Mapping Foreign Aid and Militancy
The Promise of GIS Technology
Grace Perkins
Brief No. 6.6
P I P S
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The College of William and Mary
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Mapping Foreign Aid and Militancy
The Promise of GIS Technology
APRIL 2014
Grace Perkins
PIPS
The Project on International Peace and Security
Institute for the Theory and Practice of International Relations
The College of William and Mary
Mapping Foreign Aid and Militancy
The Promise of GIS Technology
Although the United States has spent billions of dollars on foreign assistance in an attempt to
develop stable and prosperous allies, militant groups continue to operate in recipient countries.
This instability undermines U.S. national security goals and wastes resources. To better
understand the relationship between the location of aid projects and incidents of militant
violence, the United States should further invest in Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
technology. With more comprehensive data and the combined expertise of the security and
development communities, the United States can better target its foreign aid to promote stability
and reduce extremism.
Introduction
The recent history of foreign assistance shows a distinct correlation between aid and
violence.
- Steven Stotsky, The Middle East Quarterly1
The United States provides foreign assistance to promote stable, prosperous, and democratic
allies and to combat threats originating in underdeveloped countries. Despite U.S. efforts,
militant groups continue to operate in recipient countries. Preliminary evidence suggests that
misallocated U.S. foreign assistance could exacerbate militant grievances or even fuel attacks
against the government, fellow citizens, or foreign targets. But without fully understanding the
consequences of aid, the United States may be undermining its national security goals and
wasting valuable resources.
This white paper highlights the potential relationship between aid allocations and militant
violence. The United States should invest in more Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
research to explore the potential links between U.S. aid flows and militant attacks. By collecting
more precise data, combining security, development, and academic expertise, and sharing its
findings with NGOs and other donors, the United States can better target its foreign aid, promote
stability, and reduce attacks by extremists.
U.S. Foreign Assistance and Militant Groups
Some wonder how policymakers can develop effective foreign aid strategies without a
clear understanding of how and why prior assistance has succeeded or failed.
- Marian Leonardo Lawson, Congressional Research Service2
The increase in foreign aid allocations following the September 11 attacks—as much as 50
percent between 2002 and 2006, the biggest increase in decades—reflected the realization in
2
Washington that global poverty and inequality may provoke radical behavior in developing
countries.3 In 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry argued that foreign assistance is a “strategic
imperative for America,” because it encourages development in regions most vulnerable to
terrorist, insurgent, and militant activity.4
In fiscal year (FY) 2012, the United States spent over $32 billion on military, development, and
humanitarian assistance.5 Despite U.S. efforts to develop more stable and prosperous allies,
militants continue to operate in recipient countries. Militants are members of non-governmental
groups that commit organized armed attacks against government, civilian, or foreign targets.
Militant groups include transnational organizations, such as al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab, and their
offshoots, as well as domestic extremist groups.6
Although the United States is the world’s largest foreign assistance donor, its current strategies
are not without flaws. In some cases, U.S. foreign aid allocations may directly contribute to
militant activity.
Challenges of Current U.S. Foreign Aid Allocation Strategy
The United States supplies foreign aid to promote its national security, commercial, and
humanitarian objectives.7 U.S. assistance often flows to countries with weak governments where
the risk of misallocated or diverted aid is high. Washington has spent hundreds of billions of
dollars on foreign aid but does not fully understand how its assistance affects political or security
conditions on the ground.
•
Questionable effectiveness. Experts have not reached a consensus on the ability of aid to
combat the underlying causes of militancy. Some analysts believe that militants are
motivated by a lack of economic opportunities in their country, but the effect of aid on
GDP growth is unclear.8 Others believe that militants seek to change the political
structure in their countries, which neither development nor military aid is likely to alter in
the short term.9
•
Inadequate evaluation strategies. The United States does not have a systematic method
of evaluating the effectiveness—or the potential unintended consequences—of its foreign
aid. A 2013 report by the Congressional Research Service stated that “most foreign
assistance programs are never evaluated for the purpose of determining their impact,
either at the time or retrospectively.”10 Therefore, the United States cannot rule out the
possibility that its foreign aid interacts with militancy in undesirable ways. Although
USAID and the Department of State have implemented new evaluation policies since
2011, several challenges remain for systematic assessment, including projects that have
multiple purposes.11 Without standard evaluation systems, the United States might not
realize how its foreign assistance impacts security conditions, including militancy.
•
Securitization of aid. Combining security and development initiatives may incite
violence. Since September 11, 2001, the United States has provided foreign aid to prevent
future attacks.12 As a result, foreign assistance has become tightly linked to security
3
strategies. Experts believe that mixing aid projects with security objectives has tarnished
the image of U.S. foreign assistance and aggravated militants.13
Several characteristics of U.S. foreign assistance have the potential to exacerbate militancy in
recipient countries. Without more effective aid strategies, militants might attack governmental or
foreign targets or seek to intercept humanitarian aid flows.
Aid-Militant Interactions
Examples from Somalia illustrate how militants might capture and use foreign aid.14 In 2010, the
United Nations released a report stating that as much as 50 percent of food aid had been diverted
by corrupt contractors, local U.N. employees, and al-Shabaab militants.15 Washington delayed
food distributions for fear of fueling a militant group linked with al-Qaeda but continued
providing military aid to the Somali government.16 However, the United Nations later released a
report revealing that the Somali government was channeling weapons to al-Shabaab.17 The
situation escalated in 2014 when al-Shabaab detonated a car bomb near the international airport
in Mogadishu.18 The United States cannot ignore how its foreign assistance might affect violent
activities orchestrated by al-Shabaab and other groups.
