07.10.2005 Russia, Moscow.Director of the American agency of the international development (USAID) Andrew Natsios during his interview with Kommersant.
Photo: Vasily Shaposhnikov
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“We Don’t Do ‘Orange Revolutions’”
// Moscow was asked not to be afraid of American aid
Yesterday, Andrew Natsios, director of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), finished his visit in Russia. He was inspecting the realizations of the American aid programs for Russia. Andrey Natsios was trying to persuade Kommersant’s correspondent Sergey Strokan that the programs of the American government are not threatening Russian national interests.
- Last time you were in Russia was 10 years ago. During this period the authorities’ attitude toward western aid drastically changed: if earlier it was accepted with gratitude -- now it is considered as almost like a damaging act.
- The suspicions are born where people are trying to make overly general conclusions. Let’s take for instance a village, which has a women’s organization. This organization is trying to solve concrete social issues for this specific village. Then, ask the village folks if they consider this help as a part of an external conspiracy. What are they going to answer? Can attempts to help poor and hungry, attempts to help youth, be a conspiracy? The United States developed the concrete methods of how to put these problem population groups in more stable social environment. The arguments about America’s desire to weaken Russia make people wonder. Unstable Russia is not in American interests.
- But one could also look at the problem from the different side: today you are helping some or other groups of youth, and tomorrow they would follow your orders and would try to make the “orange revolution” in Russia just like in Ukraine.
- What are you talking about?! Our activities have nothing to do with any kind of “orange revolutions.” We are working with youth because of absolutely different reasons. The problem of teenage drug addictions, one of the youth problems that we are working with, by the way, is also a serious problem for the US and for the Western Europe. We have to fight with this evil.
- The USAID from the very beginning put the development of the political process as one of its priorities. Can you see any progress there?
- The most important part of any strong state is strong civil society, which includes non-government media, different non-government organizations, charitable foundations, religious groups that act independently from the government. In the USA, there is very strong civil society and there are hundreds of thousands of such groups and organizations.
The provision of the help for the further development of civil society is one of our priorities in Russia. Our programs in Russia were always transparent and we always discussed with the authorities everything that we are intended to do. Each program is supported by the separate agreement with the Russian government.
We have achievements and problems in the political process development. When we just started to work in Russia, there were only 30 non-government organizations. Today, there are 65,000 of them. This is a positive sign. In the same time, we can point out such negative tendencies as increased corruption, which undermines the authority of the power, and also unequal distribution of wealth.
-What exactly does USAID do in Russia?
- USAID works in 80 countries of the world. Russia is one of them. We can distinguish five main types of aid. So it is not always just boxes with humanitarian aid, as it might look from the first glance. A special place in the USAID activities is reserved for the countries, which we consider our strategic partners. It is evident that these are not all the countries. However, Russia is one of partners together with such countries as, for example, Israel and Pakistan.
For many years, USAID accomplished in Russia a lot – from the building houses for Russian soldiers, who were withdrawn from the Baltic Republics, to environmental projects in Far East like preservation of the Ussury tigers. In economy we paid a lot of attention to reorganization of the coal industry, sharing the experience of development of small and medium business. In healthcare, we a priority was the fight with AIDS. It is interesting that some time ago, USAID even modernized the light system in Tverskoy Boulevard of Moscow as a part of the one municipal program. General Electric set up the electric equipment and it was paid by the American government. So, you can see USAID lights are shining only five walking minutes from the Kremlin.
- What did you expect from the negotiations in Moscow and how effective they turned out to be?
- I wouldn’t call those negotiations. They were rather consultations concerning the programs that are being realized in Russia by USAID. There were a lot of meetings and conversations in Moscow. We discussed the progress of our programs during the meetings with the Ministry of Education and Science, Ministry of Emergency Situations, and Central Bank. We also talked with the heads of the non-government organizations, which are promoting democracy, human rights and media. We met with medical researchers, who are working with the AIDS problems and other epidemic diseases that threaten Russia.
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 10, 2005
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