NEW YORK — At a time of global economic uncertainty, President Barack Obama urged wealthy countries Wednesday to maintain development assistance to poor nations out of self-interest, even as he argued that aid should be delivered in smarter ways.
Obama made his pitch at the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Summit, an international gathering charged with assessing how effective rich and poor nations have been in meeting an ambitious set of anti-poverty benchmarks.
The results have been mixed, with progress reported in alleviating poverty in Asia and Africa but also continuing trouble in addressing women’s and children’s health issues in much of the developing world.
While outlining changes in how the U.S. will pursue international development while he’s president, Obama challenged rich nations to view assistance to poorer ones as a vital part of their national-security strategy.
“I suspect that some in wealthier countries may ask, ‘With our economies struggling, so many people out of work, and so many families barely getting by, why a summit on development?’ ” Obama told an audience of several hundred people gathered in the U.N. General Assembly hall. “The answer is simple. In our global economy, progress in even the poorest countries can advance the prosperity and security of people far beyond their borders, including my fellow Americans.”
The Obama administration has been working to redefine development as a national-security tool, and the strategy that the president outlined Wednesday seeks to more closely coordinate the nearly two dozen government agencies involved in aid policy.
U.S. development aid extends to more than 100 countries, although much of it in recent years has been concentrated in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That underscores the importance international aid plays in Obama’s national-security strategy, which he said “recognizes development as not only a moral imperative, but a strategic and economic imperative.” He said his administration would begin assessing development policy by how successful it is in helping countries “move from poverty to prosperity,” not just by how much money, food or medicine it distributes.
“Our focus on assistance has saved lives in the short term, but it hasn’t always improved those societies over the long term,” Obama said. “Consider the millions of people who have relied on food assistance for decades. That’s not development, that’s dependence, and it’s a cycle we need to break.”
Administration officials said the new development strategy will rely on evidence to more rigorously assess programs, ending those that do not work.
In addition, Obama said he will favor countries that carry out economic, judicial and political reforms that increase the chances that development aid makes a difference. He cited Tanzania as one such country, saying that “over the long run, democracy and economic growth go hand in hand.”
Noam Unger, policy director of the Foreign Assistance Reform project at the Brookings Institution, said Obama’s approach reflects an “international current” that is “fed up with ineffective assistance efforts and trying to do things more comprehensively and deliberately.”
“The U.S. government has, for quite a long time, had such a fragmented approach to aid and a fragmented approach to development as a whole, that this is starting to shift that boat,” Unger said. “But it’s like turning an aircraft carrier. So it will take a lot of work to implement the president’s vision.”
Obama noted global progress in expanding educational opportunities; ensuring that more people have access to clean drinking water; combating HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria; and lifting “hundreds of millions of people” from extreme poverty.
“Yet we must also face the fact that progress towards other goals has not come nearly fast enough,” he said, citing the still-high rate of women dying in labor, malnutrition and hunger across much of the developing world. “This is the reality we must face — that if the international community just keeps doing the same things the same way, we will miss many development goals.”
Obama said the promotion of economic growth — which he called “the most powerful force the world has ever known for eradicating poverty and creating opportunity” — would remain the chief goal of his development policy.
“Let’s put to rest the old myth that development is mere charity that does not serve our interests,” he said. “And let’s reject the cynicism that says certain countries are condemned to perpetual poverty.”