Exploring the relationship between aid allocations and militant activity is important for
improving the efficacy of foreign assistance and reducing instability. If the United States does
not analyze the relationship between aid and militancy, it is likely to continue providing aid that
is misused or misallocated, further undermining short and long-term foreign policy goals.
Counterproductive Foreign Aid: Implications for U.S. National Security
Nothing burnishes our image abroad better than saving lives, improving health care,
providing education and infrastructure to developing countries. It is in our national
security interest to provide foreign aid.
- Brad J. Sherman, Senior Democrat for the House Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade19
Far from defeating terrorism, today’s government-to-government foreign aid system can
actually incite it, by propping up corrupt and repressive one-party states.
- Newt Gingrich and Ken Hagerty, American Enterprise Institute20
Development is a core tenet of U.S. foreign policy and is intended to reduce threats to the United
States.21 At best, U.S. foreign assistance has no effect on militant activity in foreign countries.
However, misused or misallocated U.S. foreign aid could undermine U.S. national security goals
in three major ways. First, providing counterproductive aid perpetuates a cycle of violence,
weakened allies, and regional instability. Second, providing counterproductive aid wastes
resources. Finally, reports of counterproductive aid decrease political will for future development
efforts.
4
Perpetuates a Cycle of Violence, Weakened Allies, and Regional Instability
Foreign aid can affect militant behavior. If militants capture aid donations, such as food, foreign
aid directly fuels their activities. Additionally, foreign aid can intensify militant grievances
against recipient governments or the United States by causing unequal development. Militant
violence weakens U.S. allies and destabilizes surrounding regions.
•
Increased violent behavior. U.S. foreign aid can motivate violent behavior if aid
allocation favors one group or fails to consider the needs of local communities.
Development agencies often lack sufficient resources to provide aid to all communities in
a region. Unequal aid flows can upset the power structure between neighboring
communities. If one group feels as though it was left out or endangered by the increased
support to the other, it may engage in violent behavior. In 2009, a U.S. provincial
reconstruction team (PRT) in Afghanistan was ambushed after constructing a
slaughterhouse in the Dara-i-Nur province. This aid project appeared to make a
neighboring village jealous and motivated its residents to ambush the PRT as it
departed.22
Militants may also be frustrated because of unequal economic development within or
between countries. Development is like “the break-up of traffic jammed in a tunnel…if
[the] lanes remain stalled long after other lanes move, frustration can mount and provoke
radical behavior.”23 The United States risks exacerbating violence if militants believe that
U.S. foreign assistance props up corrupt governments that favor some groups over
others.24
Additionally, misallocated foreign aid can anger groups that feel threatened or neglected
by increased U.S. activities. In 2010, militants killed 21 people involved in a road
construction project in Afghanistan. The Taliban and local citizens opposed the road
because it allowed troops to travel more easily throughout the region and because the
PRT had ignored the villagers’ desire for a school and a health clinic.25 Anecdotal
evidence suggests that foreign aid may be related to continued violence. This relationship
could threaten U.S. national security, especially if allies cannot combat radical groups.
•
Weakened allies. Despite inflows of aid, weak governments often lack either resources or
incentives to end and then recover from internal instability. Mali held its first multiparty
presidential elections in 1992 and remained a successful democracy for the next two
decades.26 Between 2005 and 2008, Mali received approximately $37 million from the
Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership and, in 2006, signed a $461 million
agreement with the Millennium Challenge Corporation.27 In 2012, however, members of
al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) took over northern Mali. The Malian
government lacked the military power necessary to defeat AQIM and relied on French
intervention to oust the militant group. Destructive militant attacks destabilize allies on
which the United States relies for regional stability.
•
Destabilized regions. Because weak states have difficulty controlling their borders,
militants can destabilize neighboring countries. A particularly worrying example is the
5
increased prominence of armed militant groups in Afghanistan, specifically the
cooperative efforts of the Afghan Taliban and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.
Conflict in Afghanistan could lead to increased instability throughout Central Asia.28 This
phenomenon is also present in the Middle East. In Yemen, the government is combating
al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), whose activities might spill over into Saudi
Arabia.29 Despite the approximately $65 million in foreign assistance that Yemen
received in 2013, militant groups continue to threaten regional stability.30
Ignoring the possible effects of foreign aid allocations on the cycle of violence and instability
within strategic regions could exacerbate threats to U.S. security. Increased militant activity
often necessitates increased humanitarian aid flows or, in extreme situations, U.S. military
interventions. These interventions strain the U.S. budget and distract from other policy goals.
Wastes Resources and Economic Opportunity
The FY2015 budget request for international affairs is $50 billion, a significant sum of taxpayer
money.31 Overlooking the potential negative consequences of foreign aid may cost the United
States now and in the future.
•
Aid diverted to militant groups. Militant groups can capture aid supplies or charge aid
workers to operate in militant-controlled regions.32 If militant groups siphon off aid, the
United States has not only lost money but also indirectly funded instability in target
countries. Ensuring proper aid allocation is difficult given the numerous ways resources
can be diverted.
