on family planning of the 1960s and 1970s, to the structural adjustment trends of the 1980s and 1990s, to the technocratic Sachsian approach of the 2000s (instead of more cowbell, think more bed nets), the desire to provide an ultimate “fix” to global poverty cheaply and easily is a cycle that has repeated itself over and over again.[3] That no such fix is possible has led to real donor and compassion fatigue, especially as international crises seem to multiply and intensify.

Adding to this fatigue, some small and big “c” conservatives have long been inclined to be skeptical of aid, asking why money that could be spent at home should be spent abroad (it often goes unnoticed that a lot of aid dollars have been spent at home, purchasing the items that are given abroad). Indeed, this was a question that Prime Minister John Diefenbaker himself once expressed privately in correspondence with one of his Ministers, Donald Fleming, during Canada’s early days of aid-giving.[4] But if anyone today has a relative connected to the “Proud” and Q-Anon adjacent social media universe, you will know that this point has escaped from an uncle’s passing reflection at the dinner table, and entered the online right-wing meme-a-verse. These memes paint government spending as a zero-sum proposition, where resources are spent either on foreign aid or, for example,homeless veterans, and usually contain false statistics. It does not help that such opinions are reinforced by the waste and scandals that have occasionally plagued aid-giving, such as the discovery that Oxfam employees were sexually exploiting women in Haiti. But more than that, they speak to the ideology that allowed USAID to be put into the metaphorical wood chipper.

I do not pretend to know what goes on in the mind of Elon Musk, but I do not think it was an accident that he targeted USAID first. Aid programs have never been an issue that motivated voters one way or another, and the issue has been rife with misconceptions about how much countries spend on aid, so they have always been vulnerable to election cycles. But in the present political context of the US, foreign aid programs stand in direct contradiction to the MAGA movement’s values. Tariffs promise national autarky, opposing the post-war order that encouraged international trade. Foreign aid closes off the mechanism that attempted to foster the growth of political and economic institutions worldwide, promoting more widespread participation in the international rules-based order.

Opposing aid also makes sense to the Christian Nationalist movement that supports Trump. As Vice President J.D. Vance argued in a Fox New interview, the cancellation of foreign aid could be justified by the theological concept developed by Thomas Aquinas of ordo amoris,which Vance stated meant that people “should love their family first, then our neighbors, then love our community, then our country, and only then consider the interests of the rest of the world.” This was an interpretation so out of line with post-Vatican II Catholicism that Pope Francis himself felt the need to correct it. Regardless, it is a view of Christianity that justifies America’s current global retreat from aid-giving. These beliefs lay far from the mission of the mainstream Christian development organizations that grew up in the post-war period alongside government aid programs. One such example is the Catholic organization Caritas Internationalis (the Canadian branch of this organization used to be known as Development & Peace). Officially recognized by the Vatican in 1954, Caritas’ stated aim is to “promote integral human development” and advocate “on the causes of poverty and conflict.”

Critics of aid who do care about global poverty have had no shortage of material to speak about in the past number of decades. Indeed, the development fads I noted above have left their own history of problems, from forced sterilization policies to the rigidly neoliberal governance imposed on highly indebted countries through structural adjustment policies.[5] Many criticized the United States for its hypocrisy in global affairs.[6] However, since the Second World War, it has never been the case that a US administration has so fully refused to state a commitment to the global order it helped create, or refused to participate in a dialogue about compassion and care for the world’s poorest.

Indeed, I find myself in the strange position of missing the hypocrisy. For all its problems, after seventy-five years, aid is needed. It will never “solve” global poverty, and even if it could, it would not be done cheaply or easily. But following a natural disaster or man-made conflict, it can feed and house people, support the construction of needed infrastructure, and help enable a society’s return to a new normal. In an era of climate change, this is more important than ever before. Many non-governmental organizations have become more strategic, focusing support on areas that show the greatest benefits for communities, such as funding small-scale women’s entrepreneurship. Global health campaigns have successfully eradicated diseases or reduced incidence of preventable diseases (bed nets do have their place after all). America’s retreat from this global responsibility will cause suffering, and that suffering will, as always, disproportionately affect those who are most vulnerable in their own societies. Given the comparative size of the US aid budget, representing 40 percent of all humanitarian aid given globally in 2024, it is unlikely that other wealthy democracies, such as Canada, will be able to fill this void, especially as the pressure to increase military budgets rises.

The destruction of USAID is representative of much more than the aid itself. It is the clear rejection of a global norm that, however imperfectly, acknowledges the humanity of all. For those of us that continue to value those principles, we must support those organizations and leaders that will do what they can to make up for America’s absence.

Jill Campbell-Miller, PhD, is a Research Analyst in the Government of Nova Scotia, but this was written in her capacity as a private citizen and does not reflect the views or interests of her employer. Jill is the co-editor of the volume Jill Campbell-Miller, Greg Donaghy, and Stacey Barker, eds. Breaking Barriers: Canadian Women and the Search for Global Order (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2021).


[1] The most complete history of CIDA remains David Morrison, Aid and Ebb Tide: A History of CIDA and Canadian Development Assistance (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Press, 1998).

