Evaluating Country Programmes - OECD Online Bookshop

OECD 1999
Real Progress: Fifty Years of USAID in Costa Rica
from the participating government and required cost-sharing and clearly defined,
time-limited objectives. US resources were to be used for salaries and expenses
of US technicians, costs of training Costa Rican technicians, and materials used in
demonstration projects.
A huge exception to “aid as technical assistance” was funding the Costa Rican
portion of the Inter-American Highway. US funding of this infrastructure project was
not carried out by any aid agency but by the US Bureau of Public Roads. Altogether,
the United States spent USD50 million on the Costa Rican portion of the road –
more than USD36 million of it during the 1950s. Most of the remainder was
expended in the late 1960s in rebuilding portions of the road.
STICA originally concentrated on establishing an agricultural extension service
and 4-S clubs to transfer technology. By 1955, the extension service had 30 offices
around the country, and management was transferred from STICA to the Ministry of
Agriculture. STICA also developed irrigation and erosion control projects and later
concentrated on agricultural research, both directly and through a contract with the
University of Florida for research and training Costa Ricans.
SCISP worked on water and sewer systems, health centres, and epidemic control.
Some assistance was also provided for nursing education and slaughterhouse
design. US help supported construction of Costa Rica’s first two modern water systems,
including fluoridation for San José (the first in Latin America), design of an
integrated water system for the central valley, and designs for community water systems
(built in 20 communities per year in the late 1950s).
The United States also financed studies, foreign advisers, and training abroad
by Costa Ricans in a number of other sectors, including education, transportation,
industry, housing, labour, and public administration. US aid financed studies of tax
administration and local government, helped create the Central Statistics Office,
and gave advice on establishing a formal civil service. In 1959, the first “public
safety” programmes began. They included police training and internal security
training, which were to continue until 1973.
Assessment
Both the technical assistance programmes of the 1946-61 period and construction
of the Inter-American Highway had a major impact on Costa Rica. Probably the
single most critical infrastructure project undertaken during the period, the Inter-
American Highway brought substantial benefits to the country. It ended the nation’s
physical isolation and dramatically increased internal communication. Although the
road was conceived as part of a multinational network, its importance as a domestic
Main Street actually far outweighed its importance for international traffic through
Costa Rica. There is some question whether the part of the highway connecting
Costa Rica with Panama was worth the cost to the United States (especially since the
247