Steve Peacock's U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor

Obama now probes everyone's health – in Kenya! (WND)

My latest from WND. -- S.P.

In the latest addition to the Obama administration’s growing aid-to-Kenya portfolio, the U.S. will help subsidize a nationwide citizen-health assessment in every Kenyan county without exception.

While the estimated project cost remains undisclosed, a separate Kenya-based trade-promotion project unveiled late last week came with an additional $70 million price tag.

The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, with U.S. taxpayer help, will implement the 2014 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey, or KDHS.

Kenya will coordinate the efforts with United Nations agencies, the U.S. government and “other partners.” The U.S. will fund a KDHS requirement to deploy contractor caravans across the entirety of this East African nation of 45 million.

Read more at WND.com...

Obama Can't Stop Spending — In Kenya!

The Obama administration is seeking additional U.S. taxpayer funds to provide more health services to Kenyans through a massive assistance program that has already grown so “rapidly and exponentially” the U.S. government now needs help from outside contractors to oversee it.

A Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm known for its work with the United Nations Development Program, the European Union and the World Bank has been hired by the administration to monitor, analyze and improve the foreign-assistance program, known as the Evaluation Services and Program Support endeavor.

The U.S. Agency for International Development has awarded a contract potentially worth $23 million to International Business & Technical Consultants, Inc., or IBTCI, which will provide such services when called upon.

The new arrangement allows USAID/Kenya’s Office of Population and Health Programs, or OPH, and USAID/East Africa’s Regional Health and HIV/AIDS Office, or RHH, to issue separate work orders to the consulting firm on an indefinite quantity, indefinite delivery basis.

The initiative emphasizes “Kenya is a priority country for The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and receives significant funding to address HIV/AIDS and related problems. Similarly, resources available from the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) assure continued funding for malaria programs.”

Despite this consistent flow of funding, Kenya wants more.

USAID says key target groups among the Kenyan population have reached plateaus or have seen declines in measurements of Kenyans’ health.

Kenya consequently intends to “seek additional funding to balance the current program to increase coverage for family planning, maternal, neonatal, and child health, nutrition/food security, and safe water and hygiene.”

USAID/East Africa similarly will enlist the consulting firm’s assistance in contributing to “the re-design of new, evidence-based follow-on projects and programs” in Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Rwanda, Somalia, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

This agency unit likewise is working “in close collaboration” with U.S. government counterparts at the Centers for Disease Control and the departments of Defense and State “to accelerate the scale-up of proven high-impact and low-cost public health programming.”

Although USAID admittedly cannot adequately manage the voluminous initiatives it has launched in Kenya, cost-wise overall aid dropped from a high of $830 million in 2009 to $460 million in 2013.

Despite the administration’s emphasis on Kenyan health programs, there is another component to the initiative: the implementation of Kenya’s new constitution, which requires greater decentralization of the national government and expansion of the county governmental system.

While the overarching goal “is to focus on the establishment of a sustainable national health system for all Kenyans,” it also must maintain “strong linkages” to other governmental and societal sectors “that impact health but have conventionally been perceived as outside of the control of the health sector.”

U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor has reported over the past year on various components of Obama’s Kenyan assistance scheme.

Those exclusive Monitor reports (some which originally appeared via WND.com and were reprinted here by the author) led USAID to eliminate public access to a critical planning document governing a U.S. propaganda initiative known as the USAID/Kenya Strategic Communications Plan 2012-2013.

Publicly available documents revealing the Obama administration’s unwieldy portfolio of Kenyan projects – which includes a formal plan to manipulate Kenyan and global media – were removed from a federal contracting database, the Monitor discovered.

The agency likewise revamped one of its solicitations for industry proposals, modifying the project to make it an East African rather than a Kenyan-only endeavor.

However, the Monitor discovered the government merely repackaged and re-released it, expanding the potential geographic reach of the initiative while limiting it to health-related projects.

USAID also plans to spend up to $50 million to strengthen Kenya’s county governments, as the Monitor previously reported.

Though the effort could help redistribute political power across the African republic, whose national government is viewed as one of the most notoriously corrupt in the world, the administration acknowledged the process may inadvertently create 47 equally corrupt county systems.

The Monitor reported Obama also is embarking upon a nationwide reading project that aims to improve the skills of children in tens of thousands of Kenyan schools.

The administration furthermore launched new peace initiatives in and around Kenya, despite acknowledging that chronic cattle rustling and other cultural practices – such as killing rivals “to prove their manhood or impress young women” – might impede progress.

USAID separately will pump hundreds of millions into contractor coffers to help improve business for farmers in and around Kenya.

This article originally was published via WND.com, and has been reprinted by the author under agreement with WND.

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Obama Can't Stop Spending — In Kenya! (WND)

My latest from WND. -- S.P.

