longer.blue

IN RUSSIA, USAID WAS A FORCE OF GOOD Living in 1990s and 2000s in a country that was a recipient of money via @USAID (Russia), I can testify that whatever I personally witnessed have been American money well-spent. My area of expertise is education and in this area, the agency have done a lot. It educated, bringing up Russians' knowledge of public health, environmental protection, civil society, etc., literally dragging from the backwardness of Soviet times. For those who doesn't know - until the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian people have not seen modern hygiene products, personal electronics, experienced access to multiple information sources or participation in civic organizations. We've no knowledge of politics, in which people have any say, or any understanding of how markets operate. In vast areas of modern science - from data sciences to computer sciences to social sciences - the knowledge lagged behind decades. Education in these areas lagged behind decades. USAID was one of the critical channels via which the United States helped Russians to close the knowledge gap and re-join the world, in which they belonged. If this was unsuccessful - it did not prevent Russia spiraling into a neo-fascist dictatorship in 2010s, that's certainly not the agency's fault. Every dollar spent by USAID in Russia was a benevolent help. The USAID work in Russia was terminated in 2012 by the very same people who then destroyed Russian science and education forcing tens of thousands scientists, professors, high school teachers, and students. Not coincidentally, Putin and his henchmen all have fake PhD degrees - education and enlightenment is an anathema to them. Educational projects, which helped tens of thousands of Russians, was an easy target for the archaic regime. I do not know how much the @USAID's projects in Russia contributed to the United States' "soft power". Perhaps not at all. It probably did not improve Russians' attitude towards Americans. Yet it was all charitable help, for which we should be eternally grateful.