•
Halted development progress. Militant groups seek to accomplish political goals through
armed violence. Frequent acts of violent extremism destabilize social order; donors halt
operations or switch from providing development to humanitarian aid. Despite the $196
million spent on stabilization operations in 2013, Somalia remains insecure.33 In 2013,
the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) left Somalia after 22
years of service because an “acceptance of violence against health workers has permeated
Somali society.”34 Al-Shabaab militants took over MSF’s hospital and stole supplies and
equipment after MSF announced its withdrawal.35
•
Disrupted business environment. Foreign assistance has long been defended as a strategy
to create new markets for U.S. exports and improve the global economic environment in
which U.S. companies compete.36 If implemented effectively, foreign aid can increase
economic opportunities for U.S. companies. In 2014, 11 of the United States’ top 15
trading partners are former recipients of U.S. foreign assistance.37 If implemented without
rigorous evaluation, however, foreign aid may cause instability, which disrupts business.
In 2013, the Maplecroft Political Risk Atlas analyzed the impact of political instability on
business environments and reported that 1 in 10 countries have experienced a significant
increase in short-term political risk since 2010, which threatens U.S. economic
interests.38
6
If the United States understands the consequences of foreign aid, it can support allies and secure
commercial interests abroad. Otherwise, political pressure could force Washington to reduce the
foreign aid budget, leaving aid providers and recipients with fewer resources to distribute
effective foreign assistance.
Undermines Support for Future Development Efforts
In 2013, Secretary Kerry observed that “there is no greater guaranteed applause line than to
promise to cut the State Department and USAID’s budget.”39 Although foreign assistance
constitutes approximately 1 percent of the federal budget, 30 percent of Americans said that this
amount is “too much.”40 Congressmen have difficulty supporting foreign aid when their
constituents believe that the United States is “providing aid to the enemy.”41
A lack of public support can lead to reductions in the foreign aid budget. Drastic cuts are risky,
however. Research shows that a sudden decline in foreign aid flows increases the likelihood of
violent armed conflict in recipient countries.42 Although U.S. aid may exacerbate militant
activity in some locations, it has also improved many people’s lives and remains an important
foreign policy tool. In Afghanistan, one of the most unstable foreign aid recipients, USAID has
constructed over 26,000 wells and allowed approximately 105,000 students to access education
in rural areas.43 Successful aid projects ensure continued public support for U.S. foreign
assistance.
Counterproductive foreign aid could undermine U.S. national security, economic, and diplomatic
interests. U.S. foreign assistance may have localized effects on domestic security conditions that
are often overlooked by more traditional, macro-level evaluations. Using Geographic
Information Systems to map where aid is allocated and where militant violence occurs is an
inexpensive method that will eventually allow the United States to provide more effective
foreign assistance.
The Role of GIS in Analyzing Security and Foreign Aid
A deeper understanding of allocation patterns is useful to…agencies concerned with how
aid can help developing countries prevent, alleviate, resolve, and rebuild from violent
conflict.
- “Giving and Receiving Foreign Aid: Does Conflict Count?”44
The United States recently realized the importance of improved foreign aid data. In 2013,
Congress introduced the Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act (FATAA). FATAA
calls for “rigorous evaluations” of foreign aid programs and requires agencies to report
information to the Foreign Assistance Dashboard, an online resource of foreign assistance
expenditures.45 FATAA was introduced as a bipartisan effort and passed in the House with a vote
of 390-0.46
7
While the success of FATAA illustrates the demand for improved foreign assistance data, the
United States can further expand its efforts to better understand how aid may exacerbate militant
activity in recipient countries. To this end, Washington needs to identify where aid is delivered—
from bilateral economic assistance and funding for NGOs to donations of goods—and where
militant violence occurs. The United States needs high quality, current georeferenced data, that
is, information that contains the geographic coordinates of aid projects and militant activity.
Militants interact with aid projects on the ground in multiple ways. Plotting these data on a map
can reveal potential hotspots.
The Basics of GIS and Georeferenced Data
Analyzing georeferenced data requires a geographic information system (GIS). GIS incorporates
hardware, software, data, and users and can create, store, manage, edit, analyze, visualize, and
export georeferenced information.
To create a database of georeferenced aid projects and militant attacks, researchers attach
geographic coordinates to each project or violent incident. The precision of the geographic
coordinates is dependent on the amount of information provided in donor reports or news
articles. Furthermore, mapping bilateral financial flows is imperfect unless donors know where
the recipient country distributed the aid. However, more concerted efforts by donors and
recipients to increase transparency will mitigate this problem. Tracking militant attacks is
simpler; researchers can code news reports and add the data to an existing database.
Databases store information about each project, including the funding agency, type of project,
implementing agency, and amount. Once these data are collected, they are uploaded into GIS
software. To analyze how aid influences militancy, a GIS specialist maps data in one of two
ways: as points or as polygons.
•
Point data. Aid projects and incidents of militant violence, such as the construction of a
hospital or an attack on an embassy, are plotted using their latitudes and longitudes.47
These can be superimposed on existing maps of recipient countries’ characteristics,
including population density, income levels, and access to public transportation. For
example, in Figure 1, the circles represent locations where World Bank health projects
were implemented. Statistical tests for analyzing point data compare the distances
between projects and attacks and measure how the data cluster. Point data are particularly
useful for revealing trends or potential hotspots where aid projects and militant attacks
frequently coincide. While this relationship does not prove causality, it could be a useful
indicator of an underlying relationship.
