Secretary of State John Kerry in March 2013 shakes hands with now-deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.
According to a U.S. Agency for
International Development “concept paper” that U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor obtained through routine
database research, “Egypt now confronts a serious knowledge and skills deficit”
that impedes its ability to compete globally.
U.S. taxpayers, some of whom this
September will pay upwards of $45,000 annually for their own college educations,
now face the additional burden of helping Egyptians make better use of their
advanced degrees.
Those degrees are failing to produce
adequate returns on their investments, USAID says, leading to “educated
unemployment,” a phenomenon in which Egyptian college grads “are almost 10
times as likely to be unemployed than individuals with primary educations.”
USAID’s Higher Education Partnership
Program hopes to bring together the government of Egypt, Egyptian institutions
of higher learning and the private sector in a collaborative effort to meet the
needs of this North African nation’s business community.
The U.S. has an interest in helping
Egypt as it “transitions towards a democracy,” the document said.
The agency said the Egyptian
education system – containing 35 universities and eight regional technical
colleges consisting of 45 middle technical institutes – is the largest in the
Middle East and North Africa. Egypt, however, has failed to invest “sufficient
resources for these institutions to flourish as engines of knowledge transfer
and creation.”
Existing institutions are struggling
to “produce graduates with the skills employers seek, posing constraints for
growth opportunities, particularly in high skilled economic sectors.”
USAID noted that the nation “is
steeped in a tradition of education and scholarship,” pointing out that
Egyptian scholars have made significant advancements in the sciences,
engineering, mathematics and medicine dating back to “Pharaonic times and the
Islamic Caliphate.”
Despite such an “impressive legacy,”
Egypt currently lacks the infrastructure and labor force necessary “to
transform the country into a vibrant center of innovation and economic
prosperity.”
The agency issued a Request for
Information, or RFI, to solicit feedback from contractors potentially
interested in carrying out the endeavor, which could create up to 20
“university and technical college partnerships” focusing on a range of “shared
priority areas” among private industry and the respective governments of Egypt
and the United States.
The Obama administration in 2011
separately had been planning to provide technical assistance to Egypt to
explore the creation of a nationwide system of community colleges. It remains
unclear whether it ever carried out that initiative, as a thorough search of
the FedBizOpps contractor database produced zero contract awards
for the endeavor.
The following is a rundown of other
recent U.S. foreign aid-related developments. The list is by no means
exhaustive, but simply offers a snapshot of additional federal spending, both
small and large.
AFRICA
The Bureau of the Public Debt at the
U.S. Department of the Treasury is buying a 10-seat Toyota Land Cruiser for the
U.S. African Development Foundation in the Liberian capital of Monrovia. Other
than offering 14 pages of contract clauses and vehicle
specifications, Treasury disclosed little else about this procurement.
Treasury separately is buying a Toyota Fortuner 4×4 for the foundation’s
Malawi operations and a Toyota Land Cruiser for its Zambian facility.
KYRGYZSTAN
USAID is recruiting private-sector
advisers for deployment to Kyrgyzstan, officially known as the Kyrgyz Republic,
to help manage a $50 million portfolio of U.S.-funded development projects.
“Because of its proximity to South
Asia and its potential to contribute to stability in nearby Afghanistan and
Pakistan, the Kyrgyz Republic is of considerable geopolitical and strategic interest”
to the U.S, the agency says in a Personal Contracting Services notice.
The base salary range for both the Senior Development transition specialist and the senior private sector development specialist is
$84,697-$110,104.
MOZAMBIQUE
USAID will deploy an education specialist to Mozambique to help
implement this southeast African nation’s new basic education program. The
contractor annually will earn between $85,000 and $110,000.
Separately, USAID plans to build six rural health centers across Mozambique
potentially costing $10 million. It also intends to construct three pharmaceutical warehouses costing upwards
of $5 million each.
PACIFIC ISLANDS
USAID is launching the
Pacific-American Climate Fund, a project to provide grants for endeavors whose
aim is to “reduce long-term vulnerabilities associated with climate change and
achieve sustainable climate-resilient development.”
Subject to the availability of
funds, USAID expects to have a budget of about $24 million devoted to climate change adaptation efforts in island
countries such as Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Marshall Islands, Samoa and Solomon
Islands.
PAKISTAN
USAID is deploying to Islamabad a senior adviser for government-to-government
direct assistance. An agency solicitation did not disclose further details
about the position.
WORLDWIDE
The latest contract in USAID’s
International Rule of Law Technical Assistance Services project has been
awarded to Casals & Associates Inc., a subsidiary of
government contracting giant DynCorp International.
The agency did not specify how or
where Casals will provide services in the endeavor, which is based on the
United Nations principle that “all persons, institutions and entities, public
and private, including the state itself, are accountable to laws that are
publicly promulgated, equally enforced, and independently adjudicated, and
which are consistent with international human rights law.”
Up to $500 million in Indefinite
Quantity Contracts, or IQCs, could be given to Casals and other selected
vendors over the next five years.
This article originally appeared June 28 via WND. Rights gave reverted back to the author, Steve Peacock, under agreement with WND.
