11/19/2016 TheNewColonialists|ForeignPolicy

The New Colonialists

Only a motley group of aid agencies, international charities, and philanthropists stands
between some of the world's most dysfunctional states and collapse. But for all the good these
organizations do, their largesse often erodes governments' ability to stand up on their own. The
result: a vicious cycle of dependence and too many voices calling the shots.

BY MICHAEL A. COHEN , MARIA FIGUEROA KP , PARAG KHANNA OCTOBER 7, 2009

Even on their best days, the worlds failed states are dicult to mistake for anything but tragic examples of

countries gone wrong. A few routinely make the headlines Somalia, Iraq, Congo. But alongside their brand of

extreme state dysfunction exists an entirely separate, easily missed class of states teetering on the edge. In dozens

of countries, corrupt or feeble governments are proving themselves dangerously incapable of carrying out the

most basic responsibilities of statehood. These countries nations such as Botswana, Cambodia, Georgia, and

Kenya might appear to be recovering, even thriving, developing countries, but like their failed-state cousins,

they are increasingly unable, and perhaps unwilling, to fulll the functions that have long dened what it means

to be a state.

What or who is keeping these countries from falling into the abyss? Not so long ago, former colonial masters

and superpower patrons propped them up. Today, however, the thin line that separates weak states from truly

failed ones is manned by a hodgepodge of international charities, aid agencies, philanthropists, and foreign

advisors. This armada of nonstate actors has become a powerful global force, replacing traditional donors and

governments inuence in poverty-stricken, war-torn world capitals. And as a measure of that inuence, they are

increasingly taking over key state functions, providing for the health, welfare, and safety of citizens. These

private actors have become the "new colonialists" of the 21st century.

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In much the same way European empires once dictated policies across their colonial holdings, the new

colonialists among them international development groups such as Oxfam, humanitarian nongovernmental

organizations (NGOs) like Doctors Without Borders, faith-based organizations such as Mercy Corps, and

megaphilanthropies like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation direct development strategies and craft

government policies for their hosts. But though the new colonialists are the glue holding society together in many

weak states, their presence often deepens the dependency of these states on outsiders. They unquestionably ll

vital roles, providing lifesaving healthcare, educating children, and distributing food in countries where the

government cant or wont. But, as a consequence, many of these states are failing to develop the skills necessary

to run their countries eectively, while others fall back on a global safety net to escape their own accountability.

Have the new colonialists gone too far in attempting to manage responsibilities that should be those of

governments alone? And given the dependency they have nurtured, can the world aord to let them one day walk

away?

A SHIFT OF MONEY AND POWER

Dependency is not a new phenomenon in the worlds most destitute places. But as wealthy governments have lost

their appetite for the development game, the new colonialists have lled the breach. In 1970, seven of every 10

dollars given by the United States to the developing world came from ocial development assistance (ODA).

Today, ODA is a mere 15 percent of such ows, with the other 85 percent coming from private capital ows,

remittances, and NGO contributions. Nor is this trend strictly an American phenomenon. In 2006, total aid to the

developing world from countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

amounted to $325 billion. Just a third of that sum came from governments.

The expanding budgets of humanitarian NGOs are indicative of the power shift taking place. During the 1990s,

the amount of aid owing through NGOs in Africa, rather than governments, more than tripled. Spending by the

international relief and development organization CARE has jumped 65 percent since 1999, to $607 million last

year. Save the Childrens budget has tripled since 1998; Doctors Without Borders budget has doubled since 2001;

and Mercy Corps expenditures have risen nearly 700 percent in a decade.

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The shift is equally apparent on the receiving end. When aid reaches developing countries, it increasingly

bypasses the host governments altogether, often going straight into the coers of the new colonialists on the

ground. In 2003, the USAID Oce of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance distributed two thirds of its budget through

NGOs rather than aected governments. Between 1980 and 2003, the amount of aid from OECD countries

channeled through NGOs grew from $47 million to more than $4 billion. One reason for the shift is the growing

reluctance of rich countries to route aid through corrupt foreign ocials. That has created an increasing reliance

on new colonialists to deliver assistance and produce results.

But the new colonialists are doing far more than simply carrying out the mandates of wealthy benefactors back

home. They often tackle challenges that donors and developing-country governments either ignore or have failed

to address properly. International Alert, a London-based peace-building organization, monitors corruption in

natural-resource management in unstable countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and serves as

an early warning system to Western governments about impending conicts. The Gates Foundation, which has

spent more in the past decade on neglected-disease research than all the worlds governments combined, has

been so dissatised with existing international health indexes that it is funding the development of brand-new

metrics for ranking developing-world health systems.

Seeing jobs that need to be done, the new colonialists simply roll up their sleeves and go to work, with or without

the cooperation of states. That can be good for the family whose house needs rebuilding or the young mother who

needs vaccinations for her child. But it can be a blow to the authority of an already weak government. And it may

do nothing to ensure that a state will be able to provide for its citizens in the future.

THE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE

The responsibilities the new colonialists assume are diverse improving public health, implementing

environmental initiatives, funding small businesses, providing military training, even promoting democracy. But

whatever the task, the result is generally the same: the slow and steady erosion of the host states responsibility

and the empowerment of the new colonialists themselves.