[2] From the middle of the 20th century, scholars such as Raùl Prebisch, Fernando Henrique, and Immanuel Wallerstein advanced different versions of the “core-periphery” model of development, arguing that global systems of trade and economics promoted the underdevelopment of the Global South through the development of the Global North. For a summary of their arguments, see David Simon, Fifty Key Thinkers on Development (New York: Routledge, 2005). Following accelerating globalization and the further advancement of free trade in the 1980s and 1990s, more recent scholars such as economist Paul Krugman have proposed updated versions of a similar argument. See Paul Krugman and Anthony J. Venables, “Globalization and the Inequality of Nations,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 110, no. 4 (November 1995).

[3] Jeffrey Sachs is a Columbia economist who became prominent in the media in the 2000s following the publication of his book, The End of Poverty (New York: Penguin Press, 2005) which argued that extreme poverty could be eliminated by 2025. He became popularly known for his public promotion of the mass distribution of insecticidal bed nets to discourage the spread of malaria. See Awash Teklehaimanot, Jeffrey D. Sachs, and Chris Curtis, “Malaria Control Needs Mass Distribution of Insecticidal Bednets,” The Lancet 369 (30 June 2007), 2143-2146. For an exploration of the real-world technical challenges associated with Sachs’ approach, see journalist Nina Munk’s book, The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty (Toronto: Signal, 2013).

[4] University of Saskatchewan Archives and Special Collections, DCC, Diefenbaker papers, John G. Diefenbaker to D.M. Fleming, 26 April 1961, Volume 532, File 802 Conf. World Relations – Economic Assistance Abroad. 1959-1961.

[5] One of the major critics of these structural adjustment policies (SAPs) is economist Joseph Stiglitz, whose book Globalization and its Discontents (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002) argues that countries that found themselves indebted to international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund were forced to open their economies to the free flow of international capital without sufficient regulations. Stiglitz argued that when these policies had the effect of further destabilizing the economy, the same conditions imposed by SAPs prevented governments from providing social safety nets to help their populations.

[6] There is such a huge literature on this topic it is impossible to summarize. Noam Chomsky has been one of the most long-standing critics and vocal critics of hypocrisy in US foreign affairs, most recently putting out a new book with Nathan J. Robison, The Myth of American Idealism: How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World (New York, Penguin Random House, 2024). Other examples include Ruth Blakely, State Terrorism and Neoliberalism: The North in the South (New York: Routledge, 2009) and Bradley R. Simpson, Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development in US-Indonesian Relations, 1960-68 (Stanford: Standford University Press, 2008).

Historian, Meet Archivist: Researching the History of Complex Organizations

This post is cross-posted in partnership with ActiveHistory.ca

by Jill Campbell-Miller, PhD and Ryan Kirkby, PhD, MLIS

 

In general, historiography and historical methods courses do a good job in teaching students to be skeptical of their sources. As undergraduate and graduate students, we learn to scrutinize what we read, hear, or see. Yet while historians may be familiar with how to critique the sources themselves, rarely do we look up from a given document and examine the place where it is located, or think about how the document arrived in the archives. This is particularly true of written documents that emerge from government. Historians do not always critically engage with the organizational structure of the files, or think about how a certain structure came into being. This might seem somewhat “inside baseball” to historians, who usually leave such concerns in the hands of archivists. Exploring organizational descriptions on archival websites is not for the faint of heart, and rarely make much sense to the untrained observer. But considering these issues is important, because the history of how government departments change over time influences how documents come to be organized, influencing the history that emerges from this research. Continue reading

Welcome Visiting Scholars Dr. Kevin O’Sullivan and Dr. Valerie Gorin

The Department of History is pleased to welcome two visiting scholars to the department this spring, who will be visiting as guests of the Canadian Network on Humanitarian History. Professor and departmental Chair Dominique Marshall will be acting as host during their stay and would be happy to facilitate any introductions.

Throughout the year, the Department hosts many visiting scholars and student researchers from all over the world. These accomplished visitors contribute to the Department in a variety of ways, including through knowledge transfer and collaborative partnerships, and by increasing the Department’s own international research reputation.

Please join us in welcoming Dr. Kevin O’Sullivan and Dr. Valérie Gorin. Faculty members and graduate students interested in meeting with them during their stay can either contact them directly or contact Prof. Marshall.

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The Red Cross Compiles a History of the Organization through Objects

4-2-main-walter-safety

Walter Safety, the Canadian Red Cross water safety mascot, 1963.

This Canadian Red Cross digital history project provides all Canadians the chance to interact with over 120 years of Canadian Red Cross history and the opportunity to share their own Red Cross artifacts or items that have been part of their lives. The items and stories featured in this interactive online platform represent the many ways the Canadian Red Cross has mobilized the power of humanity to improve the lives of vulnerable people in Canada and around the world.Many of these items also represent in one way or another how all Red Cross programs and activities are guided by the Fundamental Principles of Humanity, Impartiality, Neutrality, Independence, Voluntary Service, Unity and Universality.

