Reevaluating the Peace Corps
Some ex-volunteers are asking tough questions about the international program’s effectiveness while others are trying to double its budget.
By Adam J. Welti
October 9, 2008
University of Washington Peace Corps representative Heidi Broekemeier stands in her office on campus in Seattle. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)Senator John F. Kennedy made a speech that outlined establishment of the Peace Corps at the University of Michigan in 1960. Kennedy commanded in his inaugural address three months later, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." The Peace Corp has come a long way since the ’60s, and it continues to serve an important role in sending Americans abroad—demonstrating that our country is not just focused military power.
But the Peace Corps has a significant amount of challenges that need to be addressed. As the organization approaches its 50th anniversary, former staff and volunteers are asking tough questions about the program’s effectiveness. At the same time, a campaign is underway to double the budget of the Peace Corps, an objective that is gaining support in Congress.
As a former volunteer with the Peace Corps in Morocco, I experienced some of the challenges of serving as a volunteer, but, at the same time, enjoyed the countless benefits. Where the Peace Corps will go over the next 50 years is yet to be known, but the hope of at least one organization of former volunteers is to continue the Peace Corps’ mission of international goodwill.
Challenges faced by Peace Corps
Today the Peace Corps has two main objectives: to provide physical and technical labor to countries that may not have enough trained workforce and to promote cross-cultural understanding between Americans and locals. These two objectives often cause a tension within the organization. Is it more important to provide labor where labor is needed, or to send grassroots ambassadors to strengthen America’s relationships with other countries?
The Peace Corps’ identity crisis has existed since its inception. Michael Warren, who served as a volunteer in Uzbekistan, points to the period of time when he served as a volunteer. In 1992, shortly after the break up of the former Soviet Union, President George H.W. Bush called for the placement of 300 volunteers in the former Soviet Union. Unfortunately, Congress and the State Department exerted a fair amount of political pressure over where volunteers would serve and in what capacity. In 2005, the U.S. State Department failed to renew visas for Peace Corps volunteers in Uzbekistan, so work there came to an end.
Ed Rowley and John Roberts, both former volunteers and country directors with the Peace Corps, agree that Peace Corps staff need to have adequate time to evaluate needs of countries and develop the infrastructure in-country for staff and the volunteers.
Rowley points out that “there needs to be viable programs and viable government support for the Peace Corps program.” Volunteers serve where host countries have asked for assistance. There has been pressure to place volunteers in Muslim-dominated countries rather than a broader category of need-based countries. While it may be difficult to keep such considerations out of the process while appropriation legislation travels through Congress, the best decisions about needs are probably best left to those who have worked with the Peace Corps and in the development field abroad.
Robert Strauss, former country director and volunteer, recently wrote an article in Foreign Policy discussing the challenges faced by Peace Corps. Strauss wrote, “Many Peace Corps staff and volunteers see development work as a burdensome obligation undertaken only to legitimize the cultural exchange aspects of the agency. For applicants, the Peace Corps emphasizes the personal experience, not the volunteer’s development impact. That, of course, is not how the Peace Corps pitches itself to foreign governments, to whom it promises significant technical development assistance—only to provide predominantly recent college graduates who may or may not have any useful skills to offer.”
Melanie Cole, who served as a volunteer in Morocco from 2005 to 2006, says that she believes the program met its cultural goals of “changing opinions about myself and different cultures. I was a bit more humbled in that I feel like I know less after Peace Corps than I did going in, because it taught me so much.”
At the same time, Cole says that the lack of defined work or technical projects can be a reason why volunteers terminate their service. “I finished my service early because my work was not happening and I felt as though I was not receiving a lot of guidance in terms of work projects.”
While most former volunteers believe more people in the field can be a good thing, there is a fair amount of concern about how the programs are expanded, which countries are served, and what volunteers are asked to do abroad.
Rowley, who served in Colombia, believes the Peace Corps does meet its goals. “Its American ambassadors at local levels [are] certainly more effective than our foreign policy State Department. We do contribute to development but we can’t expect the highest level of development—it’s more grassroots projects.”
Technical assistance is work like teaching English as a foreign language, assisting in a local health center, or working with a community group to find solutions to local environmental problems. In the end, even if Peace Corps volunteers work can’t always effectively complete the work of technical assistance it appears the benefits of cultural exchange can increase international understanding. At a time when perceptions of Americans by foreigners is in decline, Peace Corps volunteers continue to project a positive image abroad—living, working, and learning in communities throughout the world.
“In general we need to do a lot of work to change the world’s image of the United States. Peace Corps can be part of that—in terms of showing the world that America isn’t only about military power,” said Warren.
“Peace Corps is probably the most effective tool ever invented for people to people interactions. Any development contributions are icing on the cake,” said Roberts, who served in Somalia.
The Case for Expanding the Peace Corps
Donald Ross, a spokesman for the More Peace Corps campaign, points out that the Peace Corps had nearly 16,000 volunteers in the 1960s and today there are only 8,000 volunteers. While there has been motivation and legislation to increase the Peace Corps in past years, there has never been a concentrated effort to build support within Congress and in the greater citizenry, Ross said.
