*Source: DTN News / Int'l Media
(NSI News Source Info) WASHINGTON - January 03, 2010: - The Obama administration has sketched out wide-ranging plans to spend $7.5 billion in aid to P
akistan over the next five years, an ambitious effort billed as crucial Marshall Plan-style support for Pakistan at a time when its fragile government is fighting the Taliban and other extremists.
But thorny questions remain about how the administration will disburse the money, sparking a flurry of behind-the-scenes jockeying by governmental and nongovernmental institutions trying to secure a piece of it.
The long-anticipated plan - submitted to Congress in late December and obtained by the Globe - calls for $1.5 billion for health and education to be spent in Pakistani regions vulnerable to extremism; $3.5 billion on big-ticket infrastructure projects, such as helping build hydroelectric dams and update power stations; $2 billion to strengthen and reform Pakistan’s government; and $500 million for humanitarian assistance for people displaced by Pakistani military operations against the Taliban.
The plan also suggests as much as $1 billion in future funding to Pakistan’s military to purchase 20 AH-1Z Cobra attack helicopters from US defense contractors, but notes that the aim of the money is to signal long-term US support for Pakistan’s people, not just its military in a time of war.
“It is an incredibly important symbol that our civilian assistance now will exceed our military assistance,’’ Paul Jones, deputy to Richard Holbrooke, the administration’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said in an interview.
But the aid, pushed through Congress by Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, comes at a time of increasing tension between Washington and the troubled South Asian ally, as many Pakistanis accuse the United States of meddling in their internal affairs and trying to micromanage the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Deciding who will receive funds, and who won’t, will be a delicate matter.
For instance, in the education sector, Pakistan’s government believes it should receive the lion’s share of the money at a time when half of the population is under age 18 and nearly half of all school-age children do not attend school.
“The government of Pakistan’s preference is that it should go through the government,’’ said Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, who is on leave from Boston University. Haqqani said the money could be used to send millions of children to school, train teachers, and improve curriculum.
He noted that other groups that care about education are welcome, but that only Pakistan’s government could solve the large-scale challenges of the country’s education system.
But a host of other groups are also lining up to fight for funds.
The Hub School, a nonprofit being built by a former Pakistani diplomat, has already begun meeting with members of Congress for funds to help complete its $20 million campus in Karachi.
akistan over the next five years, an ambitious effort billed as crucial Marshall Plan-style support for Pakistan at a time when its fragile government is fighting the Taliban and other extremists.
But thorny questions remain about how the administration will disburse the money, sparking a flurry of behind-the-scenes jockeying by governmental and nongovernmental institutions trying to secure a piece of it.
The long-anticipated plan - submitted to Congress in late December and obtained by the Globe - calls for $1.5 billion for health and education to be spent in Pakistani regions vulnerable to extremism; $3.5 billion on big-ticket infrastructure projects, such as helping build hydroelectric dams and update power stations; $2 billion to strengthen and reform Pakistan’s government; and $500 million for humanitarian assistance for people displaced by Pakistani military operations against the Taliban.
The plan also suggests as much as $1 billion in future funding to Pakistan’s military to purchase 20 AH-1Z Cobra attack helicopters from US defense contractors, but notes that the aim of the money is to signal long-term US support for Pakistan’s people, not just its military in a time of war.
“It is an incredibly important symbol that our civilian assistance now will exceed our military assistance,’’ Paul Jones, deputy to Richard Holbrooke, the administration’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said in an interview.
But the aid, pushed through Congress by Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, comes at a time of increasing tension between Washington and the troubled South Asian ally, as many Pakistanis accuse the United States of meddling in their internal affairs and trying to micromanage the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Deciding who will receive funds, and who won’t, will be a delicate matter.
For instance, in the education sector, Pakistan’s government believes it should receive the lion’s share of the money at a time when half of the population is under age 18 and nearly half of all school-age children do not attend school.
“The government of Pakistan’s preference is that it should go through the government,’’ said Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, who is on leave from Boston University. Haqqani said the money could be used to send millions of children to school, train teachers, and improve curriculum.
He noted that other groups that care about education are welcome, but that only Pakistan’s government could solve the large-scale challenges of the country’s education system.
But a host of other groups are also lining up to fight for funds.
The Hub School, a nonprofit being built by a former Pakistani diplomat, has already begun meeting with members of Congress for funds to help complete its $20 million campus in Karachi.The school, which had been funded in part by wealthy Pakistani-Americans, including Boston-based consultants Ilyas Bhatti and Shahid Ahmed Khan, says it will give 800 boys a top-notch education. A girls school will be built later.
“We are looking for as much support that we can get,’’ said Barry Hoffman, Pakistan’s longtime honorary consul general in Boston, adding that the school needs $10 million more in funding.
“Our view is that you also have to support private schools like the Hub School that are developing young leaders. . . . We’re looking for support from Congress and US companies to complete what we have already gotten from the larger Pakistani community.’’
Silbi Stainton, executive director of the Marshall Direct Fund, an organization based in both Colorado and Pakistan that runs two schools in Pakistan and a vocational training program, says she is also planning to make a case for the funding, although she said: “It’s been a little bit of a mystery in the [nongovernmental organization] world exactly what we have to do to apply.’’
Sara Abbasi, chairwoman of the board of directors at Developments in Literacy, an organization funded by Pakistani-Americans that operates schools serving 15,000 children across Pakistan, said Congress should fund alternatives to government schools because a significant number of them are “ghost schools’’ that exist only on paper, with teachers who don’t show up pocketing salaries.
“A lot of these government schools aren’t even safe places for children to go to,’’ she said, asserting that some of the local schools in remote areas promote extremism.
Jones, the administration official, offered few clues as to what institutions would get funds for education, saying only that the money would be aimed at poor districts in areas like southern Punjab, where radical groups linked to terrorist bombings - such as Lashkar-e-Taiba - operate schools, clinics, and media outlets.
“The challenge is with Lashkar-e-Taiba, in particular, that their organization is quite popular, because they have delivered services,’’ Jones said.
According to the administration’s work plan, funds for education will be aimed at areas where “there is a demonstrated susceptibility to extremist organizations providing services that undermine the legitimacy of the Pakistani government.’’
But Shuja Nawaz, an analyst who leads the South Asia Center of the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank, said Pakistan’s government does not yet have the capability of managing aid effectively to deliver those needed services.
“It is important for the US to sequence its aid properly, to build governmental capacity first,’’ he said.
Daniel Markey, a former State Department specialist on Pakistan who is now at the Council on Foreign Relations, suggested that a tug-of-war over money will be inevitable because there is not enough to go around.
“Even the amounts we are talking about is more like seed money than solution money,’’ he said. “The scale of the problems are just so huge.’’
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