This was previously published as an article in the June 2017 issue of Reality Check, the official newsletter of the Reality of Aid (RoA) Network. This issue, which also contains articles on Palestine and South Korea, can be downloaded through the Reality of Aid website.

What is ODA for?

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a forum of the world’s major donor countries, official development assistance (ODA) is defined as the aid for the “economic and social development of the recipient [country]” (OECD, 2008). Its purpose should promote development and welfare of developing countries (OECD, 2008; IBON International, 2009).

As of 2008, OECD definitions for ODA exclude activities that do not serve development purposes such as anti-terrorism and “direct military aid” (e.g. funding the purchase of weapons). There have been developments in 2016 indicating that the OECD shall include security-related activities under ODA (Mason, 2016), allowing possibly the use of development and economic assistance for donor security interests.[1]

However, in one of the earlier foreign aid programs such as the United States’ USD 13 billion Marshall Plan to help rebuild post-World War II European economies, American foreign aid also had the purpose of gaining allies against security threats – communist influence in the mid-20th century (Spear, 2016: 19).

Later on, in the 21st century, after the September 11 attacks, groups which have been classified as terrorist groups were considered to be important threats to US foreign and security policy. Counterterror operations in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan included aid-funded development programs as a non-combat side to the war strategy. These aimed to slow down recruitment of terrorist groups by attempting to address the socio-economic roots that drive people to insurgency (Petrík, 2016: 172). As part of the global “war on terror,” US Special Operations Forces were also deployed to the southern region of the Philippines, in Mindanao (Robinson, Johnston and Oak, 2016).

As a “distillation” of lessons in such counterinsurgency and counter-terror operations, a US Counterinsurgency (COIN) Guide was released in 2009. Development continued to be seen as playing a role in complementing combat operations. This document can be seen as evidence of the continued overlapping mandates of military and development work for donor states such as the United States.

While rising powers such as China also had important places in US foreign policy after 2009, in particular during the US “rebalance” or “pivot to Asia” after 2012, counterterrorism and counterinsurgency remained a priority in American foreign and security policy (Department of Defense, 2012).

ODA to the Philippines

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Throughout the 21st century, the changing security situation – from “war on terror” in the southern Philippines to US “pivot to Asia” – translated to shifts in ODA allocations, with the United States an important actor and donor state.

From 2001 to 2002, calculations from US Agency for International Development (USAID) data indicate that economic aid (which includes development assistance, disaster relief, health programs funds, among others) decreased by 35%, while military aid increased by 2700%, from USD 2 million in 2001 to USD 56 million in 2002. Development assistance itself almost doubled from 2001 to 2002, from around USD 27.6 million to USD 45.6 million. These correspond to the 2001 decision of former Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to support the “war on terror” in Mindanao.

During the US “pivot to Asia,” from 2012 onwards, the Philippines also became the number one recipient of US military and economic aid in general, taking the position from Indonesia. Comparing 2015 to 2011, the latter a pre-US “pivot” year, there was an increase in economic aid from USD 166 million to USD 293 million and military aid from USD 39 million to USD 90 million. This might be seen as reflecting the US priority of strengthening its military presence during the Asia pivot. In fact, US documents describe how military presence is essential in the “maintenance of peace, stability, the free flow of commerce, and of U.S. influence” in the region (Department of Defense 2012, 2).

As of 2015, the United States is the fourth biggest development aid donor to the Philippines, with ODA to the Philippines at USD 236.9 million in that same year (Devex, 2016). Other major donors are Japan (with USD 238 million), the World Bank (at USD 356 million), and the Asian Development Bank (at USD 803 million).

Also in 2015, the USAID, one of the major US agencies concerned with development assistance, allocated to the Philippines the highest amount of economic aid in the East Asia and Oceania region (USD 180.6 million). From 2001 to 2014, with the exemption of the year 2008, the Philippines remained second to Indonesia as the top recipient country of USAID in the region. ODA alone also increased from USD 41 million in 2012 to USD 98 million in 2015, which makes the 2015 ODA allocation 139% higher than that of 2012.

The scope of USAID work

According to the agency’s official website, USAID is the “lead US Government agency” that works against poverty and for the strengthening of democratic societies (USAID, 2017). It is also a major US agency when it comes to delivering development assistance.

