Toxic technical assistance in conditions of state fragility: Field notes from Iraq

Abstract

The toxicity of a single project of US ‘technical assistance’ to Iraq is demonstrated: first, by virtue of its unilateral design and implementation and hence its violation of state sovereignty and basic norms of well-intentioned development; second, by its support of a strong form of decentralization, which risked inflaming an already volatile political condition that its sponsors had helped to create and that could have contributed to the destabilization and fragmentation of the state; third, because the commercial interests of the US implementing firm seemed likely to drive the project along its toxic path at the greatest possible speed; and fourth, because, while the dysfunctional management of the project seemed likely to impose severe constraints on the achievement of its stated objectives and the speed at which it could progress, it nevertheless constituted a bad example of governance and one that seemed likely – whatever its objectives might have been – to do more harm than good. This constituted a striking instance of wilful violation of national sovereignty under the guise of development assistance, one that was perpetrated knowingly in the gravest of national circumstances and by the same hand that had created the crisis in the first place. A method of managing development assistance that gives greater control to the host government is suggested.