•
Polygon data. In studies of aid projects and incidents of armed conflict, polygon data are
an aggregation of the point data in a defined geographic area.48 A researcher counts the
number of aid projects and attacks that occurred in a district. These numbers give that
district a certain weight and can be symbolized by different colors. For example, in
Figure 1, the districts in Kenya are shaded according to the prevalence of HIV; darker
colors indicate higher levels of HIV in those regions. Statistical analyses compare aid
flows to levels of violence as they change over time or between districts. Aggregating
8
data to the province level decreases the precision, but more data on province
characteristics exist, making comparisons easier.49
GIS is a tool that will allow the United States to visualize and analyze aid projects and incidents
of militant violence. Georeferenced data’s full potential remains untapped.
Figure 1: Map of HIV Prevalence and Distribution of World Bank Health Projects in Kenya50
Advantages of Georeferenced Data and GIS
Mapping georeferenced data is useful because it helps uncover trends that would not be apparent
in spreadsheets or reports. More specifically, GIS technology is valuable because it allows
experts to analyze data with geographic coordinates and to display patterns, making it easier to
visualize complex relationships between aid and militancy.51
Development actors agree that subnational, project-level data are an improvement over aggregate
data.52 These georeferenced data illustrate how distributions of aid or violence change over
time.53 Additionally, the location of foreign aid projects can be compared to conditions on the
ground, including the poverty level and beneficiaries’ access to water, electricity, or education.
These geographic attributes influence a project’s success. Knowing where a project is
implemented provides more information than would simply evaluating the project type or
amount. Combining attributes of foreign aid projects and militant attacks on a map is invaluable
because patterns emerge that were not evident through traditional methods.
9
Previous Aid Research Efforts
Since 2010, AidData, a research and innovation lab at the College of William & Mary, has
mapped over 2,500 active World Bank projects in 144 countries, 183 African Development
Projects in 43 countries, and approximately 80 percent of all external donor funding to Malawi
and Uganda.54 In conjunction with the Uppsala Data Conflict Program (UDCP), it developed a
coding methodology to pinpoint whether foreign assistance flowed to the entire country, to one
or several districts, or to a specific geographic location.55 In 2012, AidData received a $25
million grant from USAID to “geocode,” or assign geographic coordinates to, the agency’s
projects and to leverage newly georeferenced data to conduct research in seven areas of
development.56
AidData receives project-level data from foreign governments willing to share information on
the donations they receive and where they distribute funding. The government of Malawi, for
example, uses a software system called an Aid Management Platform (AMP) that tracks funding
from Malawi’s 28 bilateral and multilateral donors.57 It is in the strategic interest of the United
States to incentivize more recipient governments to publish the locations of their foreign aid
distributions. These data are necessary for exploring the aid-militancy relationship more
comprehensively. Although AidData has laid the foundation for creating transparent and
accessible georeferenced aid, it is imperative that decision makers transform this new knowledge
into effective policy.
Previous Security Research Efforts
Georeferenced data on violent armed acts already exist but are spread out among several
different research institutions. In 2013, the National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of
Terrorist Events, sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security, released the BFRS
Political Violence in Pakistan dataset, which includes 28,731 incidents of political violence from
January 1988 through May 2011.58 The dataset includes many different types of violence, which
allows analysts to study the overall increase in violence in Pakistan over the last decade.59 Other
research projects include Mapping Militant Organizations at Stanford University, the Armed
Conflict Location and Event Dataset (ACLED), which provides monthly conflict data from 1997
to 2014, and the Institute for the Study of Violent Groups, which contains information on
approximately 223,000 incidents.60
The policy and academic communities need to increase their coordination and data sharing
efforts. Although rare, there is a precedent for coordinated GIS efforts. During the reconstruction
of Iraq, the United States employed GIS to map the location of land mines, roads, and other
infrastructure near terrorist operations. Agencies including the Department of Defense, USAID,
the Army Corps of Engineers, and private companies shared information using GIS.61
The United States has the opportunity to take advantage of the wealth of existing data on militant
operations and project-level aid. Better coordination among the security, development, and
academic communities will allow policy makers and scholars to leverage GIS technology to
explore the relationship between militancy and foreign aid.
10
A Need for Coordination
Given the critical importance of its foreign assistance, it is surprising that the United States has
not completed more comprehensive studies on the security implications of aid. In one of the first
studies using georeferenced aid data, researchers compared where aid projects and armed
conflict occurred in Sierra Leone, Angola, and Mozambique. The study reached different
conclusions for each country but provided visuals that illustrated how battle locations changed as
aid flows to the recipient government changed.62 While this research is only suggestive, it
“[takes] a step in the direction of being able to separate out these theoretical mechanisms.”63 This
study is a useful first attempt at tracking aid and conflict and should be expanded to protect U.S.
national security interests.
The benefits of GIS greatly increase when agencies pool and share information.64 The
Department of State and USAID used GIS information to map destroyed villages in Darfur,
Sudan but noted that this report would have been more effective had there been a “regular use of
a GIS system to continually update information as it was acquired.”65 The relationship between
aid recipients’ security and inflows of U.S. funds is critically important and merits closer
examination using GIS and georeferenced data.
Policy Recommendation: Expand GIS Research to Track Aid and Militancy
During a time of global financial austerity, innovative solutions that accomplish more
with fewer resources will be central to success.