More Peace Corps aims to create a larger and more effective organization. The main goal of the campaign is to double the Peace Corps in size and budget by 2011. The campaign points to the fact that there are currently 20 countries on a wait-list—countries that have requested volunteers but that the Peace Corps can’t afford to send volunteers to.
The campaign’s website notes that “the astounding success of the Peace Corps, managed on a shoestring budget of $331 million, less than the cost of one day in Iraq, deserves recognition and increase.” Even doubling the size of the budget, the Peace Corps would still remain a small line item in the federal government’s overall budget.
If the Peace Corps can be effective at reducing future threats abroad, the investment now may be a relatively small price to pay. Roberts believes that “If we had Peace Corps everywhere, we’d have a lot less need for war as the world would see us differently.”
A new emphasis on diversity in the Peace Corps could bring a new influx of volunteers from under-represented groups. The vast majority of volunteers come from middle-class, often white families, often recent college graduates. Changing the structure of Peace Corps to allow for more short-term, highly-skilled positions for those men and women with more years of experience could help change the monolithic nature of white, fairly privileged and under-experienced volunteers that tend to enroll now. Ross suggests the idea of having engineers who serve for shorter periods, for example, two to four weeks once or twice per year in the field, and during the other part of the year, serving as a resource via email and phone.
What Congress is Doing
Recent legislation sponsored by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) would increase funding for the Peace Corps by $10 million, bringing the total funding appropriated to $333.5 million in fiscal year 2008. [Editor’s Note: See our related article on proposed changes to the Peace Corps legislation.] This increase is a relatively small drop in the bucket. The idea of increasing the size of the Peace Corps isn’t new. President George W. Bush called for doubling the Peace Corps in his state of the union address in 2002.
The More Peace Corps campaign is run by a large group of Peace Corps volunteers, with grassroots fundraising and presentations, on a shoe-string budget. Something the volunteers are all intimately familiar with.
Former Peace Corps volunteers often find that the experience has given them a new perspective on themselves and the world. Often this change translates into greater motivation to create change and on some level improve our world. The relatively small campaign of More Peace Corps raises valid criticisms of international service organizations, but as we look at America’s current reputation abroad, the Peace Corps can still make great strides with its grassroots activists and its development assistance.
Adam Welti is a graduate student at The Fletcher School at Tufts University studying law and diplomacy.
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The challenges seem to be Safety and Security issues. The pressure to keep countries open and open up new ones compromises security.
For example; opening up new countries where UN Peace Keepers are still in country, staying in countries where USAID has had to leave, having ambassadors and embassy personnel removed due to security concerns, not evacuating PCVs when countries are in conflict and making the evacuations regional, refusing US and UN sanctions in countries and the lack of an ombudsman.
The idea of shortening the service to less than two years is old and most other organizations already do this, limit employment.
The budget continuing resolution, short fall, might have something to do with the NPCA that lobbies for PC and creates other orgs to lobby and recruit. These are all paid by PC. The ‘shoe string’ is probably around 10 million.
PC exists because it is not expensive. The Peace Corps Volunteer Employees are paid very little. There is no other federal employee being paid below poverty. The living with the locals can be done on a normal salary and the idea of keeping Americans poor like the locals makes no sense. It’s neo colonialism and the locals usually explain they’re kept poor too.
The doubling of the Peace Corps is old. Clinton tried the same thing. The budget doubles and the PCVs don’t – the budget is moved under another organization.
Last I checked the legislation, I thought the 10 million was already transferred from military aid to Peace Corps. Of course the federal budget isn’t passed, but the programs that PC hires out PCVs to have, like PEPFAR. PC is moving to a five year budget like the programs that were passed because they are ‘emergency sustainable budgets.’ Whether PC can move to a five year budget when this budget is passed depends on legislation, wording, the hiring of the PCVs by the programs on five year budgets and whether the program five year budgets will become sustainable budgets instead of ‘emergency sustainable budgets.’
The problems at PC can be traced to Safety and Security issues and this is what costs PC. ‘The 1 day in Iraq budget’ also costs. PC isn’t about anti war.
The profile you offer isn’t fair. The average age is 28 and they are recruiting more 50+ volunteers. The money the PCVs have isn’t relevant because the pay is poverty.The RPCVs have allot of ideas. The research finds the issues are Safety and Security. Once this is handled, like it was when the Office of Safety and Security was created, PC may be able to grow.
— SW - Oct 10, 12:32 AM - #I think the 5th paragraph under ‘Challenges Peace Corps Faces’ with comments by Strauss are really key to understanding the Peace Corps’ effectiveness. So apparently, the goal of Peace Corps is not clear cut; volunteers, staff and partner countries all have a different perception of what the program works to accomplish, and that creates a level of disharmony when it comes to work produced as a result of the presence of Peace Corps volunteers.