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Matthew Bunch Blogs on the First and Second World Food Congress

Matthew Bunch, member of the CNHH and founder of the Freedom from Hunger Project, recently made the Network aware of not one, but two blogs written and posted to his website.  The first, from 7 March 2016, discusses the First World Food Congress held in 1963, the conditions surrounding its creations, and its effects.  The second, published earlier this month, discusses the Second World Food Congress (1970) and the construction of youth as activist.  Both may be of interest to Network members and can be found via the provided links.  These are both posted to the Network’s growing resource list of Canadian Blogs and may, alternately, be found there.

My Visit to Plan Canada’s Head Offices in Toronto

By Carlos Uriel Contreras Flores

 

Hello,

In this post I will let you know my experience in Toronto at the offices of Plan Canada, a visit I made last week.

Some weeks ago, Professor Dominique Marshall asked me to check some irreplaceable documents that Plan Canada had in their offices in Toronto, and that are part of the historical archives of the organization. These are basically letters and photo albums of some of their most important and lasting donors and sponsors.

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Second Canadian Workshop on the History of Humanitarian Aid

By William Tait

The Second Canadian Workshop on the History of Humanitarian Aid took place on 30 May 2015 at Carleton University in Ottawa.  The event built on a workshop held last year where historians  from across Canada, archivists from Library and Archives Canada and Carleton University Archives, a well as humanitarian practitioners from Partnership Africa Canada, Oxfam, and MATCH International Women’s Fund met to welcome Dr Kevin O’Sullivan from the National University of Ireland.  Kevin was a catalyst for the first workshop in 2014 when he travelled to Canada to conduct research.  In his latest book O’Sullivan has likened Irish and Canadian use of soft power through aid and development1.  Under the organisation of Dominique Marshall, Professor and Chair of the Department of History at Carleton and former President of the Canadian Historical Association, a website was created after the 2014 meeting to link a growing online collaboration of aid practitioners, archivists, and academics interested in preserving the history of humanitarian action both in Canada and elsewhere.  O’Sullivan returned to Carleton this year to brief the workshop and members of the Canadian Network on Humanitarian History (CNHH) on developments in the field and to continue to expand collaboration with European partners.

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Welcome to the New Website

Hello!

Welcome to the new website of the Canadian Network on Humanitarian History: aidhistory.ca. In this website you will find the materialization of the wishes of the members of the network, who expressed their feelings and necessities on what the website should include during the Second Canadian Workshop on the History of Humanitarian Aid, which was held on May 30 2015.

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Looking Foward, Outstanding Things

By Rebecca Henfrey

 

Establishing a Program Mandate; what kind of deliverables are we looking for?

  • Knowledge Mobilization: One of the most important goals of undertaking these projects is demonstrating their practicality. NGOs want you to be able to show that the knowledge you gather has value and from there the community is invested. If there is a formulaic way to do this and potentially demonstrate how this can aid in funding, it can serve to work for both parties involved.
  • Methodology and Information Sharing: This network will be used to share syllabi, teaching resources and materials and workshops. Individuals will be able to blog about their teaching experiences and perhaps elaborate more upon their professional and practical experiences in this field, providing information on their methodologies
  • Networking and Twitter: Twitter can not only be used as a teaching resource, it can also be used as a platform to set up courses and integrate teaching about humanitarian agencies an NGOs into ‘mainstream’ courses as it allows professors to broaden their approach.
  • Module Development and Shared Classes: One potential project that can be undertaken by multiple individuals is the development of modules that can be placed in a classroom or workshop environment. It would be a helpful resource that could be provided to instructors without requiring them to do too much legwork.
  • Cultivation of Collaborative Discussion: The encouragement of collaborative discussion within the website’s forums was identified as a key priority for the program. Finding a way to connect individuals, whether that be for the purposes of scholarly feedback or discussion amongst students, researchers, instructors and other members is very important.
  • Growth of Membership: Once a critical mass of members has been reached, the chances of organizing a conference increase. Currently there is a sense of isolation due to the fact that this is a developing field. One proposed way to encourage membership numbers was to engage postgrad students. Because of the emerging and developing nature of this field, it has to be done organically, from the bottom up with engagement alongside deliverance of information.
  • Attendance of Conferences: Another mandate of this program was to reach out to other historians and practitioners in the field by attending conferences. CCI was listed as a potential
  • Establish methods of relationship buildlng

Final Priorities; as identified and recorded on whiteboard and through discussion

  • Establish and maintain trust between NGOs and Researchers
  • Keep distance and respect in these relationships
  • Look at models of partnership
    1. ODI
    2. Non-State Humanitarianism
  • Humanitarian history as a part of history of imperialism, globalization, development
  • Share readings, contacts
  • Organization of academic panels
  • Publication of special issues of journals
  • Establishment of international networks
  • Teach, supervise and discuss
  • Interest and organize volunteer work
  • Foster inter-disciplinarity in research and work
  • Workshop in NGO building next time?
  • Organize Archives/Research aids
  • Preserve archives
  • Identify content of photos
  • Identify and collect personal collections
  • Conduct oral histories
  • Present history of NGO website
  • Talks to create interest
  • History workshops for new NGO staff, to avoid mistakes and to raise funds
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