Bilateral Aid in Communications: The U.S. Agency for International Development

Abstract

A history of US. support for projects in improving health and education in developing countries through communications media.The U.S. Agency for International Development is the bilateral foreign assistance agency of the United States, administering economic assistance of grants, loans, technical advice, and training to over 70 developing nations. AID also manages an extensive program of research and development, carried out by universities and other organizations in the United States and throughout the world, designed to find new solutions to major development problems. This article describes the evolving role of communications in the AID program.In examining communications within AID, one finds a currently modest level that is undergoing steady growth-growth both in the amount of communications aid and in its centrality to development strategies. This growth, to the surprise of many, has not been the result of external pressures. It is, instead, growth fueled almost entirely by successful research and development, which has demonstrated, compellingly, the power of communications in achieving fundamental development tasks. As the evidence of such success has accumulated, in activities as diverse as public health practices and the teaching of arithmetic, interest in the use of communications has grown among AID decision-makers, both in Washington and in AID'S 73 overseas Missions.