Aid and Development Archive

U.S. President Donald Trump’s strategy in Afghanistan, unveiled last month, emphasizes a “new” regional approach that his administration claims will finally produce better results in America’s longest war. Unfortunately, it is unclear how new such a regional approach really is, whether the administration means to follow through on it, and if it is prepared to grapple with the potential ramifications. In his visit to the United States last week for the United Nations General Assembly, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani praised Trump’s approach, especially “the Pakistan component of it.” But the Trump administration has been short on details. The regional vision […]

Yesterday Angola swore in its first new president in nearly four decades. But how much change did that really represent? Joao Lourenco, who won last month’s election to succeed Jose Eduardo dos Santos, in power since 1979, is from the same party, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola—which dos Santos still heads even after resigning as president. Known as the MPLA, the party has ruled Angola ever since its independence from Portugal in 1975. During its long tenure in power, Angola at least nominally became a democracy, and that was 25 years ago. The MPLA’s re-election, albeit in […]

For the past decade, China’s involvement in international humanitarian relief has steadily risen as it has sent its people, supplies and support to nations around the world. While these humanitarian efforts have often been framed as a tool of Chinese foreign policy, China has also increasingly integrated itself into the international humanitarian relief system. In an email interview, Miwa Hirono, a Japanese scholar who has written extensively on Chinese humanitarian and peacekeeping operations, explains how Beijing’s approach to disaster relief has evolved and how China continues to balance its policy of noninterference with its desire to provide assistance abroad. WPR: […]

A chill has settled over U.S.-Cambodia relations. Since the start of the year, Cambodia’s pugnacious prime minister, Hun Sen, has canceled a planned bilateral military exercise, kicked out a U.S. naval engineering battalion working on charity projects, and assailed Washington for refusing to cancel a $500 million war debt from the early 1970s. This ominous trajectory dipped further with the Sept. 2 arrest of Cambodian opposition leader Kem Sokha on charges of treason. He is accused of conspiring with the United States to foment a “color revolution” aimed at overthrowing Hun Sen’s government, which has ruled Cambodia since 1979. Sokha, […]

The opening of the United Nations General Assembly has historically been a chance for world leaders to trade platitudes about peace. This year’s edition of the U.N. jamboree may have increased the risks of a major conflict in Asia. U.S. President Donald Trump told the assembly that he would “have no choice but to totally destroy” North Korea if the U.S. is “forced to defend itself or its allies” from Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs. In the days that followed, North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, threatened to punish the “dotard” Trump, and its foreign minister told the General Assembly […]

China signed an extraordinary $20 billion loan agreement with Guinea earlier this month, providing the West African country with much-needed financial resources over the next two decades in exchange for concessions and access to its abundant deposits of bauxite, an industrial aluminum ore that is in high demand. The first phase of the deal involves three separate Chinese mining infrastructure projects in the northwestern town of Boffa: a planned alumina refinery and two bauxite extraction operations. China is currently a top global consumer of bauxite, an industrial ore that is first refined into alumina, also known as aluminum oxide, and […]

YANGON, Myanmar—The crowd waiting for Aung San Suu Kyi’s highly anticipated address on the ongoing crisis in Rakhine, in western Myanmar, looked prepared for a pep rally, rather than a requiem on a conflict labeled “textbook ethnic cleansing.” On Tuesday morning, hundreds of people gathered in front of Yangon’s City Hall to watch a live broadcast of the first speech that Myanmar’s de facto leader has given since the military’s bloody counterinsurgency began in response to attacks from Rohingya militants last month. Yet the crowd’s euphoria all but eclipsed the somber topic at hand. Observers in shirts emblazoned with Aung […]

Antonio Guterres is growing a little less enigmatic. Since becoming secretary-general of the United Nations in January, Guterres has often been a rather opaque figure. As I noted in July, he “tends to take decisions with a small circle of advisers, sidelining perplexed U.N. officials he thinks are not up to snuff.” There has been a good deal of grumbling in the U.N. Secretariat about the new chief’s management style, while human rights advocates have faulted him for failing to speak out strongly enough on global injustices. But with world leaders gathering for a week of high-level meetings in New […]

Americans have been riveted to the tales of tragedy and human suffering caused by the devastation of Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Louisiana. Half a world away, monsoon season flooding at even more epic levels has resulted in great loss of life, property damage and health challenges for communities in India, Nepal and Bangladesh. The economics and cultural dimensions of the two cases are profoundly different, but the acute policy and governance demands related to climate and resilience are not that dissimilar. Monsoons in South Asia often produce heart-wrenching images of water-engulfed villages and desperate families seeking shelter and food. […]

BERLIN—When Adam Bahar fled Sudan in 2008, he had no plans to head to Germany. Bahar’s family is originally from the historically neglected Darfur region in Sudan’s west. When fighters from the region rebelled against the Khartoum-based government in 2003, they were met with sweeping violence. The government backed a genocidal response aimed not just at the rebels, but also their perceived civilian sympathizers. Nearly 15 years later, spasmodic attacks continue. Listen to Andrew Green discuss this article on WPR’s Trend Lines Podcast. His audio begins at 21:10: Bahar, living in Khartoum when the fighting began, was horrified both by […]

Lately, it seems that every week Germany’s ties with Turkey hit another low point, and there are few signs of this trend reversing any time soon. The latest escalation came with the arrest last week of Dogan Akhanli, a Turkish-born German writer on vacation in Spain, following a warrant issued by Turkey. German officials decried the move as politically motivated and warned that the Turkish government may be using the multinational police organization Interpol to pursue political opponents abroad. Akhanli’s detention is the most recent in a string of arrests of German citizens both in Turkey and abroad. Since the […]

Since taking office, U.S. President Donald Trump has run an erratic foreign policy, failing to deliver a clear and consistent message to allies and enemies alike. So, when the State Department decided to cut and withhold a combined $295 million in economic and military aid to Egypt last week, despite exceedingly warm relations between Trump and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, many were once again left scratching their heads. For nearly a year, Trump has been an ardent supporter of the regime in Cairo, ending an era of rough-and-tumble relations between Egypt and the Obama administration. Sisi, for his part, was […]