Federal Grants Waste Millions on Overseas Absurdities

[longknife]

I can't think of his name but there's a Congressman who make it a point of publicizing government wasteful spending. I'm sure he'd be delighted with this article.

“Together” is a grant program through USAID that plans to spend $14 million. Its purpose: “to improve meaningful engagement among citizens, civil society and the Royal Thai Government to reduce drivers of latent and violent conflict in Thailand.”

Say what? Isn’t that maybe Thailand’s business?

In discussing the goals of the project, the Notice of Funding Opportunity makes it clear that this is an exercise in political correctness, by emphasizing the need for the project to include “marginalized groups such as women; ethnic minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) individuals; religious minorities; and youth.”

If you have the stomach for it, go to Federal Grants Waste Millions on Overseas Absurdities to read just a very few of the absurdities.

 

[usmbguest5318]

OP-er, I think you and/or Davis don't understand what an appropriation is. An appropriation is the Congress, in effect, stating that "the American people want X done, so here's the money to do X. Do X." To wit:

From the article:

The Great Ape Conservation Program will spend $3 million to help Africa retain a great ape population.

The Great Ape Conservation Program exists because of the Great Ape Conservation Act of 2000 (Alternative link: Great Ape Conservation Act of 2000)

The Rhinoceros and Tiger Conservation Fund wants to spend $1.5 million in Asia.

Congress established the Rhinoceros and Tiger Conservation Fund in the Rhinoceros and Tiger Conservation Act of 1994

In discussing the goals of the project, the Notice of Funding Opportunity [NOFO} makes it clear that this is an exercise in political correctness, by emphasizing the need for the project to include “marginalized groups such as women; ethnic minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) individuals; religious minorities; and youth.”

• Funding for the USAID's "Together" program results from the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.
• There is no such emphasis.
  
  Read the NOFO [1] and one'll see that the emphasis of the program is on "the greatest challenges to Thailand’s internal security and capacity to lead the region." (Thailand is scheduled to become the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) chair in 2019.) Those challenges are:
  • Overt/active discord:
    • A military coup in May 2014
      
    • Political crises over the past decades, including an ongoing insurgency in its southernmost provinces;
      • In the southernmost border provinces, an active, multi-actor insurgency ... in the provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani, Yala, and some districts of Songkhla (collectively known as Thailand’s Deep South) spiked in 2004, and continues to claim victims, both military and civilian. The conflict reflects tensions driven by core grievances of the Malayu Muslim majority and its relationship with the central Thai state.
  • Latent discord -- conflict fed by underlying socio-political grievances:
    • Disruptive, often violent street protests
      • Challenges in forming a long-term inclusive, stable, and participatory government in Thailand have resulted in unresolved socio-political grievances and tensions that erupt periodically in the form of violent street protests.
      • Political divisions over the use of natural resources, location of power plants, forest and water use, and income inequality represent some of the thorniest issues causing political division and conflict.
    • Hardline religious groups have been growing in scale both in the Deep South and nationwide, stoking fear without a real connection to specific issues.
      
    • News sources and social media spreading misinformation and radical messages against sub-national religious and ethnic groups, increasing the potential for future violence.
• Applicants for portions of the available $14M in funding must implement activities to improve meaningful engagement among citizens, civil society and the Royal Thai Government to reduce drivers of latent and violent conflict in Thailand in accordance with some or, ideally all, of the following:
  • Improve existing mechanisms for targeted Royal Thai Government (RTG) institutions to receive input/feedback from citizens.
    
  • Improve capacity of civil society to advocate for the public interest, especially underrepresented groups, to find common solutions with the government using non-violent means.
    
  • Improve relations and constructive dialogue among citizens of different backgrounds.

