Whereas there has been broad consensus that the United
States Agency for International Development (USAID) is in
need of reform, there is also an even wider and more deeply
held belief that the value of Peace Corps begun in 1961
is incalculable relative to its incredibly modest cost.
American citizens’ experiences of living and working with
local communities around the world forges innovative,
mission-driven individuals in all sectors of society,
enhancing the United States and its allies.
At about
one percent of the cost of USAID, the Peace Corps not only
upscales American people’s skills at typically formative
junctures of their professional lives, but earns the
partnership of individuals, families, and communities in
more than 140 friendly countries. President Kennedy’s vision
for the Peace Corps was to annually place 50,000 American
volunteers at project sites, approximately seven times the
number of those currently serving.
Increasing the
Peace Corps’ budget from its current level of approximately
$300 million to a fully funded $2.5 billion (less than 10
percent of USAID’s latest annual budget), could fulfill the
50,000-volunteer potential. At this moment of radical change
(the end of federal agencies and departments and their
associated layoffs), the impact upon Americans and U.S.
international partners of increasing the Peace Corps budget
would not only generate jobs for U.S. citizens, primarily
youth, but also bridge a spectrum of relationships at
minimal cost.
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A fair concern about the Peace Corps
over its years has been its struggle to recruit people from
all economic backgrounds; many people who have not had the
opportunity to gain higher education have important
practical skills that can be applied toward the betterment
of society. Increasing the program from 7,000 to 50,000
volunteers while broadening its access to those who may not
have considered this professional avenue in the areas of
agriculture, mechanics, teaching, health care, and more,
could offset recent layoffs by creating jobs in the interior
of the United States.
Moving to 50,000 Peace Corps
Volunteers is the low-cost palliative needed to address the
untenable situation of a high-cost international development
complex removed from direct people-to-people experiences and
the resulting insufficient impact. Also, the Peace Corps
benefits the American volunteers as much or even more than
the local people and communities with whom they engage all
around the world because their capacities are strengthened
by doing. Volunteers’ responsiveness to locally determined
priorities not only achieves the sincere goodwill generated
during the two-year Peace Corps service, but creates a frame
of reference for them of what is entailed in economic
growth, forming a basis for their future outsized
achievements in all helpful walks of life.
Serious
cuts to the Peace Corps will likely unleash the ire of the
well-organized former volunteers (nearly 250,000) in all of
the 50 states, with inter-state networks based on the
countries and periods they served. The Peace Corps is
therefore a third rail of United States global development
assistance with now a wide array of consequences before us.
For the cost, there is every good reason to immediately
expand it to its original intention at a bargain that is
rarely, if ever, found among government
programs.
Dr. Yossef Ben-Meir is a sociologist and
former Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Morocco from 1993
to
1995.