The Obama administration is seeking additional U.S. taxpayer funds to provide more health services to Kenyans through a massive assistance program that has already grown so “rapidly and exponentially” the U.S. government now needs help from outside contractors to oversee it.

A Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm known for its work with the United Nations Development Program, the European Union and the World Bank has been hired by the administration to monitor, analyze and improve the foreign-assistance program, known as the Evaluation Services and Program Support endeavor.

The U.S. Agency for International Development has awarded a contract potentially worth $23 million to International Business & Technical Consultants, Inc., or IBTCI, which will provide such services when called upon.

Read more at WND.com...

Follow @tradeaidmonitor

Obama Wants Egyptian Students to Get More from College

Secretary of State John Kerry in March 2013 shakes hands with now-deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.

President Obama wants to ensure all American adults obtain at least a year of college or career training while regaining America’s role as “world leader in college completion,” the U.S. Department of Education recently touted. The Obama administration then launched a new program to bring about such developments – in Egypt.

According to a U.S. Agency for International Development “concept paper” that U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor obtained through routine database research, “Egypt now confronts a serious knowledge and skills deficit” that impedes its ability to compete globally.

U.S. taxpayers, some of whom this September will pay upwards of $45,000 annually for their own college educations, now face the additional burden of helping Egyptians make better use of their advanced degrees.

Those degrees are failing to produce adequate returns on their investments, USAID says, leading to “educated unemployment,” a phenomenon in which Egyptian college grads “are almost 10 times as likely to be unemployed than individuals with primary educations.”

USAID’s Higher Education Partnership Program hopes to bring together the government of Egypt, Egyptian institutions of higher learning and the private sector in a collaborative effort to meet the needs of this North African nation’s business community.

The U.S. has an interest in helping Egypt as it “transitions towards a democracy,” the document said.

The agency said the Egyptian education system – containing 35 universities and eight regional technical colleges consisting of 45 middle technical institutes – is the largest in the Middle East and North Africa. Egypt, however, has failed to invest “sufficient resources for these institutions to flourish as engines of knowledge transfer and creation.”

Existing institutions are struggling to “produce graduates with the skills employers seek, posing constraints for growth opportunities, particularly in high skilled economic sectors.”

USAID noted that the nation “is steeped in a tradition of education and scholarship,” pointing out that Egyptian scholars have made significant advancements in the sciences, engineering, mathematics and medicine dating back to “Pharaonic times and the Islamic Caliphate.”

Despite such an “impressive legacy,” Egypt currently lacks the infrastructure and labor force necessary “to transform the country into a vibrant center of innovation and economic prosperity.”

The agency issued a Request for Information, or RFI, to solicit feedback from contractors potentially interested in carrying out the endeavor, which could create up to 20 “university and technical college partnerships” focusing on a range of “shared priority areas” among private industry and the respective governments of Egypt and the United States.

The Obama administration in 2011 separately had been planning to provide technical assistance to Egypt to explore the creation of a nationwide system of community colleges. It remains unclear whether it ever carried out that initiative, as a thorough search of the FedBizOpps contractor database produced zero contract awards for the endeavor.

The following is a rundown of other recent U.S. foreign aid-related developments. The list is by no means exhaustive, but simply offers a snapshot of additional federal spending, both small and large.

AFRICA

The Bureau of the Public Debt at the U.S. Department of the Treasury is buying a 10-seat Toyota Land Cruiser for the U.S. African Development Foundation in the Liberian capital of Monrovia. Other than offering 14 pages of contract clauses and vehicle specifications, Treasury disclosed little else about this procurement.

Treasury separately is buying a Toyota Fortuner 4×4 for the foundation’s Malawi operations and a Toyota Land Cruiser for its Zambian facility.

KYRGYZSTAN

USAID is recruiting private-sector advisers for deployment to Kyrgyzstan, officially known as the Kyrgyz Republic, to help manage a $50 million portfolio of U.S.-funded development projects.

“Because of its proximity to South Asia and its potential to contribute to stability in nearby Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Kyrgyz Republic is of considerable geopolitical and strategic interest” to the U.S, the agency says in a Personal Contracting Services notice.

The base salary range for both the Senior Development transition specialist and the senior private sector development specialist is $84,697-$110,104.

MOZAMBIQUE

USAID will deploy an education specialist to Mozambique to help implement this southeast African nation’s new basic education program. The contractor annually will earn between $85,000 and $110,000.

Separately, USAID plans to build six rural health centers across Mozambique potentially costing $10 million. It also intends to construct three pharmaceutical warehouses costing upwards of $5 million each.

PACIFIC ISLANDS

USAID is launching the Pacific-American Climate Fund, a project to provide grants for endeavors whose aim is to “reduce long-term vulnerabilities associated with climate change and achieve sustainable climate-resilient development.”

Subject to the availability of funds, USAID expects to have a budget of about $24 million devoted to climate change adaptation efforts in island countries such as Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Marshall Islands, Samoa and Solomon Islands.

