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Monday, October 7, 2024

Did US actually give $33bn in aid to Pakistan?

The United States has long claimed that it has sent aid worth $33 billion to Pakistan for the country's support in the war of terror, but this claim is very far from the truth. According to the research done by a leading policy institute in Pakistan, the US has highly exaggerated the number and only a small percentage of the claimed amount made it to projects in Pakistan.

Pakistan’s leading research institution Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) took to Twitter to share its findings on the US’s claim that the Western superpower has given aid worth $33 billion to Pakistan over the course of the last two decades.

The first major result shown by the data collected by IPRI was that the much claimed and promised $33.32 billion never made it to Pakistan. According to the data collected by the institution, the US administration disbursed $17.10 billion over two years, and only $8.55 billion was used.

 

Even in the funds that were actualized, the policy institute found that approximately 50 per cent of the money spent was on consulting and administrative costs.

IPRI mentioned, “The $33 B is a distorted number which also includes the Coalition Support Funds (CSF) that is essentially a reimbursement of Pakistan’s own money – not to be counted as foreign aid.” It is worth mentioning that the US gave $14.57 billion in CSF for Pakistan’s role as a part of the coalition for war in Afghanistan, which is not aid.

The infographics by IPRI showed the division of funds, where 67.89 per cent or $11.61 billion were disbursed for economic aid, and 32.1 per cent or $5.49 billion were disbursed as military aid.

Among the major funding agencies for this fund was the US Agency for International Development (USAID), US Department of Defence (DOD), the US Department of State (DOS), the Department of the Treasury (USDT), and the Department of Agriculture (USDA) among others.

According to the data, the biggest chunk, ie 54.33 per cent of the funds were disbursed by the USAID, and the second biggest funding agency was DOD, disbursing 31.84 per cent of funds.

This was followed by the US State Department which disbursed 7.54 per cent. The Department of Agriculture, Department of the Treasury, and other agencies made up for the rest of 6.7 per cent of the funding agencies.

On the other end, the biggest recipient was the Government of Pakistan, which received 63.03 percent of the total funds actualized in the country, while the second-biggest recipient was the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) which received 11.98 per cent of the funds.

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This was followed by 11.78 per cent of funds received by multilateral organizations, 11.39 per cent of funds were received by Enterprises. The universities and research institutes, church and faith-based organizations, and public and private partnerships make up 1.82 per cent of the total funds received.