Development Capital: USAID and the Rise of Development Contractors

Abstract

Development assistance from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is conceptualized as flowing through an assemblage that includes heterogeneous subjects and objects and that has coevolved with USAID's contracting regime. Key assemblage elements are contractors (firms, nongovernmental organizations, individuals), contracts, and procurements, and key flows include capital, knowledge, and people. The focus of this article is the rise over the past forty years of a lucrative development contracting industry in the United States, through a relational examination of USAID contractors and other key elements in the assemblage. This article traces the contemporary U.S. development assistance contracting assemblage and its geographies. This entails identifying and mapping the assemblage's component elements, its networks and flows, with the overall aim being to take steps toward building a critical geographical understanding of development capital.La ayuda para el desarrollo de la Agencia Internacional para el Desarrollo de los Estados Unidos (USAID) se conceptualiza como proceso que fluye a través de un ensamblaje constituido entre otras cosas por sujetos y objetos heterogéneos que han evolucionado a la par del régimen contractual de esa entidad. Elementos clave del ensamblaje son los contratistas (firmas, organizaciones no gubernamentales, individuos), los contratos y adquisiciones, en tanto que los flujos clave incluyen capital, conocimiento y gente. Este artículo se concentra en el desarrollo en los Estados Unidos, durante los pasados cuarenta años, de una lucrativa industria de contratación para el desarrollo; se hizo un examen relacional de los contratistas de la USAID y de otros elementos clave del ensamblaje. El artículo reconstruye la estructura de la contratación contemporánea en EE.UU. sobre la ayuda para el desarrollo y sus geografías. Esto implica la identificación y mapeo de los elementos componentes de esa estructura, sus redes y flujos, con el propósito general de emprender pasos en la construcción de un entendimiento crítico del desarrollo del capital. Palabras clave: ensamblaje, contratistas, desarrollo, ayuda extranjera, USAID.

DFID, the Private Sector and the Re-centring of an Economic Growth Agenda in International Development

“…As well as increasingly recruiting from the private sector, DFID is growing its funding and contracting and in other ways partnering with private sector entities, including pro-market think tanks and large accountancy, financial and management consultancies. 61 These lucrative partnerships are not new, of course (see Roberts on USAID and private contractors, for example), 62 but the focus on an economic growth agenda appears to be opening up further opportunities for collaboration and contracting. Criticisms include the fact that many of these organisations are ideologically committed to privatisation regardless of context or evidence; that ODA is being used to pay six-figure salaries and lavish expenses; that they are being managed at arm's length, with insufficient strategic direction or oversight by DFID; that some are financing and working through firms domiciled in tax havens; and that regulation and oversight is inadequate.…”

National interests and the paradox of foreign aid under austerity: Conservative governments and the domestic politics of international development since 2010

“…Third, there are powerful economic rationalities for foreign aid (Essex ; Roberts ). This is not new – ODA has always served economic ends and interests, and to be clear, these are not inherently at odds with recipient interests.…”

New directions in exploring the migration industries: introduction to special issue

“…For example, an appreciation of migration industries helps us understand both the ways in which borders are produced and navigated -we see this in Žabko, Aasland and Endresen's paper as well as Beech's paper. Migration industries therefore can be seen as part of a much wider trend of the outsourcing of state functions (Roberts 2014). However, through this special issue we argue that migration industries can be seen as more than simply a reflection of a neoliberalising world economy.…”