"It's implementation, implementation, implementation that determines the success or failure of state building," Andrew S. Natsios said during his delivery of this week's second Charles Francis Adams lecture, sponsored by the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
Natsios, who has previously served as the administrator for USAID (United States Agency for International Development), as the chairman and chief executive officer of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority during the Big Dig and as George W. Bush's Special Envoy to Sudan, currently teaches at Georgetown University.
In his hour-long lecture in the ASEAN Auditorium, entitled "Nation Building," Natsios discussed the reconstruction and development of failed states.
First cautioning that he was speaking from personal experience and that his remarks should not be taken as a rebuke of policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said that to fix states, the primary focus should be on improving their institutions.
"State building and development are more than anything institutional building. States fail because they lack institutions," he said.
Still, Natsios cautioned that it is not enough merely to plan the creation of these institutions. Instead, it is necessary to follow through.
"Too much effort has been placed upon the ultimate objectives. State building fails, for the most part, not because of planning, but because lack of proper implementation," he said.
In Iraq, he said that the implementation was problematic because the key players in the reconstruction and developmental efforts "were engineers sent by the Pentagon to reconstruct Iraq in terms of infrastructure."
Although infrastructure, vis-? -vis the construction of buildings and other facilities is good, Natsios said that creating a working government and functional institutions is more important and cannot be accomplished by engineers. Therefore, he said that "a more developmental approach to nation building" would have been more helpful.
This process, Natsios said, takes time.
"The problem with American democracy is that we are very short-sighted. It takes a long time to build institutions. It takes 10 years to do it," he said, adding that it is difficult to accomplish and defies simple planning. Natsios said that the question of how accomplish objectives under difficult circumstances often needs to be asked.
He also said that the cultural systems and local leadership of states and nations are important features of development.
"Value systems of a society have a profound impact on the development process and in state building," he said. In addition, the prospects for the long-term health of a state are greatly increased by excellent leaders.
"What counts is local leadership. The quality of local elites is of great value," he said. According to Natsios, King Abdullah II, in his modernization of Jordan, has been a prime example of the value of such leadership.
But unfortunately, according to Natsios, Jordan's case may be the exception. "I hate to say it, but corrupt elites are more prevalent," he said.
Still, he said there is some room for optimism. In the past years, he said that there has been greater global recognition of unstable regions, a phenomenon that has had important consequences.
"We have had massive foreign increase in aid in the past five years. There has been a much greater focus on this than in the past," he said.
