Robert L. Strauss has been a Peace Corps Country Director, recruiter, consultant, and Volunteer. Earlier this year Strauss wrote an op-ed for the New York Times asserting that "Too often young volunteers lack the maturity and professional experience to be effective development workers in the 21st century." Now Strauss has a longer piece in "Foreign Affairs" that says that the Peace Corps has "never lived up to its purpose or principles." Read and comment on the seven myths about the Peace Corps that Strauss refutes.
"Today, the Peace Corps remains a Peter Pan organization, afraid to grow up, yet also afraid to question the thinking of its founding fathers. The rush to fulfill John F. Kennedy’s 1960 campaign pledge was such that the Peace Corps never learned to crawl, let alone walk, before it set off at a sprinter’s pace. The result is a schizophrenic entity, unsure if it is a development organization, a cheerleader for international goodwill, or a government-sponsored cross-cultural exchange program. In any case, the Peace Corps tries to do too many things in too many places with too few people to really get much of anything done at all."
Readers can respond directly to "Foreign Policy" by sending and email to Moisés Naím, editor in chief mnaim@CarnegieEndowment.org
Robert L. Strauss writes: The Peace Corps Is Not One of the Greatest Things America Has Ever Done
Think Again: The Peace Corps
By Robert L. Strauss
Posted April 2008
In the eyes of Americans, no government agency better exemplifies the optimism, can-do spirit, and selfless nature of the United States than the Peace Corps. Unfortunately, it’s never lived up to its purpose or principles.
Myth: “The Peace Corps Is One of the Greatest Things America Has Ever Done”
Dream on. Today, the Peace Corps remains a Peter Pan organization, afraid to grow up, yet also afraid to question the thinking of its founding fathers. The rush to fulfill John F. Kennedy’s 1960 campaign pledge was such that the Peace Corps never learned to crawl, let alone walk, before it set off at a sprinter’s pace. The result is a schizophrenic entity, unsure if it is a development organization, a cheerleader for international goodwill, or a government-sponsored cross-cultural exchange program. In any case, the Peace Corps tries to do too many things in too many places with too few people to really get much of anything done at all.
Despite these inherent faults, the Peace Corps is probably one of the least-expensive development agencies ever created. Supporting a volunteer in the field costs just $41,000 a year, including overhead. That’s about $12,000 less than a year’s worth of tuition, room, and board at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and a small fraction of the cost of supporting a single American diplomat or USAID worker in a developing country. The agency has long prided itself on doing more with a dollar than most other development outfits. Peace Corps Press Director Amanda Beck estimates that the agency’s 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. However you count it, the agency’s relative leanness says more about the lack of significant results in the development business than it does about the Peace Corps’ cost effectiveness.
Based predominantly on the life-changing experiences volunteers had while serving, the Peace Corps continues to generate strong support from the American people. But for the agency to approach its potential, deep, substantive changes must be made.
Sargent Shriver, the agency’s first director, recognized that a “Peace Corps, small and symbolic, might be good public relations, but a Peace Corps that was large and had a major impact on problems in other countries could transform the economic development of the world,” according to former Pennsylvania Sen. Harris Wofford. Because the Peace Corps has tried to be all things to all comers, that grand vision has never been realized or even approached. To become effective and relevant, the Peace Corps must now give up on the myth that its creation was the result of an immaculate conception that can never be questioned or altered. It must go out and recruit the best of the best. It must avoid goodwill-generating window dressing and concentrate its resources in a limited number of countries that are truly interested in the development of their people. And it must give up on the risible excuse that in the absence of quantifiable results, good intentions are enough. Only then will it be able to achieve its original objective of significantly altering the lives of millions for the better.
Robert L. Strauss has been a Peace Corps country director, recruiter, consultant, and volunteer. He is a recipient of the State Department’s Meritorious Honor Award and lives in Madagascar, where he runs a management consulting company. He can be reached at RobertLStrauss@hotmail.com.
