30 avril 2012

The real Peace Corps

Note: Today’s post is in no way an official statement of Peace Corps policy. It is solely my own interpretation of observable facts.

What is the Peace Corps?

It’s a basic question, but it’s also a slightly trickier one than you might think. I’m pretty sure if you were to ask most Americans – and most Volunteers, for that matter – what the Peace Corps is, they would probably answer with something along the lines of “aid agency”. After all, volunteers travel to areas badly in need of aid, they receive training in aid techniques, and they spend two years performing work that is more or less identical to that done by the various NGOs and aid agencies – it has to be an aid agency, right?

Not quite.

While it’s true that Peace Corps volunteers do in fact perform aid work, any work they may or may not do[1] is entirely secondary to their real function: serving as the goodwill arm of the Department of State. The distinction is a subtle but real one, and it tends to color every minute of your service experience.

Don’t believe me? Let’s look at some evidence.

To start off with, let’s look at the Peace Corps’ polar opposite and ironic namesake, the Marine Corps (and by extension, the entire US military).  Whether you approve of war, whether you approve of the use of armed force in pursuit of political aims, whether you approve of the existence of any government agency so large and so enduring, it is an undeniable truth that, when it comes to doing its job, the Marine Corps os not only the best in the business, but it’s probably the best in history as well. If they absolutely positively have to be beaten, you would do worse than to send in the Marines.

And why is that? Simple. Because the US military is a consummately professional organization that rewards merit over birth, hard work over entitlement, and results over appearances. Yes, there are many lamentable exceptions to those trends, but by and large the US military attracts the run-of-the-mill and turns them into the best with a consistency and rapidity that is the envy of every other such organization on Earth. And they do it by the deceptively simple-looking formula of hard work, endless practice, stringently enforced standards, and an organization sense of pride and unity that is second to none.

But you don’t have to go to the military to find those qualities; the Marine Corps is just the easiest example. Look at many other government agencies: NSA. FBI. NASA. CDC. USGS. Like the Marines, each and every one of them is the class of the world, the innovator, the trend-setter, the founder of the techniques that everyone else follows. Regardless of your opinion of their practices or their raisons d’etre, you can’t deny their sheer success. These are professional organizations, with immensely competitive hiring, and they churn out brilliant career professionals time and time again. And they are all run by the US government.

That’s a pretty outstanding track record, you have to admit.

Now let’s look at the Peace Corps. On the surface, it has a lot of similarities to the military: it primarily recruits among the young, the training period is of similar length, and the time of service is shorter than any US enlistment, it’s on a par with that commonly found in European armies. However, the differences are glaring: volunteers have no obligation to serve, they receive no pay, they receive no veterans benefits, and instead of being consistently recruited to extended service, they are instead limited by law to five years with the agency.

This last point is especially telling; if you join the Army and you’re worth a damn, they’re going to do their damndest to hang onto you for life. They offer huge re-enlistment bonuses, they offer choice of duty postings, they offer promotions…they do everything but come over to your house and offer you your choice of sexual services, and sometimes you get the sense they’re even thinking about doing that. Peace Corps, on the other hand, kinda/sorta wants you to do a third year, but after that they’re really more about getting you the heck out. Fourth years are very rare, and five years is the legal limit.

So why is that? Why aren’t volunteers kept for longer service? Hell, why aren’t they at the very least bound to a 2 – 4 year enlistment like any raw Army recruit? Why are they only given relatively minimal training, and allowed to leave whenever they like? Why aren’t they at least bound to a contract, like many civilian contractors?

It’s simple: PCVs aren’t really aid workers, they’re goodwill ambassadors[2] who dabble at aid work. And you can’t really force someone to be a goodwill ambassador. If someone is angry and resentful and wants to go home, you really don’t want them representing you abroad, hmm? In fact, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say PCVs are more effective at their primary job when they don’t have to worry about that sort of thing. After all, this isn’t the military, it’s the Peace Corps – being here voluntarily is part of the gig.

Look: I’m not trying to knock either the Peace Corps or what it does. It’s a very effective agency that does much to promote peace and goodwill, and it manages to get some pretty effective aid work in as well. I’m just saying that aid work is not its first job[3]. After all, whatever its other flaws the US government attracts the best and makes them better. If the government of the United States was genuinely concerned about achieving quality results, it would train PCVs to the standard that it demands from its other professional branches and uniformed services. It would recruit, train, and keep career professionals. It would promote higher learning, offer incentives for graduate degrees and academic publication, and generally do all of the things that it routinely does in its other agencies.

But it doesn’t. At least not with Peace Corps.  But it does have an actual aid organization that does that. It’s called USAID.

Nor is any of this really a secret. If you go to the Peace Corps website and look at its own mission statement, it says:

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps to promote world peace and friendship.

Furthermore, it goes on to note that:

The Peace Corps’ mission has three simple goals”

  1. 1.       Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
  2. 2.       Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
  3. 3.       Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

You’ll note that, while these statements are big or vaguer terms like peace and friendship, nowhere in that list are included more concrete words like ‘aid’, ‘assistance’, ‘agency’, or any of their synonyms. Compare this to USAID, whose website says:

USAID works in over 100 countries to: promote broadly shared economic prosperity; strengthen democracy and good governance; improve global health, food security, environmental sustainability and education; help societies prevent and recover from conflicts; and provide humanitarian assistance in the wake of natural and man-made disasters.

That’s a far more exact and concrete description for a far more exact and concrete aid agency. PCVs render assistance in their host communities, but what they do (or don’t do) is entirely up to them; yes, they provide real and lasting aid, but that’s not really their job. Their job is to be young, American, and in love with their host country[4].

Everything else is just a fringe benefit.

 

[1] It’s a sad but real truth that the “two year vacation” PCV is far from unknown. We live in remote areas, with minimal supervision, and only ourselves to really answer to; if someone doesn’t want to work, they probably don’t have to. They may die of boredom, but it’s almost impossible to make them actually work…

[2] I hate this term. I really do. It evokes images of Angelina Jolie traveling to Kenya to talk about how bad land mines are, then adopting 373 children. But it’s a more efficient term than ‘paid to be here and be American’, so I use it.

[3] But aid work is still an important part of what Peace Corps does, and I’m sure if you asked most PCVs, they would say that it was the certainly the most important part to them.

[4] On a grand level. Practically speaking, if you do nothing and then try telling your CD that you’re just doing your job by existing, you might find yourself being chewed out. We definitely have jobs, and they definitely involve aid work, and I’m not trying to say that’s not the truth of things on the ground. I’m just saying that the strategic importance of our jobs is probably far greater as goodwill ambassadors than as relatively amateur aid workers.