PAKISTAN

USAID is deploying to Islamabad a senior adviser for government-to-government direct assistance. An agency solicitation did not disclose further details about the position.

WORLDWIDE

The latest contract in USAID’s International Rule of Law Technical Assistance Services project has been awarded to Casals & Associates Inc., a subsidiary of government contracting giant DynCorp International.

The agency did not specify how or where Casals will provide services in the endeavor, which is based on the United Nations principle that “all persons, institutions and entities, public and private, including the state itself, are accountable to laws that are publicly promulgated, equally enforced, and independently adjudicated, and which are consistent with international human rights law.”

Up to $500 million in Indefinite Quantity Contracts, or IQCs, could be given to Casals and other selected vendors over the next five years.

This article originally appeared June 28 via WND. Rights gave reverted back to the author, Steve Peacock, under agreement with WND.

 

World Affairs Brief

Many thanks to Joel M. Skousen's World Affairs Brief for highlighting my recent PatriotUpdate.com article  "U.S. Cost of U.N. 'Rule of Law' Project: $500 million." As Skousen's brief is a subscription-based service, I am delighted that he saw fit to deem that piece worthy of mention to his readers, who no doubt want their money's worth.

For those who have not yet read that article, I had discovered, through routine database research, that the U.S. Agency for International Development will pay contractors up to a half-billion dollars to train other nation's to comply with United Nations-sanctioned "rule of law" guidelines (click through the link above for the full Patriot Update article).

There's nothing inherently wrong with encouraging governments to treat their citizens fairly and to be held accountable to their people; however,foisting this additional financial burden upon U.S. taxpayers -- compunded by the laughable notion that our government is some sort of Beacon on the Hill for the masses to follow -- is hypocritical if not downright laughable. Now that the sequestration process is unfolding, the White House and Congress should take a closer look at such projects when they start claiming that there's no place left for budget cuts.

Patriot Update: U.S. Cost of U.N. “Rule of Law” Project: $500 million

My latest from Patriot Update:

U.S. Cost of U.N. “Rule of Law” Project: $500 million

A half-billion-dollar Obama Administration program to help nations comply with United Nations-sanctioned governance reform has rolled out its first round of awards to several government-contracting behemoths.

The International Rule of Law Technical Assistance Services program, which Obama unveiled through the U.S. Agency for International Development, will assist governments around the globe in reforming their justice, educational, and other systems based on U.N. “rule of law” principles.

Continued at PatriotUpdate.com...

One Less Defender of Liberty in Washington -- Ron Paul's Farewell

One of the nation's most vociferous defenders of liberty and vocal opponent of big government has given his last goodbye on the floor of the House of Representatives: Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas). Among his many astute observations -- and warnings -- he left for the American people, the segment of his speech on liberty was among the most striking:

Liberty can only be achieved when government is denied the aggressive use of force. If one seeks liberty, a precise type of government is needed. To achieve it, more than lip service is required.

Two choices are available.

        1. A government designed to protect liberty—a natural right—as its sole objective.
The people are expected to care for themselves and reject the use of any force for
interfering with another person’s liberty. Government is given a strictly limited
authority to enforce contracts, property ownership, settle disputes, and defend
against foreign aggression.

        2. A government that pretends to protect liberty but is granted power to arbitrarily use force over the people and foreign nations. Though the grant of power many times is meant to be small and limited, it inevitably metastasizes into an omnipotent political cancer. This is the problem for which the world has suffered throughout the ages. Though meant to be limited it nevertheless is a 100% sacrifice of a principle that would-be-tyrants find irresistible. It is used vigorously—though incrementally and insidiously. Granting power to government officials always proves the adage that: “power corrupts.”

Once government gets a limited concession for the use of force to mold people habits and plan the economy, it causes a steady move toward tyrannical government. Only a revolutionary spirit can reverse the process and deny to the government this arbitrary use of aggression. There’s no in-between. Sacrificing a little liberty for imaginary safety always ends badly.

Today’s mess is a result of Americans accepting option #2, even though the Founders attempted to give us Option #1.

The full text of Paul's Farewell Address is available here via the TheHill.com. Give it a read. Read it and weep -- but read it and take action.

"The Whistleblower" (movie trailer)

 

Though a fictional account,The Whistleblower appears to be critically relevant to some of the global contracting issues that U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor attempts to address; hence, I offer this movie trailer for consideration by my readers. Likewise, Foreign Affairs magazine offers an excellent backgrounder on the film, which opens in theaters today. The opening line in that review says it all:

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon traveled to Hollywood last year to cajole filmmakers and movie stars into making pictures that portray the U.N.'s good works. The Whistleblower, a scathing full-length account of the U.N. peacekeeping effort in Bosnia during the late 1990s, is not what he had in mind.