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The extent of the new colonialists inuence is perhaps best illustrated in Afghanistan. The government

possesses only the most rudimentary control over its territory, and President Hamid Karzai has made little

progress in combating corruption and narcotics tracking. The result is a shell of a government, unable to

provide basic services or assert its authority. Today, 80 percent of all Afghan services, such as healthcare and

education, are delivered by international and local NGOs. According to its own estimates, the Afghan

government administers only a third of the several billion dollars of aid owing into the country each year. The

rest is managed directly by private contractors, development agencies, and humanitarian aid groups. Major

donors such as Britain only briey include the Afghan government in their aid agendas: Although 80 percent of

Britains $200 million in annual aid to Afghanistan is dedicated to state ministries, as soon as the money arrives,

it is swiftly handed over to NGOs like Oxfam or CARE for the actual construction of schools and hospitals. The

transfers simply reect many donors lack of condence in Afghan ministries to distribute funds competently

and implement aid mandates on their own.

Many of the gains that Afghanistan has made since the fall of the Taliban can undoubtedly be attributed to the

eorts and largesse of the many thousands of NGOs that have set up shop in Kabul. But not everyone is thankful

for their labor. Karzai has derided the wasteful overlap, cronyism, and unaccountability among foreign NGOs in

Afghanistan as "NGOism," just another "ism," after communism and Talibanism, in his countrys unfortunate

history. In 2005, Ramazan Bashardost, a parliamentary candidate in Kabul, sailed to electoral victory by running

on an anti-NGO platform, threatening to expel nearly 2,000 NGOs that he claimed were corrupt, for-prot

ventures providing little service to the country.

Many NGOs understandably resent such criticism, particularly as it lumps together a diverse lot private

contractors, international aid agencies, local NGOs and ignores the important contributions some have made.

But none of these groups is anxious to perform so well that it works itself out a job. No matter how well-

intentioned, these new colonialists need weak states as much as weak states need them.

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This kind of perverse dependency is on display in Georgia, where new colonialists have come to wield an

inordinate amount of inuence since the country emerged from Soviet rule. Today, its pro-Western president is

supported by a steady dose of nancial and political aid from abroad, and many state functions are nanced or

managed by outside help. In advance of the countrys Rose Revolution, foreign political consultants advised the

oppositions campaign strategy. The American consulting rm Booz Allen Hamilton has been hired to help

rebuild state ministries from the ground up, recruiting new sta and retraining bureaucrats. These foreign

technocrat-consultants participate in the day-to-day decision-making on critical national matters, such as

political reform and intelligence sharing. But in Georgia, as well as other countries where these consultants

operate, as they help mold state functions and prioritize development policies, they also write the complex grant

applications that their home governments consider grants that eectively extend their own positions of

inuence. The result is a vicious cycle of dependency as new colonialists vie for the contracts that will keep them

in business.

That isnt to say that the new colonialists dont get results many do. And in few areas are the eorts of the new

colonialists more impressive than in the public-health arena. When Cambodia emerged from more than a decade

of civil war in 1991, the public healthcare system was nonexistent. Since 1999, the government has outsourced

much of the countrys healthcare to international NGOs such as HealthNet and Save the Children. Today, it is

estimated that 1 in 10 Cambodians receives healthcare from such groups, which run hundreds of hospitals and

clinics throughout the country and often provide far better care than government institutions. So reliable are

these NGOs in providing quality care that it is dicult to imagine the government taking over responsibilities

anytime soon if ever.

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Many aid organizations will say that their ultimate goal is to ensure their services are no longer needed. But aid

organizations and humanitarian groups need dysfunction to maintain their relevance. Indeed, their institutional

survival depends on it. Although aid groups occasionally have pulled out of countries because of security

concerns or to protest the manipulation of aid, it is dicult to nd examples where these groups have pulled up

stakes because the needs they seek to address are no more. And as these groups deepen their presence in weak

states, they often bleed the country of local talent. The salaries they oer are not only better and the work more

eective, but there are often no comparable opportunities for well-educated locals in their countrys civil service

or private sector. The new colonialists may depend on this talent to ensure their legitimacy and local expertise,

but it further weakens the host governments ability to attract their own best and brightest, ensuring that they

remain reliant on new colonialists for know-how and results.

AN UNBROKEN CYCLE

There is no single global clearinghouse that coordinates, or even tracks, how these actors behave around the

world. If new colonialists only pay lip service to local ownership and democracy, there is little to suggest that the

cycle of mutual dependence will ever be broken. And if that is the case, the new-colonialist crutch may enable

corrupt governments to continue to avoid their responsibilities in perpetuity.

Of course, there is another disturbing possibility that many observers do not like to countenance: Without the

new colonialists, todays weak states could be tomorrows basket cases. It speaks to the ubiquity of the new

colonialists that this prospect seems remote. Nor can most weak states successfully resist their inuence. When

Cyclone Nargis struck Burma in May, the governing military junta initially resisted outside assistance. But state

incapacity, corruption, and incompetence often make a deant stance impossible. After several weeks, the

regimes leaders had little choice but to accept the help of aid workers who were clamoring to gain access to the

people in greatest need.

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How then should the international community respond to the increasing inuence of the new colonialists? Some

observers argue that the market should take the lead in solving development challenges. Unfortunately, new

investment often avoids failing states, and aid groups can rightly say that they do the work no one else is willing

to do. Other observers think it is time to restore the centrality of the United Nations, at least as a coordinating

force among these actors. But globalization resists the centralization of power, and the United Nations lacks the

support of member states to take on such ambitious and expensive goals.

The fundamental challenge in this messy new landscape will be to establish a system of accountability. To earn a

place at the table of global governance, the new colonialists will have to keep their promises not only to their

donors and benefactors but to the citizens of failing states themselves. Competition among aid groups might

actually serve to improve this accountability in the future. In many ways, the new colonialists are building a

genuine global constituency, and, for better or worse, they may be the rst and last line of defense for states

sliding toward failure.

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