In light of a newly-announced plan, Reem Nafie asks USAID Egypt Director Kenneth C Ellis where the money will go American aid to Egypt has always been a sensitive topic. With this week's high profile announcement of a change in the way that money is distributed, the stakes seem to have been raised. USAID administrator Andrew Natsios' statement about the Egyptian government no longer having the right to block aid money from going to groups it may not approve of, has further complicated the ongoing debate over whether or not the US is meddling in internal Egyptian politics. Last week's visit by US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zollick, and his meetings with a number of non- governmental organisations to inform them of the change in policy, has also inspired questions about who will receive this aid, and how. The timing of the policy change -- in the lead up to this fall's parliamentary and presidential elections -- has also been especially sensitive. Some would say that by changing the rules of the USAID process, you are crossing the fine line between advocating democracy and interfering in internal affairs... I don't think there is a fine line at all; none of the organisations that we fund are involved in any way in meddling in internal affairs. What we are doing is simply responding to requests by the people of Egypt as expressed through NGOs that want to be more involved in issues surrounding the elections in Egypt. I think that in many instances the "boogey man" of meddling in internal affairs is nothing more than a "boogey man" -- it's not real, it's a good excuse for not wanting to allow legitimate Egyptian organisations to exercise their right to look at the elections, and report what is happening to Egyptian citizens. Why did USAID decide to change the system? Because we feel that many organisations in Egypt prefer not to get their money through the government; they would like a level of independence, and that is what an NGO is all about -- they do not depend on the government for support, and they [the government] are aware that there are a number of organisations out there, and we feel that we can fulfill that need like many other countries in the world that operate in Egypt that provide assistance directly to organisations. Egypt receives $1.3 billion in military aid annually, in addition to $495 million in funds for civilian programmes. Of that, you have earmarked $50 million for the advancement of democracy and $50 million for education. How will this money be distributed by the new system? We have an agreement with the government of Egypt to provide direct funding to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to do specific activities in the areas of democracy and governance. [We] invite NGOs to send in proposals, and those that have merit are funded. Because we are so close to the elections, several of the proposals that we have received over the past months have been oriented towards providing assistance in areas such as training for NGOs that want to do domestic election observation, [and] training in reporting on elections. Those are the general areas, and they have a mixture of local NGOs and internationally-recognised organisations like the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the International Foundation for Election Support, the Council for Judicial Studies, all of which are working with NGO civil society organisations to train people, [and] inform the Egyptian population on important aspects of the election. The first emphasis of course will be on the presidential and then the parliamentary election. So the timing of the policy change is key? There is no doubt that there is an increased interest in democratisation throughout the Middle East, and I think this is part of our foreign policy, which is to try to create more space for civil society in many countries; so Egypt is not alone. What do you expect the policy shift -- giving money directly to NGOs -- to achieve? Egyptian civil society -- those organisations that are non-governmental and represent the Egyptian citizen -- will be strengthened to the point where they can actually carry out activities [like] elections observation, training people, helping people get their electoral card, and the press reporting in a fair manner about the elections. All we are trying to do is strengthen the capability of people to do these things. What happens is that Egyptian citizens become better informed of what's going on in their own country, they are more able to participate personally in such things as elections, make up their minds whether candidate X has better ideas than candidate Y. I think the [decision] that presidential elections are going to be open for anybody to run is wonderful -- all we have to do is put that into actual action. Let [people] stand out and tell the people of Egypt what they stand for and, if they are elected, what they are going to do. That is the system that we think works, and there are obviously many people in Egypt who believe that too, so we want to help them to actually see that true definition. There are claims that Ayman Nour and Al-Ghad Party are or will be beneficiaries of USAID... We are not providing any assistance to Ayman Nour's organisation. We do not provide funding to an individual's political party. Even if we were to create a party-strengthening activity, we will not go to one political party or candidate, and tell them "We want to support you" versus somebody else. What we will do is say that if there are political parties in general that want to partake [in assistance programmes] in things like how to run a campaign, or how to structure your message to get to the audience, we will. Otherwise we do not provide money to political parties or individuals. Were there any reservations on the government's part about this change in policy? We have spent a considerable amount of time working with the Ministry of International Cooperation, negotiating the terms of the agreements, what we would and would not do, areas we will be involved in. We maintain a very robust programme of assistance in the area of democracy and governance with specifically government organisations, as well as NGOs. There has been much talk recently of Egypt's aid programme being at risk; that Egypt must meet certain targets before the money can be disbursed? When we sit down on an annual basis and talk about the total assistance programme, there are benchmarks that we agree on with the government. The government says we will do this, and we say fine, and a sum of money is set for those kinds of things. We expect that those benchmarks be met; if they are not met, then we are under no obligation to meet our agreement. It's a two-way street, a negotiation programme. It's not the government of Egypt saying, "Give me my money," and the US saying, "You will not get anything unless you do this." Congress has discussed the issue of decreasing Egypt's military aid; usually, the administration decides later that the political implications would be too major. Do you expect this dynamic to continue? I don't think that there is any doubt that there are certain elements of our US Congress who believe that the military assistance to Egypt is greater than it needs to be. Here again, the amount of military assistance was set years ago, and I think people are looking at the political situation that affects Egypt in the region today and saying, "Wouldn't it be better to reduce the military assistance and provide more in the area of economic assistance, health and education, infrastructure." My perception is that every year [this attitude] gets more supporters -- part of [the] reason is because our economic assistance is decreasing on an annual basis, and the amount that goes to social activities like health, education and agriculture is decreasing. That issue is constantly being discussed in Congress, and what you see, the manifestation of it, these drafts and pieces of legislation that come out that reduce military assistance by $40 million over a number of years -- it's not a loss of money to Egypt, it's a reprogramming of US assistance from military assistance to economic assistance.
