A New Perspective

For the last several years I have become somewhat jaded towards my government and its foreign policies. More often than not, I felt that we should spend more money on those in need in our own borders long before looking around the world to help others. My thought process went along the lines of “if our own people are suffering, why can’t we take care of them first and let the other countries worry about their own?” That stance has taken a noticeable shift in the last three days.

We took a trip to Chisinau (key-shu-now), Moldova to visit with a representative of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), John Wilson, the husband of Marie Wilson, the UNHCR representative we are currently working with. His job is to oversee a $262 million dollar fund designed to help the Moldavian people reduce poverty and combat corruption in the government. They do this by assessing the needs of the country and finding the highest rate of return for the Moldavian government after each project is done. It was decided to go with building a road between Chisinau and a northern town, Soroca, across the river from the Ukraine and an irrigation improvement project that would greatly increase the yields of the crops along the length of the country.

The road would increase the amount of traffic, specifically commercial and industrial, to and from Chisinau and Kiev enough to increase the amount of goods swapped between the countries, which would in return increase taxable shipments to give the government more funds to operate, and improve the commercial and industrial profits that could be put back into the economy to help it grow. We travelled that road from start to finish and I can tell you first hand, it would be a huge improvement over what they have now. The best part was the “chicken” lane. This lane was a third lane between the two lanes of traffic that allowed vehicles to pass, but was not designated for one direction or the other, hence you are playing chicken with the oncoming traffic who is passing when you decide to.

It is easy to see how these two projects can help with the poverty piece, but you may wonder how they will help with the corruption part. First this area of Europe, the former western bloc of the USSR, is rife with human trafficking. Romania, Moldova, the Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, etc. are all sources of people for the slave trade. To help combat this, the US is using the $262 mil carrot to entice the government to change its laws, enforce them, and prosecute those arrested in the criminal enterprise, including government officials. And because all the companies who build roads in Moldova are state run, outside contractors will be brought in to do the road work and a triple check system will be in place to make sure the work is being done.

Though the MCC acts as an oversight entity, the locals are responsible to set up an organization to run the projects so they can continue after the MCC is gone. They take the “teach them how to fish” tact to helping them up by their boot straps. Because there are a lot of government officials who learned their trade under communist rule, there are some severe roadblocks to the 5 year time line that must be met in order to get everything done. They are used to miring themselves in paperwork and not actually producing anything. One of John’s many jobs is to show them that the old way isn’t working for them if they hope to make progress and become a more productive society.

It is this aspect of the MCC that has shifted my perception of our foreign policy. Moldova’s government can not take care of their own. They are stuck in a government model from the 1950s designed to stifle innovation and original ideas. They could keep themselves at the level they are at, but would be a third world country in 30 years because they have not progressed and have fallen behind the rest of the world. That country needs mentorship from another that has progressed with if not in front of the rest of society. We are that country.

I understand the political and economical reasoning behind these programs, but that doesn’t short circuit the positive effect that will help a whole country get back on track with the rest of those close to it and allow it to be productive and competitive.

On another note, the cheese in Moldova is the bomb, as was most of the other food we had while there. I can’t say enough what it’s like to chow down on the excellent food they have here. I think it’s because they don’t lead a sedentary life of sitting behind a computer screen or in an office that they can eat foods that haven’t been processed so much that any calorie, fat cell, and ounce of flavor has been extracted in the guise of “healthy food”.