Trainer: Will Travel

Training & Development, April, 2001 by Ann C. Logue

People have it pretty good in the United States. There hasn't been a war on U.S. territory since 1865, the economy is booming, and the standard of living is one of the best in the world. America even managed to squeak through a hotly contested presidential election without bloodshed.

Now, think of people in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Much of the rest of the world is trying desperately to achieve even a fraction of the quality of life in the United States. The U.S. government, working through the U.S. Agency for International Development, helps by promoting economic, political, and social development around the world. The budget for USAID is $7.5 billion per year--a lot of money, though it's less than one-half of 1 percent of the federal budget. Relative to many other industrialized countries, the United States doesn't spend much on foreign aid. Nevertheless, $7.5 billion is substantial, and most of it is explicitly or implicitly earmarked for training.

"That's the goal of development," says Joseph Schultz, press officer with USAID. "We want to train people so that they can sustain the programs once USAID's part is over."

The importance of sustainability to USAID's mission creates opportunities for trainers--individuals intrigued by development as a career and firms that are willing and able to handle government contracts. This article gives you a chance to review how training skills are put to use to help countries improve their democracies and economies, as well as point you to places that offer more information.

"The people [in the development community] are some of the most honest, intellectual, and hard working you'll ever come across," says Jonathan Darling, director of business development with the Training Resources Group Inc., an Alexandria, Virginia-based training and organization development consulting firm that does significant work for USAID. "They have a real passion for what they do."

Working in a developing country isn't exactly a vacation. But if you think you're up to the task, read on.

USAID is the main U.S. government clearinghouse for foreign aid, managing $7.5 billion of the $9.2 billion that the United States spends on nonmilitary, nonagricultural aid each year. The agency is charged with these objectives:

* Alleviate poverty.

* Help countries make a governmental transition after a civil conflict.

* Provide humanitarian relief after a crisis such as a natural or human-made disaster.

Other organizations, such as the World Bank, fund development projects, but they work more or less independently of the U.S. government.

The agency emerged after World War II in the wake of European reconstruction, particularly the Marshall Plan and other foreign aid projects inspired by the Marshall Plan's success. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed the Foreign Assistance Act into law, which created USAID to consolidate various government programs. The agency, which handles contract administration, has headquarters in Washington, D.C., and field missions around the world. Most of the programs are conducted not by USAID employees, but by for-profit companies and not-for-profit organizations working under contract.

The projects center on the following strategic goals:

* Achieve economic growth and agricultural development.

* Build sustainable democracies and human capacity through education and training.

* Stabilize world population and protect human health.

* Manage the environment for long-term sustainability.

* Promote humanitarian assistance.

Education and training are goals in themselves and are also crucial to the promotion and attainment of the strategic goals just listed.

USAID operates in four regions of the world: Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Near East, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe and Eurasia. But the focus of the work varies widely from place to place. In the countries of the former Soviet Union, for example, the emphasis is on developing a free market economy, educating citizens about their rights and responsibilities, and setting up effective local governments. For the most part, the Russian population is highly educated; it just doesn't know much about democratic systems.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, basic health care and AIDS prevention are the focus of most USAID-funded efforts. In addition to the life and death nature of the work, trainers deal with people who may have little formal education or may not be literate.

Guided by the idea that improving human performance will assure the sustainability of USAID's technical projects, as well as accelerate economic growth in an emerging country, almost all of the contracts include local training requirements. When USAID is spending $7.5 billion each year on international aid, it wants to ensure that the programs will be effective for years to come.

"Our missions have the long-term goal of pulling out of these countries once goals are reached," says Schultz. For example, last September, USAID closed its missions in Poland, Slovakia, and Lithuania because the local participants could keep the programs operational without USAID's assistance.