Title : From the Alliance for Progress to the Plan Colombia: a retrospective look at US aid to Colombia
Working Paper No : 28 (series 1)
Author(s) :Luis Eduardo Fajardo
Date : April 2003
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Abstract : This paper
presents a history-based perspective on the present controversy
surrounding US financial assistance to Colombia through a
discussion on how the US government implemented its Colombian
aid programme during the Alliance for Progress (AFP) initiative
of the 1960?s. The study adds to previous accounts on the
political and economic history of Colombia in that period,
mainly through the description and analysis of recently
declassified US government documents. It presents a case study
that seems to confirm theoretical assumptions on the
difficulties of imposing conditionality measures on aid
recipient countries. Finally, it presents some elements of
comparison between the AFP and the present US aid initiative
known as Plan Colombia.
The general premise of the study is that previous attempts at
stabilising beleaguered Colombian state organisations through
large foreign aid packages left largely unsatisfactory results.
The Colombian experience with the AFP reveals many of the
shortfalls of a counter-insurgency strategy based primarily on
the promise of large-scale US aid, and suggests some of the
difficulties to be faced in the future by a strategy of
institutional strengthening based on Plan Colombia.