The USAID website describes that while the agency can “work in active conflict, or help countries transition from violence,” it considers preventing the emergence of violent conflict to beof the highest importance (USAID, 2017). As described in The Development Response to Violent Extremism, a USAID policy document, the agency’s programs aim to address the conditions or “drivers of violent extremism and insurgency,” such as economic inequality, lack of effective governance and corruption (USAID, 2011).

USAID describes how addressing these conditions concern development responses, in addition to “build[ing] the effectiveness and legitimacy of state institutions,” including local governments (USAID, 2011: 5). As a result, USAID programs range from good governance and anti-corruption reforms, youth employment, reconstruction in post-conflict zones, to basic service delivery.

“The Development Reponse” also shows how “stabilization” is taken into account in how USAID designs its programs (USAID, 2011: 8), and thus integrated into overall development strategies with countries. Stabilization here means “the process of making a country less likely to descend into…a state of conflict…and contributing to conditions that will advance sustainable development” (USAID 2011, 8). Other factors that the agency considers include country ownership and ensuring programs are “tailor[ed]…to the local environment” (USAID, 2011: 12).

It is also highlighted that USAID’s development response is ideally in combination with Department of Defense and Department of State efforts, since USAID’s development response is only “one component of broader USG efforts to counter violent extremism and insurgency” (USAID, 2011: 7). In a planning guide to coordinate US foreign policy objectives (called the “3D Planning Guide”), the same connection is made, where development is described as one of the three “pillars” in “promoting and protecting US national security interests” especially in developing countries (DoS, USAID, and DoD, 2012).

In the same Guide, aid is described as “always ha[ving] the twofold purpose of furthering America’s foreign policy interests” and at the same time helping developing countries (DoS, USAID, and DoD 2012, 19). This is also in line with USAID’s description of how “successful development is essential to advancing our [US] national security objectives” (USAID, 2011: ii).

The scope of USAID work can also be gleaned from the Counterinsurgency Guide by the US Interagency Counterinsurgency Initiative (2009). USAID is part of this interagency initiative, and has been given a role in conflict-affected areas when it comes to ”enhanc[ing] institutional capacity and ameliorat[ing] the root causes of conflict” with “community-level programs…hav[ing] a good track record in addressing the grievances that fuel insurgency” (Interagency Counterinsurgency Initiative, 2009: 52).

USAID in the Philippines: a development response to internal security?

Since 1996, USAID has been conducting “intensified assistance efforts in the conflict-affected areas of Mindanao” (USAID 2014). 1996 marked the signing of the peace agreement between the Philippine government and a Moro separatist group, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), and this triggered the increased USAID activity “both [in] the areas affected by the Muslim separatist conflict, and the areas affected by the New People’s Army (NPA) insurgency” (USAID, 2014). During this time, USAID efforts ranged from infrastructure projects, to governance improvement, and to “reintegration of former combatants” (USAID, 2014).

From 2001 to 2008, USAID allocated USD 312 million for peace, security, and stability in Mindanao (USAID, 2008). During the same timeframe, “peace and security” results boasted by USAID included 834 barangay infrastructure and 40 regional infrastructure, and more than 28,000 former MNLF members practicing agriculture (USAID, 2008). These are activities undertaken in one of the bigger development projects during this time, the second iteration of Growth with Equity in Mindanao (GEM- 2). The third iteration of this program (GEM-3) ran from 2008 until 2012 (GEM I was implemented from 1996 to 2001; GEM II from 2002 to 2007).

The six areas mentioned above include the following provinces: Northern Basilan/Isabela City, Southern Basilan, Sulu, Zamboanga City, Marawi City and Cotabato City (USAID, 2015: 25). During this timeframe, one of the good governance projects of the agency is the Enhancing Governance, Accountability, Engagement Project (ENGAGE).
 

Until 2012, 60% of USAID budget for the Philippines goes to Mindanao (USAID, 2015: 12). These changed in the current USAID Country Development Cooperation Strategy with the Philippines, where a large part is allocated to national-level programs such as Basa Pilipinas, and the strategy’s general support to the market-oriented Partnership for Growth with the United States during its Asia pivot (USAID, 2015). As a result, only 10% is allocated for Mindanao, but still focused on “strengthening local governance and civic engagement to reduce conflict and violence in just six areas that pose the greatest risk of international terrorism” (USAID, 2015). This can be traced to the USAID policy framework against insurgency, where “service delivery and good governance principles, such as transparency and accountability” are important in “respond[ing] to drivers of violent extremism and/or insurgency (USAID, 2011). “Peace and Stability in Conflict-Affected Areas of Mindanao” is the second in the three development objectives in this strategy document.

