US wants more aid recognition in Pakistan

Concerned that US help to Pakistan is not getting enough recognition, Washington is making a new push to get international aid groups it funds to advertise the fact. But it is meeting resistance from partners worried US branding could prompt Taliban attacks.

The conflict highlights a major challenge for the US as it tries to win hearts and minds in Pakistan, a key ally in the war in neighbouring Afghanistan and a deep well of anti-American sentiment.

The US has earmarked $7.5 billion in aid over the next five years, but it will do little to sway public opinion if Pakistanis don’t know where the money is coming from.

The issue has taken on new urgency in recent weeks as the US has donated nearly $350 million to help Pakistan cope with this summer’s devastating floods.

US officials have said they are only focused on saving lives, but the country’s special envoy to Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, repeatedly expressed concern last week that the US wasn’t getting enough credit for its assistance.

“So much American aid goes through NGOs and the international community, that people may be less aware of the American aid than they ought to be,’’ said Holbrooke after visiting a relief camp for flood victims in southern Sindh province.

Many groups that turn US dollars into the food, water and shelter Pakistanis desperately need are reluctant to use American logos on items they distribute because they fear they may be targeted by militant groups.

The Pakistani Taliban killed five UN staffers in a suicide attack last October at the office of the World Food Program in Islamabad.

In March, militants attacked World Vision, a US-based Christian aid group helping survivors from the 2005 earthquake in northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing six Pakistani employees.

World Vision said it is worried about using American logos anywhere in the country after the attack, even in less risky Punjab province in central Pakistan, where it is currently distributing thousands of US-funded hygiene, shelter and cooking sets to flood victims.

“We’re not as concerned with the threat in Punjab, but even there we are not sure,’’ said Ahmed Khan, the group’s procurement officer. ‘’If we go with US branding, the Taliban who attacked us might have a good network and think that World Vision started in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but are now in Punjab, and come attack us.”

Pakistan Director for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) Robert Wilson, said Washington is sensitive to security concerns but also must weigh the benefit that comes from average Pakistanis knowing that America is helping them.

Holbrooke and other senior officials have raised concerns that groups receiving US funding in Pakistan are not branding their assistance with the USAID logo as required. Groups are exempt from this requirement when operating in Pakistan’s militant-infested tribal region along the Afghan border but must get a specific waiver to forgo US branding elsewhere in the country.

“A lot of them may have assumed they don’t have to do it because it’s Pakistan, and that’s not correct,” said Wilson. “We want to publicize our partnership.”

USAID first implemented its branding policy in 2004 when delivering assistance to Indonesia after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami and saw favourable perceptions of the US nearly double in the country, according to the agency.

Following Holbrooke’s recent visit, USAID sent a notice to its partners in Pakistan reminding them of the branding policy, said the agency.

The Dawn