- Johan Bergenas, Brian Finlay, World Politics Review66
As its development strategies evolve, the United States should understand how its aid projects
affect security conditions on the ground. The open data movement has already gained traction in
the U.S. government and has become part of USAID’s reform and innovation strategy.67
Furthermore, USAID has recognized the importance of georeferenced data. In 2012, USAID
established the Higher Education Solutions Network, a community of academic research labs, to
better inform its policy making decisions. AidData joined this network and created the AidData
Research Consortium to provide experts with newly georeferenced data.68
While this partnership has laid the foundation for more and improved GIS research, AidData
should expand its current areas of study to pinpoint potential hotspots of militant activity. With
tightening budgets, the United States cannot afford to allocate aid that does not prevent (and
might even exacerbate) militant activity in recipient countries. Collecting more and better
georeferenced data is a cost-effective strategy to fully understand how militancy threatens U.S.
national security and to help the United States deliver smarter, more effective foreign aid.
Strategic Plan for Expanding Use of Geographic Data
AidData has the capacity to expand its current GIS work. Because the aid-security relationship is
critically important, the defense and development communities can no longer afford to work in
11
isolation. Analyzing the aid-militancy relationship can be accomplished by (1) continuing to
collect, improve, and geocode information on foreign aid and militant activity, (2) combining
international security, development, and academic expertise, and (3) distributing reports to
NGOs and international donors in order to promote more strategic allocation strategies.
1. Continue collecting and improving aid and militant attack data. AidData should expand
its existing databases to include all forms of U.S. foreign assistance, including military
assistance. A key component of FATAA would require the government to publish its
security assistance expenditures, allowing AidData to access these data. AidData also
should consolidate existing databases on militant violence. Furthermore, with more Aid
Management Platforms, the United States can improve its ability to “follow the money”
and track how and where recipient governments distribute bilateral economic assistance.
Increased transparency will help reveal how government spending could provoke
violence. In partnership with USAID, AidData should also geocode foreign aid flows to
countries of strategic interest, such as Iraq and Afghanistan.
The ultimate goal is for the United States to track allocations of foreign aid and reports of
militant violence in recipient countries in real time. Expanding existing GIS capabilities
would involve improving maps of infrastructure and land cover in developing countries, a
task that remote satellite imagery has rendered cost-efficient.
2. Combine military, development, and academic expertise. Allocating effective foreign
assistance requires a holistic approach. AidData should hold conferences with military
experts, development officials, Research Consortium scholars, and professionals from
USAID’s GeoCenter, a bureau created in 2011 to conduct more GIS research. These
experts can discuss how militants might have accessed aid allocated in a specific location
or how the recipient government’s expenditures, or lack thereof, could have motivated
militants to act. Together, they can propose more innovative solutions for U.S. foreign
assistance allocations.
3. Distribute open-access maps and reports to NGOs and other donors. Geocoded foreign
assistance data can be plotted on a map and easily shared among donors and stakeholders
in recipient countries. The efforts of the United States to gather more systematic
geographic information on aid and violent militant acts can be a model for other donors.
By releasing maps to foreign aid agencies, the United States should encourage others to
collect better data and, together, more strategically allocate foreign aid to address the
causes of militancy.
To better understand how aid affects militancy in target countries, the United States needs to
analyze foreign aid in a more systematic manner. AidData should geocode all U.S. foreign aid,
including military assistance, focusing particularly on countries of strategic interest. After
combining the expertise of security and development analysts, the United States can distribute its
findings to NGOs and other donors to promote more effective aid allocation.
While many policy makers and scholars have considered the potential link between foreign aid
and traditional armed conflict, few have explored the link that may exist between aid flows and
12
militancy. This effort is strategically important for U.S. national security. However, the
movement towards collecting more and better geocoded data to map and track aid projects and
violence may raise concerns.
First, like any data-based analysis, GIS research can prove a correlation between events, but it
cannot prove that one directly causes the other. Ultimately, however, this concern is overstated
because GIS research is a cost-effective alternative to the status quo, in which the United States
spends billions of dollars in recipient countries that continue to experience militant violence.
Additionally, collecting more and better data increases the transparency and accountability of
foreign aid expenditures by recipient governments and the United States.
Second, some critics worry that maps are “a cheap visual aid” and that USAID has more pressing
concerns than collecting georeferenced data.69 Again, this concern is overdrawn because the
ultimate goal of mapping foreign aid and militant violence data is to be able to track allocations
and events in real time. A better understanding of foreign aid and militancy would serve the
national interest of the United States.
Conclusion
The United States faces two major challenges in its current foreign aid strategy: preventing
militant violence and understanding how the geographic distribution of aid projects affects
militant motivations. If the United States does not address these concerns, its foreign assistance
could undermine national security goals, waste economic resources, and undo years of
development efforts. Therefore, the United States should invest in GIS technology and collect
more and better data on its and the foreign aid allocations of recipient countries. Mapping where
aid projects are in relation to where militants act could reveal trends that are difficult to see when
relying solely on reports. This strategy is cost-effective and yields several benefits for the United
States, including the ability to more easily coordinate with other providers and promote
transparency and accountability.
With rising competition from non-traditional donors, such as China, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, the
United States cannot ignore the consequences of misused or misallocated aid. Instead, the United
States must track where and to whom the growing universe of donors give aid. In this age of
technology, the United States can take advantage of GIS technology to recognize the red flags of
violence and to find more innovative solutions in the security and development arenas.
