Alex Poppe Informed Comment
JD Vance recently sat down with “Interesting Times” podcast host Ross Douthat. When Ross Douthat pointed out that the Trump administration had been “more hostile than any prior Republican administration…to the way we do humanitarian aid,” the vice president argued that conservative or centrist parties “keep winning landslide elections in Latin America” because [before President Trump retook office] aid dollars “went to fund a left-wing NGO complex that actually tilted Latin American elections in favor of the far-left parties. Now, maybe that was the policy preference of the Biden administration, but those things, those biases in the way that we distributed international aid, were so built into the very bureaucratic structure of those aid programs, that we got in and said: We have to stop all of this and rebuild it from scratch.”
The vice president concluded his argument by charging that “because this NGO complex, nongovernmental organization complex, had built up around this money, what you saw in our foreign aid program is remarkable inefficiency.”
From March 18, 2024 until I was DOGEd on February 7, 2025, I served as the strategic communications advisor for USAID’s Democracy Delivers Initiative, set up by former USAID Administrator Samantha Power under President Joe Biden in 2022. Believing that democracy and development work best hand-in-hand, Administrator Power argued that political reform alone was not enough to keep voters galvanized to support democracy. It takes time to root out corruption, re-establish the rule of law, hold free and fair elections, establish a robust free press and rebuild civil society. And in that time, if you can’t feed your kids, or you don’t have clean water, or you’re freezing in winter because a bullying neighbor has cut off your energy supplies, you may be tempted to vote for a strongman who promises a lot but delivers little.
When there is a moment of democratic opportunity, say, a reformer is elected to office, there should be support to help that reformer meet their citizens’ most pressing needs. That support has to come quickly so that a moment of democratic opportunity opens, takes root, and holds.
Democracy Delivers would mobilize fast, multi-stakeholder support (so the burden was shared among our bilateral partners) and concentrate that support so it became catalytic, to help reformers tackle issues such as judicial corruption, debt restructuring, food insecurity, economic empowerment, digital threats such as surveillance, spyware, and disinformation, or energy independence through cross-sectoral investment. The goal was to show people that their lives are better under democratic rule.
On my second day in my new role, a woman very high up in the State Department met me for coffee. She very clearly and seriously told me that our foreign assistance was seldom motivated by purely altruistic intentions. Everything we did had a geostrategic intention behind it, and this was especially truly for the Democracy Delivers Initiative, which spanned four geographic regions and included the following countries:Moldova, a critical line of defense for NATO’s eastern flank and counters Russian expansionism in Europe.Armenia, which connects Europe to Central Asia and the Middle East, important for trade, energy routes, and military logistics.Fiji, a regional leader and a founding member of the Pacific Islands Forum, with one of the largest and most capable militaries in the Pacific.Maldives, with proximity to key shipping lanes through which 30% of global oil shipments and much of Asia’s trade travels. The 1,200+ islands stretch across a critical swath of maritime space, offering potential for military, commercial, or surveillance access.Nepal, sitting between China and India, is key to regional stability in southeast Asia.Zambia, is a global leader in copper and cobalt, critical minerals for green technology such as EV batteries and solar panels. Zambia is part of the Lobito Corridor, a U.S.-EU-supported project to challenge Chinese-dominated transport networksMalawi, which contains critical minerals such as lithium, graphite, cobalt, and nickel, and rare earth minerals.Ecuador, bordering Columbia and Peru, is an important transit country for trafficking cocaine.Dominican Republic, a major transit and origin point for migration flows to the U.S., including irregular migration and trafficking. It is also key to new near-shoring projects to enhance supply chain capacity.Guatemala, a key partner for controlling migration flows, narcotics trafficking, and transnational crime, including money laundering and arms trafficking.
During my tenure, Tanzania was stripped of its Democracy Delivers designation (which translated into a loss of resources) due to its repression of human rights and government-sponsored violent crackdown on political opposition. Fiji and Guatemala became part of the initiative in 2024.
