Social scientists speak out against Obama's Central American aid package

Several social scientists have weighed in on the Obama administration's $1 billion dollar aid request to the Northern Triangle. Basically, they all agree that the proposed package will simply make matters worse in the region.

This summer, Congress will decide whether to support the $1 billion aid package to Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras. Prompted by the surge of children and family to the US’s southern border last year, the “Strategy for Engagement in Central America” aims to attack the ‘root causes’ of unauthorized migration.

Promoted by Vice-President Biden, the plan has been endorsed by commentators across the political spectrum.

Biden’s plan would invest in border security, law enforcement, economic development, and the UN’s new human rights initiatives in the region. These measures will purportedly keep Central Americans at home, busy with new jobs in safer communities under more transparent, responsive governments. At the same time, tighter border enforcement is intended to discourage migration.

What’s the likelihood that US aid will achieve these outcomes?

We are a group of social scientists*, each of us with decades of research experience with the very populations targeted in Biden’s plan. We are painfully aware that Central America’s rural and urban poor need support. This past April, we met in Chicago and discussed the aid package’s likely impacts.

Our conclusion? Biden’s package is guaranteed to deepen—not alleviate—the problems faced by Central America’s poor majority.

While I recognize some of the research, I guess I would like to have seen more of the social science evidence on which their conclusions are based. I'm also somewhat confused by we can't send money to the region to spend on security because the governments are corrupt. However, we should send money to corrupt governments but only if they spend it in other areas.

Scrap Biden’s plan and go back to basics. It’s time we had the backs of Central America’s working families. Let’s look to where they’re putting their money and do the same.

It’s time to invest in public health, public education, small farmers and small business in Central America. Nothing else.

As we've seen in Guatemala and Honduras, health care spending is not immune to corruption.

Politics. The US Congress is more likely to support an aid package that is heavy on security assistance. Seems to be a matter of fact but maybe we can change their mind. I doubt it. Is supporting an increase in border funding the price of getting Congress to support other worthwhile initiatives in the region? There are always trade-offs in politics, some better than others. Is this one we are willing to make?

The other thing is that money is fungible. Any increase that we can provide in terms of security assistance should theoretically allow the governments of the region to decrease their spending on security and reallocate those funds towards health, education, and micro-enterprise initiatives. Will they? I don't know.

Is there a better way to look at this?