13
1
Steven Stotsky, “Does Foreign Aid Fuel Palestinian Violence?,” The Middle East Quarterly 15 (Summer 2008):
23.
2
Marian Leonardo Lawson, Does Foreign Aid Work? Efforts to Evaluate U.S. Foreign Assistance, CRS Report
R42827 (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, February 14, 2013).
3
Steven Radelet, “Bush and Foreign Aid,” Foreign Affairs 82 (September/October 2003): 105.
4
Department of State, Executive Budget Summary: Function 150 & Other International Programs, Fiscal Year
2014. 2 (2013) (statement of Secretary of State John Kerry).
5
The United States provides foreign assistance through a variety of agencies. Three major categories of U.S. foreign
aid exist: development and humanitarian, strategic political, and security assistance. Identifying the purpose and
method of implementation of each type of U.S. aid is important because their distinct goals may affect militants’
motivations in similar yet distinguishable ways. Within each category, specific agencies fund and implement foreign
aid projects.
1. Development and humanitarian purposes. Development and humanitarian assistance, designed to reduce
poverty and alleviate suffering in recipient countries, made up 53 percent of the total foreign assistance budget
in fiscal year (FY) 2010 and is implemented mainly by the U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID) and the Department of State (DoS).
2. Strategic and political purposes. Aid for strategic and political purposes made up 25 percent of the FY2010
foreign assistance budget and was spent mainly on the Economic Support Fund. Since 9/11, this fund has
supported recipient countries fighting against terrorism, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. However,
this type of foreign assistance is often indistinguishable from development aid. In 2007, 93 percent of strategic
and political assistance was carried out by USAID.
3. Security purposes. Aid for security purposes can be allocated through civilian or military channels. The DoS
manages accounts that address the underlying development- or humanitarian-related causes of terrorism, drug
trafficking, and nuclear proliferation. The DoS also manages military accounts that provide recipients with U.S.
equipment, training, and peacekeeping support. Israel and Egypt are the primary beneficiaries.
For more, see Curt Tarnoff and Marian Leonardo Lawson, Foreign Aid: An Introduction to U.S. Programs and
Policy, CRS Report R40213 (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, April 20,
2012).
6
There is no universal definition of militancy or militant organizations. This white paper employs the term militancy
to distinguish organized armed attacks by a sub-state group from criminal acts or sustained civil conflict. While
some scholars have begun exploring the relationship between aid and conflict, few have looked at the implications
for militant groups, which operate at a more sophisticated level than criminal activity and who do not necessarily
want to engage in prolonged conflict. For more uses of the term “militant groups,” see “Counterinsurgency in
Pakistan,” RAND, http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2010/RAND_MG982.pdf; Bob Collins,
“Militant vs. Insurgent,” MPR News, January 18, 2008,
http://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2008/01/militant_vs_insurgent_1/.
7
Tarnoff and Lawson, Foreign Aid.
8
Arshad Ali, “Militancy and socioeconomic problems: a case study of Pakistan,” Institute of Strategic Studies
Islamabad Reflections, no. 4 (2010): 4; William Easterly, “Can Foreign Aid Buy Growth?,” The Journal of
Economic Perspectives 17 (Summer 2003): 26.
9
Daniel Byman, “Webchat: The Ongoing War on Terrorism,” Brookings Institute, July 21, 2010,
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2010/07/21-terrorism-chat.
10
Lawson, Does Foreign Aid Work?.
11
Ibid.
12
Carol Lancaster, George Bush’s Foreign Aid: Transformation or Chaos? (Baltimore: Brookings Institute Press,
2008): 3.
13
“Education can suffer when line between security and development is blurred, UNESCO report warns,” United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, March 1, 2011,
http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/ED/pdf/gmr2011-press-release-militarization.pdf.
14
An interesting aid-conflict relationship exists in Somaliland, a semi-autonomous region of Somalia. Somalia has
received U.S. foreign assistance since the Ethio-Somali war in the 1970s. In 1991, the central government collapsed,
14
and al-Shabaab, the Islamic militant group that claimed responsibility for the 2013 Westgate Mall attacks in Kenya,
took over much of the capital. While U.S. foreign aid to Somalia did not directly cause the government collapse,
where it was allocated may have exacerbated al-Shabaab’s motivations to organize. Furthermore, Somaliland
receives no government-to-government foreign aid yet has remained relatively stable. In 2005, Somaliland’s rival
political parties coexisted peacefully. For more information, see Nicholas Eubank, “Peace-Building without External
Assistance: Lessons from Somalia” (working paper, Center for Global Development, 2010),
http://www.cgdev.org/files/1423538_file_Eubank_Somaliland_FINAL.pdf.
15
Jeffrey Gettleman and Neil Macfarquhar, “Somalia Food Aid Bypasses Needy, U.N. Study Says,” New York
Times, March 9, 2010, accessed March 27, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/world/africa/10somalia.html.
16
Ibid.
17
“Somalia: Government Diverting Arms to Al-Shabab, UN Report Claims,” Shabelle Media Network, February 15,
2014, accessed March 27, 2014, http://allafrica.com/stories/201402160157.html.
18
Ibid.
19
Foreign Aid and the Fight Against Terrorism and Proliferation: Leveraging Foreign Aid to Achieve U.S. Policy
Goals: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, 110th Cong. (2008) (statement
of Congressman Brad Sherman).