According to the same document, the whole strategy itself is an application of the policy framework defined in The Development Response to Violent Extremism (USAID, 2015: 24), which orients USAID development and good governance programs as stabilization efforts. As seen above, stabilization means conflict prevention, where making a country less susceptible to conflict includes dealing with economic and governance conditions that drive insurgency.

GEM and ENGAGE: Peace and stability as another name for counterinsurgency?

In an annex for evaluating GEM-3, USAID describes the Philippine government efforts towards enforcing security in Mindanao as a “two-pronged approach:” using combat operations in areas with active violence, and efforts towards improving economic conditions “[t]o eliminate the resurfacing of violence” (USAID, 2014: 2). USAID then describes that it supports the Philippine government in addressing the same conditions (USAID, 2014; ISFI, Louis Berger Group and USAID, 2011: 12), and that the agency coordinates its peace and stability programs with other US actors such as the State Department, the Justice Department and the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines (JSOTF-P) as part of the Defense Department (USAID, 2014: 2).

Both the GEM-3 (2008-2012) and ENGAGE (2013-2018) have been described in USAID documents as “peace and stability/security” programs. The objectives of ENGAGE has been described to be “improv[ing] the capacities…of local government units and civil society organizations and build peace and stability” in Mindanao (USAID 2016). For GEM, this is underlined in how assessments of the program include attempting to measure, albeit quantitatively, its effects on supporting peace.

However, according to a 2013 Asia Foundation report on various development programs in Mindanao, the “theory of change” wherein “improved economic outcomes or improved service delivery will contribute to peace building” remains an assumption that still would need to be explained (Adriano and Parks, 2013: xiv).The same report also mentioned that in such development programs, there needs to be a monitoring of “transformative outcomes” and impacts towards peace.

The Asia Foundation report also pointed out the need to take local elite dynamics into account and how this affects both governance and occurrences of violence and conflict (Adriano and Parks, 2013: xiv-xv). In addition, these programs also need to consider the oriogins of the Mindanao conflict: its “agraria roots” in historical land dispossession and displacement of Moro and indigenous communities (Vellema, Borras and Lara, 2011).

 In the Institute for Socio-Economic Development Initiatives and the USAID assessment of the GEM program, effects of GEM infrastructure and the GEM “commodity expansion” component were measured via incidence of violence and perceptions of peace (ISFI, Louis Berger Group, and USAID, 2011; USAID and Louis Berger Group, 2015). The reintegration of former MNLF combatants is also one component that supports that peace objective. This model assumes private sector-led development and facilitating engagement within established governance processes is related to peace and stability. This might be seen as a donor-led model which, at least, should consider the following: 1) assessing long-term effects of private-led economic growth such as displacement of communities and increasing inequalities, 2) acknowledging issues that might arise due to relationships of local elites to localities, and 3) factoring in fundamental economic issues of the peoples of Mindanao which are tied to a history of US colonial and government land dispossession in what are now conflict-affected areas of Mindanao.

While not an economic development program per se, the ENGAGE project is still oriented towards contributing to stability, this time through supposedly streamlining government performance and engagement with civil society. For a program directly targeting governance outcomes and stability, there needs to be more cognizance of local elite structures and dynamics — which are not necessarily inscribed in formal institutions and practices of governance.

In addition, the peace and stability objectives of GEM and ENGAGE need to be reassessed in light of the established roles of USAID economic and good governance programs – and development in general – in US national security objectives (as seen in USAID documents). Both GEM and ENGAGE, as peace and stability programs, attempt to change economic and governance conditions to counter the emergence of insurgency, from legitimizing government (USAID, 2016) to gaining popular support (e.g. address the lack of “community loyalty”) (USAID, 2015: 25).

In US counterinsurgency strategy, both appear as part of a “consolidation” phase, of attempting to render insurgent groups irrelevant, with “police[2], intelligence, governance, information and economic programs assum[ing] the lead, and political leaders work[ing] to resolve key grievances and mobiliz[ing] popular support for ending the insurgency” (Interagency Counterinsurgency Initiative 2009, 26).

