Macro managing

Washington Monthly, March, 2007 by Ronald A. Schwarz

Micro credit and other community-based projects play a role in alleviating poverty and suffering ("Tilting at Windmills," by Charles Peters, December 2006). They are not, however, long-term solutions. After a stint in the Peace Corps and more than forty years in Latin America and Africa, I would recommend the use of foreign aid to establish and strengthen universities throughout the developing world. That would accelerate the production of local scientists, businessmen, teachers, politicians, and scholars who could lead and manage the development process. The World Bank, USAID, and other donor agencies have failed to make this type of investment. Until human resource development becomes the focus of foreign aid, its major beneficiaries will remain foreign aid entrepreneurs and bureaucrats based in the United States and Europe.

DR. RONALD A. SCHWARZ

Returned Peace Corps Volunteer

Colombia One, 1961-63