40 years of DAI

DAI’s project office
in Banda Aceh,
Indonesia, was swept
away in the tsunami
of 2004, but DAI’s
SWIFT team helped to
coordinate the relief
effort within days.
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Defense and Democracy
The changing landscape of U.S. development
policy amounted to something of a seismic
shift. It shattered a unitary government interface
into one with many facets and saw USAID move
from more conventional economic development
to approaches that more forthrightly supported
free markets and political democracy. After
a crisis, USAID was more than ever before
committed to rebuilding on the basis of liberal
institutions, sometimes even more than the host
country.
It was a real seismic shift that provided the best
example of this. The huge earthquake hit early
on the morning of December 26, 2004. A few
minutes later a towering tsunami hit the city of
Banda Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra,
killing some 130,000 people and devastating
the province. In the aftermath, the U.S. Government,
its reputation in Asia clouded by the Iraq
war, was eager to lead relief and reconstruction
efforts and bring democracy to the region. This
was difficult, because the area had been the
epicenter of political separatism and a brutal
government response, and long off-limits to
tourists and foreign governments.
But DAI was there. Its SWIFT team had been
implementing USAID’s Support for Peaceful
Democratization program since the end of
Indonesian authoritarian rule in 1998. Although
the Banda Aceh project office was swept away
by the tsunami, DAI staff were soon coordinating
with U.S. and international relief agencies.
Within days, the DAI team was identifying areas
of need and providing grants to reconstruct
and rehabilitate not only the Sumatran physical
infrastructure but its social and economic infrastructure,
as well. In two months, DAI channeled
$3.8 million into the local economy, more than
half of it going to Aceh-based nongovernmental
agencies.
Whether the company was mediating between
pro- and anti-government forces in Indonesia or
working within a combat zone in Iraq, security
concerns came ever more squarely into the DAI
spotlight. While the safety of its staff remained
its paramount concern, walking away from such
hotspots was not an option: the development
needs were too great, and DAI’s contribution
was too valuable. Its Iraqi stabilization work in
Sadr City, Talafar, and Fallujah, for example, was
considered so good that it was cited in the U.S.
military’s Counterinsurgency Field Manual as a
model for the “clear, hold, and build” strategy.