US and Philippine state actors in USAID programs

Also noteworthy is the participation of American state actors, and Philippine state actors involved in counterinsurgency operations, in the programs. Both the GEM project and the 2012-2016 Country Development Cooperation Strategy are outputs of the US Embassy’s Mindanao Working Group, a decision-making body tasked to coordinate “all US Government assistance to Mindanao” (USAID 2014), which is “led by the Deputy Chief of Mission” and made up of members from USAID in addition to the “Department of State, Department of Justice, Department of Agriculture and Department of Defense (USAID 2015). Their consultations of stakeholders for programming decisions had also involved Philippine government actors that participate in counterinsurgency operations.

For instance, ENGAGE was programmed after discussions with communities, local governments, non-governmental organisations and also with the Philippine Armed Forces. There remains the open question on whether civil society participation throughout this process was considerable and had an important impact to the Working Group decisions, and whether the Mindanao Working Group is mandated by the US policy of forwarding security interests through defence and diplomacy, and most importantly, development. If the latter is the case, this would be a violation of the national sovereignty of the Philippines.

When it comes to the GEM project, on the other hand, there is also a history of the program’s interactions with military forces conducting counterinsurgency and counterterror operations in Mindanao. In localities, civil-military officers from the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) were said to have a role in identifying which infrastructure projects were needed (Stuebner and Hirsch 2012), and USAID admits discussing selection of infrastructure project sites with AFP field commanders (USAID and Louis Berger Group, 2015). Correspondingly, infrastructure projects already built by USAID are also described as having “strategic importance” to the AFP (Stuebner and Hirsch, 2012).

For the GEM project, USAID also worked and coordinated its activities with the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines ( JSOTF-P), and has declared that the agency’s “development programming works in conjunction with the efforts of the U.S. Military colleagues in Mindanao,” among other US agencies such as the Department of State and the Department of Defense (USAID, 2014: 2-3).

The JSOTF-P consists of US Special Operations Forces who were sent to combat and also assist the Armed Forces of the Philippines in counter-terror operations (Robinson, Johnston and Oak, 2016). Under the Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines (OEF-P), they were deployed in 2002 to conduct operations against the Abu Sayaff group in Mindanao. They operated within the country until 2014, allowed to stay and move in and out of Philippine bases (Docena, 2007).

They worked with USAID, accompanying the agency’s officers in visits to potentially unstable areas. On the other hand, USAID programs such as GEM strengthened the impact of their own counter-terror “civil military operations” (Robinson, Johnston and Oak, 2016).

In the 2012-2016 Country Development Cooperation Strategy, it is explained that the JSOTF-P forces attempted to strengthen the Philippine military, but a shift towards good governance initiatives later became necessary, given that the “six areas [chosen by USAID] continue to be safe havens for terrorists largely because local governance is ineffective and corrupt and is viewed as such by its citizens” (USAID 2015).

Overall, the participation of groups with defenserelated and counterinsurgency tasks in development programming raises the issue of orientation of such programs – they are tilted to serve both development purposes and, alarmingly, security objectives of the governments of the United States and the Philippines.

Towards a lasting peace in the Philippines

The armed side of counterinsurgency in Mindanao was never halted, and has killed and displaced peoples from their lands, as discussed above. Together with the Philippine military and USAID’s development and good governance programs, these armed and unarmed components constitute the “two-pronged” approach to which USAID has declared its support (USAID, 2014; ISFI, Louis Berger Group and USAID, 2011: 12).

While development programs for improving economic and governance conditions are indeed necessary, there is a need to anchor them on the demands and rights of the people and their organizations, and not by implementing growth and governance models of the donor (even though these models might be supported by the recipient government).

This article also showed how it is in the security interests of the United States (via USAID), the Philippine military, and the Philippine government to maintain the blurred lines between development and military operations, as part of a strategy to legitimize counterinsurgency, disenfranchise dissenting groups, and prevent emergence of other potential insurgent groups. This has been done at the expense of addressing the deep historical and socio-economic roots of armed conflict.

There is a need to assert that security should not be defined by the interests of donor and recipient governments, protected via military forces and development operations, but by the well-being and interests of the people, especially the marginalised and impoverished. This involves addressing the needs and development priorities of the people, and preventing attacks to their rights to livelihood, land, among others. People’s organisations and civil society organisations who stand for the people on the ground must work on an alternative framework that avoids the subsuming of development under questionable security interests.##

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