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OECD 1999
Real Progress: Fifty Years of USAID in Costa Rica
inflation; this probably led to the temporary decline in the number of people living
and working on the hacienda. The creation of alternative sources of employment,
such as at the factory in Turrialba producing baseballs for export (a dozen
women from both villages work there), is a legacy of USAID-assisted export and
investment promotion efforts.
Validity of the development concepts
The variety of activities and approaches USAID employed in Costa Rica makes
a wide range of evaluation approaches possible. At one extreme, the effect of each
of a thousand activities the Agency promoted could be assessed and all the effects
combined. At the other extreme, one could treat USAID flows as a financial transfer,
and use an econometric model to calculate impact. This study rejects both
extremes: limited time makes the first alternative impossible, while the second is
too simplistic. Instead, this study adopts two more modest strategies. First, this
section looks at the basic concepts which USAID applied. Were they appropriate to
Costa Rican conditions, or were they simply ideological constructs or fads? The next
section looks at sector and project activities for evidence of success or failure, drawing
mainly on sector studies by Costa Rican researchers.
Some claim that USAID country strategies vary widely, depending on the particular
orientation of the mission director in the country or the plans of the government
in power. Certainly these factors have some influence. Nevertheless, a review
of USAID documentation for Costa Rica makes clear that broad conceptual
approaches were stable for relatively long periods of time and that those periods
corresponded closely to the current development paradigm. Conceptually, US economic
assistance strategy in Costa Rica can be divided into four phases, each
answering differently the same question: What is economic development, and how
is it achieved?
– Technical assistance, 1946-61. The earliest programmes assumed that technical
knowledge was the key to development and emphasised training Costa
Ricans and transferring knowledge to them through foreign experts.
– High development, 1961-72. By 1961, the answer was broadened to incorporate:
a leading role for government investment; attention to the macro-economic
concepts of savings, investment, and internal and external balances; and the
sociological concepts of modernisation and “take-off”. 6
– Basic human needs and poverty reduction, 1972-81. Disillusionment with macroeconomic
concepts, and with the apparent failure of macro-economic growth
to “trickle down” to the poor, set in during the 1970s. The United States
retreated to a concept of development as direct help by government agencies
(often working together in “integrated rural development” projects) to
the poorest people, and avoiding macro-economic issues.
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