20
Newt Gingrich and Ken Hagerty, “Free Cities,” American Enterprise Institute, August 19, 2010,
http://www.aei.org/article/foreign-and-defense-policy/free-cities/.
21
Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development, Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development
Review, Leading Through Civilian Power. 21. (2010).
22
This attack was not the first foreign aid project that frustrated the Afghan citizens. In 2010, militants killed 21
people involved in a road construction project. Both the Taliban and the local citizens opposed the road because it
would allow troops to travel more easily throughout the region and because the PRT had ignored the villagers’
desire for a school and a health clinic. For more, see David Kilcullen, Out of the Mountains: The Coming of Age of
the Urban Guerilla (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013): 10-11.
23
Carol Graham, “Can Foreign Aid Help Stop Terrorism,” Brookings Institute, 2002,
http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2002/06/summer-terrorism-graham.
24
Kevin Watkins and Rebecca Winthrop, “What Focusing on Drones and Detention Misses,” Brookings Institute,
April 20, 2012, http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2012/04/20-terrorism-winthrop-watkins.
25
Kilcullen, Out of the Mountains, 10-11.
26
“Mali,” National Democratic Institute, https://www.ndi.org/mali.
27
Walter Pincus, “Mali insurgency followed 10 years of U.S. counterterrorism programs,” Washington Post,
January 16, 2013, accessed February 24, 2014, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/maliinsurgency-followed-10-years-of-us-counterterrorism-programs/2013/01/16/a43f2d32-601e-11e2-a389ee565c81c565_story.html?hpid=z9; Department of State, “Signing Ceremony for Millennium Challenge
Corporation’s Compact with the Republic of Mali,” U.S. Department of State Archive (2006) (statement of
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice), http://2001-2009.state.gov/secretary/rm/2006/75871.htm.
28
Tom Gjelten, “Afghan War Could Spill Over Into Central Asia,” NPR News, December 31, 2009, accessed
February 17, 2014, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121973427.
29
Jeff Moore, “Yemen’s Wars Intensify,” United Press International, December 27, 2013, accessed February 17,
2014, http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Analysis/Outside-View/2013/12/27/Yemens-wars-intensify/UPI58621388158777/.
30
“Yemen,” ForeignAssistance.gov,
http://www.foreignassistance.gov/web/OU.aspx?FY=2014&OUID=237&AgencyID=0&FromRGA=true&budTab=t
ab_Bud_Planned.
31
Department of State, Executive Budget Summary: Function 150 & Other International Programs, Fiscal Year
2014. 1 (2013) (statement of Secretary of State John Kerry).
32
Mary Anderson, Do No Harm: How Aid Can Support Peace–Or War (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999):
39.
33
“Somalia,” ForeignAssistance.gov,
http://www.foreignassistance.gov/web/OU.aspx?OUID=187&FY=2013&AgencyID=1&budTab=tab_Bud_Planned
&tabID=tab_sct_Peace_Planned.
34
Rick Gladstone, “Central African Republic: Violence Forces Aid Group to Curtail Work,” New York Times,
January 2, 2014, accessed March 14, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/03/world/africa/central-african-
15
republic-violence-forces-aid-group-to-curtail-work.html; Unni Karunakara, “Why MSF Left Somalia,” Medecins
Sans Frontieres, August 20, 2013, http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/article/why-msf-left-somalia.
35
Unni Karunakara, “Why MSF Left Somalia,” Medecins Sans Frontieres, August 20, 2013,
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/article/why-msf-left-somalia.
36
Tarnoff and Lawson, Foreign Aid.
37
Department of State, Executive Budget Summary: Function 150 & Other International Programs, Fiscal Year
2014. 1 (2013) (statement of John Kerry, Secretary of State),
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/207305.pdf.
38
Sophie Brown, “Report: Political instability on the rise,” CNN, December 12, 2013, accessed February 6, 2014,
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/12/11/business/maplecroft-political-risk/.
39
Department of State, Executive Budget Summary: Function 150 & Other International Programs, Fiscal Year
2014. 1 (2013) (statement of John Kerry, Secretary of State).
40
“2013 Survey of Americans on the U.S. Role in Global Health,” Kaiser Foundation, November 7, 2013,
http://kff.org/global-health-policy/poll-finding/2013-survey-of-americans-on-the-u-s-role-in-global-health/.
41
Foreign Aid and the Fight Against Terrorism and Proliferation: Leveraging Foreign Aid to Achieve U.S. Policy
Goals: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, 110th Cong. (2008) (statement
of Congressman Brad Sherman).
42
Richard A. Nielsen, Michael G. Findley, Zachary S. Davis, Tara Candland, Daniel L. Nielson, “Foreign Aid
Shocks as a Cause of Violent Armed Conflict,” American Journal of Political Science 55 (2011): 219.
43
“Infrastructure,” USAID, Last updated March 23, 2014 http://www.usaid.gov/afghanistan/infrastructure;
“Education,” USAID, Last updated March 24, 2014 http://www.usaid.gov/afghanistan/education.
44
Eliana Balla and Gina Reinhardt, “Giving and Receiving Foreign Aid: Does Conflict Count?,” World
Development 36 (2008): 2567.
