Supporter: Nancy Lindborg

This piece, "A Healthy Argument for Smart Power," first appeared on The Huffington Post. It was co-authored by my U.S. Global Leadership Coalition Co-President, Bill Lane, who is the Washington Director of Caterpillar.

As hyper-partisanship continues to dominate the health care debate in the nation's capital, it might be easy to overlook that a bipartisan consensus has quietly but unmistakably emerged for a smart power approach to foreign policy.

Lawmakers and foreign policy and national security experts across the political spectrum have come to agree that America needs to reinvigorate our civilian diplomatic and foreign assistance efforts. These important tools have been understaffed and underfunded for many years and must be used strategically to get better results and make us safer.

This is what's called 'smart power,' a phrase that has recently joined the national lexicon because of its timeliness and policy relevance. Smart power is based on the view that in this increasingly interconnected world, America's fortunes are inextricably linked to those of other nations and their peoples, and that our military cannot be expected or relied upon to resolve larger issues that are fueled by grinding poverty, poor health and lack of economic opportunity.

Smart power means strengthening our non-military tools of engagement -- enhancing diplomacy to strengthen weak and fragile states, and upgrading and improving our foreign assistance and development programmes to help poorer nations address critical infrastructure needs, enlarge their economies, reduce poverty and thereby build a more hopeful future for their citizens. It means doing more to help struggling nations wipe out hunger and infectious diseases and expand educational opportunities.

Simply put, smart power is an idea whose time has come. Over the past few years, more than 400 businesses and non-governmental organisations have joined a "strange bedfellows" alliance, the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, which believes America needs to employ a smart power approach to the world. And when organisations as diverse as Caterpillar and CARE, or Mercy Corps and Microsoft, are brought to the same table to argue for these things, politicians take notice. Which could be why, in an era known for political divisiveness, the smart power approach is attracting extraordinary bipartisan support in Washington and beyond.

Throughout this year, momentum has been growing at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, and on both sides of the aisle in Congress, for putting smart power to work. The White House has launched a review of all U.S. foreign assistance efforts across 60 agencies, with reform recommendations due in January. For its part, the State Department is using its Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) to create a blueprint for the future of diplomacy and development programmes. And bipartisan legislation has been introduced in both houses of Congress to begin a comprehensive foreign assistance reform process.

Defence Secretary Robert Gates, along with a growing military voice, has championed the smart power approach, calling for strengthening our civilian capacity. President Obama's commitment to double foreign assistance and to elevate and strengthen diplomatic and development programmes is an important step in the right direction.

So while the health care debate might lead you to believe that right and left cannot agree on anything these days, take heart. The call for a smart power approach comes from many quarters and is broadly supported. This is something we can get done, to the benefit of both America and the wider world.

Read the original version on The Huffington Post.

Read more ▸

Mercy Corps President Nancy Lindborg testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Zimbabwe. Photo: Sardari Group, Inc.

This week I had the honor of testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Zimbabwe, along with representatives from the State Department, USAID, the Treasury Department and several think tanks. As the sole representative of an international humanitarian organisation, I focused my remarks on how to advance recovery and reconstruction efforts in the country.

We have an important opportunity to help support the nascent progress of a country that has spiraled into collapse over the last decade. The changes that we have witnessed in Zimbabwe since the advent of the Unity Government in February of this year have been important — improvements to the economy, a vastly improved working environment for non-governmental organisations and a real grassroots desire for positive change. During my trip this summer to Zimbabwe, I saw growing glimmers of hope and increased optimism in the communities I visited.

Most important has been the stabilization of an economy that at one point reached a daily inflation rate of more that 100,000 percent! As one man expressed to me, “You have no idea what it is like to wake up with some money, enough to buy bread for your children, but then you can’t find the bread. The shops are not able to stock their shelves due to inflation. Finally, at the end of the day you find the bread, but you can no longer afford it as the price has tripled.”

Zimbabweans experienced vital relief when the economy was dollarized in February 2009, enabling shops to stock goods. As a result, life for many — although not all — is returning to greater normalcy.

Food shortages, food insecurity, cholera — these are humanitarian crises in Zimbabwe that will return without a more concerted effort to address the systemic failures. As I told the Senators, the challenge today is to move beyond the series of humanitarian band-aids we have been applying and begin supporting the early recovery and reconstruction of Zimbabwe.

There was remarkable consensus among my think tank co-panelists that now is the time to re-engage with Zimbabwe. Make the bet on the best option available right now for Zimbabweans. Help them move in the right direction and help them avoid the ravages of the recent humanitarian disasters.

I applaud Senator Feingold and Senator Isakson for holding this important hearing and strongly hope the United States will push forward with important, incremental assistance. The courageous people of Zimbabwe deserve this chance.

You can read my full testimony to the Senate here.

Read more ▸

On previous visits to Afghanistan I have traveled to our programs in the southern provinces in Helmand and Kandahar, where Mercy Corps has operated for more than 20 years, as well as those in the north. But on this visit, I headed out to an area I have not visited before: Jalalabad, a two-hour drive winding through gorges and sharpened mountain terrain, until we emerge into the fertile and anvil-hot city of Jalalabad. If we continued another hour or so, I would be back into Pakistan and the Swat Valley I visited the previous week.