The initiative didn’t have its own pot of funds, yet, by working with like-minded partners, we made great gains in democratic reform and development projects. USAID’s reputation and relationships, forged over 60 years of being a trustworthy partner, were key to mobilizing bilateral and multi-lateral, philanthropic and private sector support and resources. The Vodafone Foundation, Ford, and the Rockefeller Foundation were key collaborators as were Google, Amazon Web Services, and Cisco, among others.
Some democratic reform accomplishments included the following, grouped by theme:
Anti-corruption: improved the vetting of judges, made judicial processes more transparent, prosecuted high profile corruption cases, instituted and enforced asset forfeiture laws in corruption cases, encouraged decentralization through capacity building of local councils, and promoted transparency in budgeting.
Elections: facilitated the holding of municipal elections, trained poll workers, ran voter education campaigns, combatted disinformation during elections, monitored for election fraud, expanded voter access, encouraged women to run for office, made voter facilities differently-abled accessible, and allowed people to vote under their colloquial name instead of requiring an ID to match a birth certificate.
Human rights: granted citizenship to marginalized groups for whom it had been denied, which meant marginalized people could now open bank accounts, get a drivers license, and get sim cards.
Independent press: strengthened press freedoms, trained journalists, and repealed restrictions on journalists and publishers.
Public Domain. Via Picryl
Information resiliency: combatted mis/dis/mal information, strengthened cyber security, taught media literacy, and passed laws that afford freedom and access to information.
The development projects shored up energy security, diversified export markets, increased information and communication technology (ICT) capability, improved food security, supported health, water and sanitation, and climate resiliency projects, initiated medical projects which reduced maternal mortality rates by 38% in the areas where they were implemented, implemented malaria prevention projects, supported education projects to bring gender parity in primary education, facilitated large scale infrastructure projects such as the construction of roads, dams, and undersea cables to improve internet connectivity, developed electricity transmission lines in rural communities, set up microfinance programs to grow small and medium-sized businesses, with an emphasis on female-owned businesses, developed E-commerce platforms to foster economic empowerment, and linked smallholder farmers to large supermarkets to increase smallholder farmers’ market access.
I struggle to understand how the vice president could categorize USAID as a left-wing, remarkably inefficient NGO complex.
Without USAID funding, researchers predict 14 million people will die by 2030. The exit of USAID leaves room for our strategic competitors to exercise soft diplomacy and gain influence. The private sector might be less likely to invest in countries without a democratic playing field, which affects the exploration for and mining of rare earth and critical minerals. The U.S. loses access to potential new markets; 11 of our top 15 trading partners were once recipients of foreign aid.
Alex Poppe , having worked in conflict zones such as Iraq, the West Bank, and Ukraine, Alex Poppe writes about fierce women rebuilding their lives in the wake of violence. Breakfast Wine, a memoir-in-essay about her near ten years in Iraq, appeared at Apprentice House Press on June 10, 2025 and is available here. She is the author of four works of fiction: Duende by Regal House Publishing (2022), Jinwar and Other Stories by Cune Press (2022), Moxie by Tortoise Books (2019), and Girl, World by Laughing Fire Press (2017). Girl, World was named a 35 Over 35 Debut Book Award winner, First Horizon Award finalist, Montaigne Medal finalist, short-listed for the Eric Hoffer Grand Prize and was awarded an Honorable Mention in General Fiction from the Eric Hoffer Awards. Her short fiction has been a finalist for Glimmer Train’s Family Matters contest, a nominee for the Pushcart Prize and commended for the Baker Prize among others.
Editor’s Note: At a moment when the once vaunted model of responsible journalism is overwhelmingly the play thing of self-serving billionaires and their corporate scribes, alternatives of integrity are desperately needed, and ScheerPost is one of them. Please support our independent journalism by contributing to our online donation platform, Network for Good, or send a check to our new PO Box. We can’t thank you enough, and promise to keep bringing you this kind of vital news.
You can also make a donation to our PayPal or subscribe to our Patreon.