45
For more information on FATAA, see George Ingram, “The Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act: A
Nonpartisan Bill that Upholds the Core Principles of Good Government,” Brookings Institute, July 10, 2013,
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2013/07/10-foreign-aid-transparency-accountability-act-ingram. For
more on the Foreign Assistance Dashboard, see “ForeignAssistance.gov,” U.S. Federal Government,
http://www.foreignassistance.gov/web/default.aspx.
46
Beth Schwanke, “FATAA and the Typhoon – Could the Foreign Transparency and Accountability Act Help the
US Help the Phillipines Better,” Center for Global Development, November 15, 2013,
http://www.cgdev.org/blog/fataa-and-typhoon-%E2%80%93-could-foreign-aid-transparency-and-accountability-acthelp-us-help.
47
Daniel Strandow, Michael Findley, Daniel Nielson, and Josh Powell, “The UCDP-AidData codebook on Georeferencing Foreign Aid,” Version 1.1, 2011. Uppsala Conflict Data Program. Uppsala, Sweden: Uppsala
University, http://aiddata.org/sites/default/files/ucdp_aiddata_codebook_published.pdf.
48
Michael G. Findley, Josh Powell, Daniel Strandow, and Jeff Tanner, “The Localized Geography of Foreign Aid:
A New Dataset and Application to Violent Armed Conflict,” World Development 39 (2011): 1996.
49
Findley, Powell, Strandow, and Tanner, “The Localized Geography,” 1998.
50
Daniel Strandow, Michael Findley, Daniel Nielson, and Josh Powell, “The UCDP-AidData codebook on Georeferencing Foreign Aid,” version 1.1, 2011. Uppsala Conflict Data Program. Uppsala, Sweden: Uppsala University;
The Demographic and Health Surveys Program, “Kenya, Standard DHS, 2008-09,” 2010. The Demographic and
Health Surveys Program, Rockville, Maryland; Global Administrative Areas, “GADM database of Global
Administrative Areas,” version 2.0, 2012, www.gadm.org. Map created by Robert C. Harris, College of William &
Mary, April 7, 2014.
51
“What is GIS?,” Esri, http://www.esri.com/what-is-gis/overview#overview_panel.
52
Laia Grino, “What We’re Hoping to See in the Next Release of USAID Data,” InterAction, October 10, 2013,
http://www.interaction.org/blog/what-we%E2%80%99re-hoping-see-next-release-usaid-data; Charles Brigham,
Steven Gilbert, and Qiyang Xu, “Open Geospatial Data: An Assessment of Global Boundary Datasets,” World
Bank, April 2, 2013, http://maps.worldbank.org/content/article/open-geospatial-data-assessment-global-boundarydatasets.
53
Clionadh Raleigh, Frank Witmer, and John O’Loughlin, “A Review and Assessment of Spatial Analysis and
Conflict: The Geography of War,” University of Colorado Boulder,
http://www.colorado.edu/ibs/pec/johno/pub/compendium.pdf.
54
“Geocoded Datasets,” AidData, http://aiddata.org/geocoded-datasets.
16
55
Daniel Strandow, Michael Findley, Daniel Nielson, and Josh Powell, “The UCDP and AidData codebook on
georeferencing aid Version 1.1,” AidData, 2011,
http://aiddata.org/sites/default/files/ucdp_aiddata_codebook_published.pdf.
56
“College of William and Mary AidData Center for Development Policy,” USAID,
http://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/15396/William%20and%20Mary%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf.
57
“AMP Malawi,” Development Gateway, http://www.developmentgateway.org/about/Case-Studies/AMP-Malawi.
58
“The BFRS Political Violence in Pakistan Dataset,” ESOC, https://esoc.princeton.edu/files/bfrs-political-violencepakistan-dataset.
59
Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, Christine Fair, Jenna Jordan, Rasul Ras, and Jacob Shapiro, “The BFRS Political
Violence in Pakistan Dataset,” (working paper, ESOC, 2013), https://esoc.princeton.edu/files/bfrs-political-violencepakistan-dataset-0.
60
“Mapping Militant Organizations,” Stanford University, http://www.stanford.edu/group/mappingmilitants/cgibin/; “Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset,” ACLED, http://www.acleddata.com/; “Institute for the Study of
Violent Groups”, ISVG, https://www.isvg.org/.
61
Carol Christian, “Challenges: Adopting GIS for Diplomacy and Foreign Policy,” Esri,
http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/feduc05/docs/pap181.pdf.
62
Findley, Powell, Strandow, and Tanner, “The Localized Geography,” 1995.
63
Findley, Powell, Strandow, and Tanner, “The Localized Geography,” 1999.
64
“FGDC Framework,” Federal Geographic Data Committee, Last updated February 2, 2012,
https://www.fgdc.gov/framework/handbook/benefits.
65
Christian, “Challenges.”
66
Johan Bergenas and Brian Finlay, “Bridging the Security-Development Divide in Southeast Asia,” World Politics
Review, October 14, 2011, http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/10336/bridging-the-security-developmentdivide-in-southeast-asia.
67
“USAID Forward,” USAID, Last updated April 7, 2014, http://www.usaid.gov/usaidforward.
68
“College of William and Mary AidData Center for Development Policy,” USAID,
http://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/15396/William%20and%20Mary%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf.
69
Joshua Foust, “Colorful Maps: The Military’s Costly Weapon in the War in Afghanistan,” The Atlantic, August 5,
2011, http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/08/colorful-maps-the-militarys-costly-weapon-in-the-warin-afghanistan/243173/.
17