Islamabad: United State Agency for International Development (USAID) President Rajiv Shah on Friday said that US is reducing the number of aid projects in Pakistan as part of reforms aimed at improving the distribution of billions of dollars in funding, the top U.S. aid official said Friday.
Giving an interview to a news agency Rajiv said that the total amount of civilian aid will remain the same, but the U.S. hopes the reorganization would producer better, higher profile outcomes that can win hearts and minds in a country where anti-American sentiment was rampant.
“If we are trying to do 140 different things, we are unlikely to do things at scale in a way that an entire country of 185 million people can see and value and appreciate,” he said adding that USAID deliver much more value to American taxpayers when they concentrate and focus and deliver results.
The U.S. announced a five-year $127 million program Wednesday to create advanced learning centers at three Pakistani universities dealing with the water, energy and agriculture sectors.
“Our logo and our tagline says ‘From the American People,’ but in reality this work is very much for the American people,” said Shah. “We are safer and more secure … when countries are prosperous and when countries trade with us instead of represent a militant threat.”
The move comes over two years after the U.S. launched a five-year, $7.5 billion civilian aid program in Pakistan that supporters hoped would improve the perception of America, elicit greater support from the government in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida and reduce the allure of those groups to average Pakistanis. The vast majority of aid before that went to the military.
Despite spending $2.6 billion in civilian aid, popular support for the U.S. has actually fallen as relations between the two countries have deteriorated, and elements of the Pakistani government are widely believed to have continued backing Islamist militants killing American troops in Afghanistan.
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