And I’m not sure I buy the argument that if we had more PC volunteers on the ground, there would be less of a need for war and the world would see us differently. America’s economic and foreign policies are really what make most countries abroad dislike us, and when you have foreign policy working against international aid efforts, the attempt is really not cohesive enough to ultimately see that trend to shift. There is a lot of incongruence under this greater umbrella of international aid efforts, and until we all get on the same page – or at least start seeing the bigger picture – even if Peace Corps does expand, I’m not so sure it will even come close to doing anything more than altering the personal journeys of volunteers on the ground.
— ashabpatel - Oct 11, 01:23 PM - #The 20 countries on the waiting list are waiting because a PCV costs $45,000 a year. PC can’t afford it’s staff employees, not the PCV employees.
PC needs to cut their salaries; they are very high. They also need to enforce their employee five year limit allowing more people to serve and lowering costs.
— Alex Sol - Oct 13, 03:58 AM - #As another example, when Strauss claims that the agency “has never done a serious job of evaluating its impact” — that may have been true even a few years ago but is no longer true today. As a current P.C. Volunteer, I have to fill out reams and reams of spreadsheets and forms on a quarterly basis specifying the numbers, names, and contact info of agencies, “adult men”, “adult women”, “youth men,” and “youth women” whose living I have improved that quarter. Charitably, I might conclude that Strauss’ article has succeeded in motivating the P.C. towards more concrete performance evaluation.
On a more philosophical note — when Strauss talks about the P.C. performing more like a “development agency”, it seems like his model would be the IMF or World Bank, where Wall Street interns parachute into a country with a copy of the “Washington Concensus” in their briefcase and start giving orders about how to rewrite the country’s laws. The IMF has had a string of spectacular failures recently using this strategy, from Asia to Argentina. By contrast, P.C. Volunteers work on projects which are suggested by the locals in the particular country, aiding the recipients IN THE MANNER THEY WISH TO RECEIVE HELP. When Strauss belittles the “goodwill” and “ fond remembrance” of personal contact, working one-on-one in poor communities, he seems to assume that Washington desk bureaucrats know best how to help these poor unenlightened furriners toiling away in the dirt and muck — get ‘em to wear ties and go into a bank for an adjustable-rate loan. I still believe there is a vital place for the Peace Corps in helping foreign recipients create their own solutions to their own problems, and come up with their own ideas for success. I think it’s arrogant to assume Washington can prescribe answers to these people, like most other “development agencies” do, and Americans can learn as much from foreigners as they learn from us.
— Exhibit B - Oct 15, 11:14 AM - #Sorry, the comment system seems to have eaten my first comment, so this is out of order. Let’s take a look at one of the figures in that Robert Strauss article. He says, “direct expenditures per volunteer are actually only $3,000 a year. But if that is the case, one then has to wonder what the Peace Corps is doing with the other $38,000 it spends per year for each volunteer.”
— Exhibit B - Oct 15, 01:10 PM - #One of the post-service benefits of a P.C. Volunteer is, if you complete your 2-year term, a $6,000 “Readjustment Allowance” so that you are not rendered instantly homeless after working as a volunteer in a poor country for two years. In my opinion this is a wise benefit; almost every P.C. Volunteer I know taps into their savings in order to meet expenses during their term. The $6000 helps you pay off credit cards, afford continuing health insurance, and/or find an apartment while looking for your next job, after returning from service. For example, say, right before a major worldwide recession.
$6000 after two years averages to $3000 per year, and it seems to me like this is a direct expenditure on the volunteer. But that would imply that Strauss thinks the P.C. spends exactly $0.00 per volunteer otherwise, which is not true. We receive a monthly “Living Allowance” to pay our own rent and buy food, etc., an amount which varies by country. So it seems to me like Strauss is lumping the “Readjustment Allowance,” a benefit paid directly to the Volunteer — a check with the Volunteer’s name on it — along with the other “Overhead” of paper clips and form-shuffling.
I also note that P.C. spends an enormous amount of money on medical care for volunteers, especially in remote areas, including transportation and hotel stays in order to get to good hospitals, all the way up to a free, large First-Aid chest well-stocked with common over-the-counter medications. Yet I’d be willing to bet Strauss lumps all that in with “overhead” as well, because technically an insurance company pays for this. Like everything else in the Strauss article, his numbers are deeply misleading.
Please, please, people, there are good reasons why Peace Corps volunteers view Robert Strauss’ article as “controversial”. I happen to agree that P.C. overhead is high, and the top echelon are overpaid, but we will not solve these problems with misleading statistics.
The Peace Corps has three goals (unlike the two “obectives” Welti cites):
1. Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
3. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.
By and large, the 190,00 Peace Corps volunteers, over the Peace Corps’ 47-year history, have met all three goals.
Peace Corps critic Robert Strauss, former country director and volunteer though he may be, is not a dependable observer of the effectiveness of the Peace Corps. He is just another misinformed critic.
— hterrya - Oct 18, 05:04 PM - #