The Mercy Corps team there organized a visit to a nearby village, where we have worked with the community to boost agricultural productivity and improve the ability of families to support themselves. Many members of the community spent years or even decades across the border in Pakistan. They have been returning gradually over the last several years, including those who returned just recently as a result of the fighting in the Swat Valley across the border.

After driving through the heat and dust, about an hour from the city, we walked over a small ridge, into the village and a scene of timeless welcome. A row of spreading cottonwoods along a small river formed a cool and shady meeting area, called a dera. Underneath sat two facing rows of men, in turbans and robes, on robe beds, with carpets down the middle of the area. We were guided to the front, where we were greeted with speeches of welcome and thanks, and draped with scarves and paper flowers as we inaugurated a new project. The road we had helped the community build connected them to the main market road and enabled them to get their crops more easily there to sell.

While my male colleagues continued to talk with the village men, I slipped off with to meet with the women who had been involved with the community decision process on project priorities. We gathered in a room of a nearby house, sitting cross legged on the floor while more and more of the village women appeared at the door and then emerged from their burkas, transforming from shapeless blue forms into an array of women – from elderly and bent to green-eyed lively young women with babies on their hips.

We drank tea and talked about the difference the road made for them – most importantly, they could now get to the nearby health clinic more easily. Most of them had many children – on average, five or six. They gradually became more comfortable with my presence, crowding closer and closer. A young girl furiously fanned us with a long-handled fan, but barely stirred the close air.

Read more ▸

Here in the Pakistani city of Mardan, displaced families are starting to move home after nearly three months sweltering in the hot tents of makeshift camps.

Two days ago, I visited one spontaneous camp of 250 people — who'd fled from intense fighting between government troops and Taliban militants — living in the yard of a brick factory in a neighboring district. The owner of the factory simply opened up his gates when he saw families trudging along the road as they fled the turmoil of the Swat Valley. When electricity failed and the electrically-powered water pump wouldn't work, he opened his home so that everyone — 250 people — could have water, which is critical in the ferocious 105 degree heat.

It's hard to fully fathom the depth of generosity that so many host families have displayed, even as their guests have ended up staying for months. Nearby in the village of Lundkhwar, 170 people are camping at a girl's middle school. When I visited, most of them were returning from a wedding, having been invited by a kind member of the host community.

Mercy Corps has worked to provide additional temporary latrine and washing facilities, hand pumps and — perhaps most importantly — sheltered, shaded areas where our teams help children play in safety. In addition to the heat and discomfort of living in tents with just a few household items, perhaps the toughest daily reminder of displacement for families is the tedium that can lead to hopelessness and acting out by the kids. in the brick factory, almost 80 kids were in the two play shelters, working puzzles and looking at picture books. The families in this brick yard are from Matta, one of the toughest and hardest-hit areas in the northern part of Swat.

It has not yet been fully declared open for return, so they may have another week or two before they can begin their journey home like so many of their neighbors already have.

Read more ▸

Swat is often called the Switzerland of Pakistan, and yesterday I had a chance to see why.

I had the rare opportunity to tour the conflict-affected areas by helicopter, where access has been restricted due to security concerns. Flying at treetop level provides an eerie sense of omniscience, looking onto rooftops and into courtyards. The contours of the land, the underlying patterns of villages and roads become clear, especially in the rugged mountains of Swat where the roads snake over passes and along ridges, houses hug the mountainside alongside terraced ridges.

Displaced families are returning to their homes in Pakistan's Swat Valley, months after fleeing a Taliban onslaught. Photo: Reuters/Faisal Mahmood, courtesy of www.alertnet.org

As we flew yesterday, we passed over a long line of trucks, rickshaws, cars and buses filled with the displaced residents of Swat returning home. The "all clear" has been sounded for all of Buner and most of Swat, the two districts of Pakistan where conflict had pushed out most of the residents in a terrifying exodus — most of them left with minimal possessions, and many of whom walked for several days until they reached either transport or shelter. The elderly and infirmed were often left at home, unable to withstand the journey and taking their chances as the Pakistan military sought to crush the Taliban insurgency once and for all.

Most importantly, traveling with Pakistan country director Steve Claborne, we were able to make a quick aerial assessment of the damage that awaited the returnees. Thousands of people have returned over the last two weeks. Once again, I was struck by the extraordinary resilience of people.

We touched down in Mingora, Swat's largest city, and toured the already-bustling marketplace, perhaps already 30 percent back in business. Open-front shops were selling produce, household goods, flowers and — most interestingly — radios, cassettes and videos, which were banned under the Taliban rule of the last several months. Women were on the streets, after having been forced inside under the Taliban. Laundry flapped in nearly half the houses and children tumbled out to wave at us.

Damage is centered on buildings near the roadside, on the 230 schools destroyed by the Taliban and in the buildings that housed the insurgents. There is rubble; there is damage, but the determination of the people to return from the ferocious heat and hopelessness of the camps is clear. Mercy Corps will focus our return programmes on helping people quickly recover and get back to school and work.

Read more ▸