Want to help countries emulate Indian model of transitioning from recipient to donor: US

Challenged by the Chinese overseas aid model of debt trapping, the US has said that it wants to help other countries follow the Indian model of transitioning from being an aid recipient to a partner and then to a donor.

“Our goal is to help countries move from being recipients to partners, to fellow donors. That’s what we want. We want to build that coalition of the willing for the West, for the United States,” USAID Administrator Mark Green said in his address to the Professional Services Council’s 7th Annual Development Conference.

He noted that the US model of helping countries become self-reliant was different from the Chinese model of predatory financing. He also added that the US needs to reach out to young people around the world and help them understand the burdens of authoritarian financing.

“We want to enhance the ability of countries like India to move from when they received sacks of food from us to a place where they are now the fifth-largest donor to Afghanistan in financing key development there. Not every country is India. Not every country has advanced that far on their journey. That to us is the model, and I think it is what we offer the world that is a fundamentally different model than what China does,” the top Trump Administration official said as he slammed the Chinese model of development and aid overseas.

“The other piece of work with China is, of course, the transparency. Everything that we do is an open book. Everything that we do is above board. You can see the costs and benefits of every project that you and I undertake. Of course, in the case of China, its the opposite,” Green said.

The USAID administrator also said that the US was developing tools to help its partners analyze the true costs and benefits of proposals that come from other countries and added, “Let them see what those hidden costs are. And if they choose to go in that direction, it is a sovereign nation, they can make those choices. But when they see what it is that you and I offer versus what authoritarian powers offer, I’m pretty confident as to what the results will be.”