Davis' is correct that the NOFO includes the noted statement. That statement is included in a paragraph that describes some of the actions needed to attenuate the discord in Thailand. What follows is that paragraph:

Without improved mechanisms for the public to engage decision-makers and each other on the complex issues outlined above, tensions among different groups in Thailand are likely to continue and lead to ever-greater risks for conflict and violence. Some key elements of an inclusive, participatory society that could help citizens address these types of challenges remain weak in Thailand. Civil society, broadly including CSOs, academic institutions, and media, has faced restrictions. The inability of citizens to organize around shared interests and the media’s limited ability to report freely on issues of the day inhibit the constructive roles these institutions can play in society. In addition, the power dynamics among different actors within society limit equal participation for all citizens, specifically for marginalized groups such as women; ethnic minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) individuals; religious minorities; and youth. Inclusion of all Thailand’s people must be part of any solution to the wider tensions within society. This activity’s aim is to provide tools for stakeholders to address grievances constructively and without violence. Providing other channels to defuse violence before it occurs can be a key step in creating comfort in the return to democracy and ensuring political stability in the future.​

Merely carefully reading the document and refraining from making unsupported inferences, reveals that:

• There is no emphasis on "women; ethnic minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) individuals; religious minorities; and youth."
• The program sees one of many means of resolving Thailand's internal discord, discord that militates for and facilitates the spillover of violent insurgent forces from neighboring countries such as Burma (Myanmar) and Sri Lanka, as empowering, integrating and collaboratively incorporating marginalized people/groups into Thailand's mainstream, as it were.
  • Given my experience with managing change, that makes sense to me. After all, the alternative is to have those segments of one's society remain marginalized, thus either unproductive, suboptimally productive, or worse, either of those statuses, pissed off and combative.

Note:

1. A NOFO is in the world of grants what the business world calls an RFP, request for proposal. A grant applicant is to a grantor who/that issues a NOFO what a contractor is to a firm or other entity that issues an RFP. "Winning" a grant application is analogous to being awarded a contract.
   
   What's, within the context of the federal government being a grantor/contract awarder, the difference between a grant award and a contract award? Basically, the nature and extent to which the scope of work to be performed can be modified.
   
   Contracts very precisely define what will be done, and changing that scope is an arduous and bureaucratic process that results from a whole lot of "back and forth." The pragmatic reason for that is that there generally is very little that's unknown about activities to be performed, how they occur, how long they take to perform, etc. Contract recipients must perform the stated activities; failure to do so can result in severe financial penalties.
   
   Grants, on the other hand, usually are given to undertake an activity that has a good degree of dynamism and uncertainty regarding how they'll happen, what factors may come into play during the activities' execution, etc. Accordingly, with a grant, the grant recipient and grantor can generally just discuss the matter, agree on means, method, tool/resource changes, timeline changes, etc. and proceed in accordance with the agreement. Grant recipients are required to report what they're doing and how, along with reporting the results they're obtaining(-ed), but there are no business risks associated with not achieving the stated objectives. (It's a lot like what going on when a doctor tells one that s/he can/will perform a given procedure, but it may or may not produce the desired outcome but s/he and the patient agree to proceed and hope for the best..)
   • A project I did in the late (?) mid-1990s was one that an agency wanted to award to my firm as a sole-source contract. Knowing the difference between grants and contracts, and having little faith in the likelihood of the project achieving what the agency wanted to achieve, I said I'd do the work if they'd award it as grant rather than as a contract. Because I already had a relationship with the director and he knew how I and my team worked and delivered projects, he agreed to make the activity portion of the award a contract and the outcome portion a grant. That worked for me; we agreed to put 90% of the award under contract and 10% of it was designated as "outcome" and awarded as grant.

 

[longknife]

Are you trying to justify these? So, some lawmaker might have snuck some pork into a bill. Does that justify the expenditure?

 

[blastoff]

I can't think of his name but there's a Congressman who make it a point of publicizing government wasteful spending. I'm sure he'd be delighted with this article.

“Together” is a grant program through USAID that plans to spend $14 million. Its purpose: “to improve meaningful engagement among citizens, civil society and the Royal Thai Government to reduce drivers of latent and violent conflict in Thailand.”

Say what? Isn’t that maybe Thailand’s business?

In discussing the goals of the project, the Notice of Funding Opportunity makes it clear that this is an exercise in political correctness, by emphasizing the need for the project to include “marginalized groups such as women; ethnic minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) individuals; religious minorities; and youth.”

If you have the stomach for it, go to Federal Grants Waste Millions on Overseas Absurdities to read just a very few of the absurdities.

The late Sen. Proxmire (?) of WI's Golden Fleece Awards? He had a nose for waste, abuse, etc

 

[BluesLegend]

The official government report said there was nearly $400 billion in government waste and fraud...in 2016 alone.