Why US AID Doesn't Bridge the Rich-Poor Countries Gap

Ever since reading When Corporations Rule the World, the international bestseller by David Korten, I’ve regarded corporations as more important than governments in figuring out how the world works.

When the book came to me as a gift in 2002, I was immediately impressed by Korten’s personal story. I read how he began his career in international development with the United States International Agency for Development (USAID), because he wanted to improve the wellbeing of poorer countries.

But he became disillusioned as he saw too many development projects bypass the people to whom he’d understood USAID wanted to give a hand up. Who benefited? Only the corporate developers working on the project and the elites of the country in which the project was being constructed. The locals, instead of seeing their lives improve, were often worse off.

When he spoke up about what he saw, he was invited to make changes. But after eight years of trying and getting little result, he decided that the USAID ship was too big for him to turn around. He left and turned to nonprofits, writing, and speaking as his preferred vehicles for changemaking. The economy became his focus as he realized that his desire to give poorer people and countries a better chance required a different economic model. That focus, of course, resonates with me as it does with his international audience.