Bethesda-based development firm gets Kyrgyzstan contract

The U.S. Agency for International Development has awarded a $3.25 million contract to Bethesda-based Development Alternatives Inc. to assist the newly elected Kyrgyzstan parliament, an illustration of the government's growing - and often troubled - reliance on outside contractors to promote democratic institutions abroad.

DAI, which has been in business for almost 40 years, has 87 projects in 60 countries and employs 2,000 "development professionals.'' Its revenue in 2009 was $409 million, with its largest client being USAID. It also does work for the Departments of State, Defense and Labor.

USAID selected DAI to run its Kyrgyzstan "Parliamentary Strengthening Program" without competitive bidding because of what the agency described as the urgent need "to ensure from the outset that the new parliament and its members understand their representative roles and functions."

The haste is related to a nationwide referendum in June, which approved constitutional changes that shifted executive power from Kyrgyzstan's president to the 120-member parliament. Five of 29 parties that competed in Kyrgyzstan's Oct. 10 election won enough votes to qualify for seats.

"The opportunity to engage this new parliament at its formation is a critical step in implementing the U.S. policy interest in developing stable and professional democratic systems in Kyrgyzstan," according to USAID. Unmentioned is the U.S. military air base in Kyrgyzstan that houses tankers that refuel coalition aircraft over Afghanistan and also serves as a transit point for troop forces going in and out of that country.

Murky results

It remains unclear whether the Kyrgyz parliamentary leadership that emerges will accept U.S. help.

Tomas Bridle, who heads DAI's Kyrgyz effort, said by telephone from Bishkek that his first job will be "trying to understand what is needed" after first "building relations of trust with people in the institution."

DAI employees work on similar "governance issues" in 12 other countries under contracts with a total value of $130 million, according to DAI spokesman Steven O'Connor.

A July 2010 review of recent USAID inspector general reports covering Pakistan and Afghanistan show that such contracts have trouble producing results.

A 2008 contract to DAI to increase the capacity of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas found that after almost two years, and spending of about $15.5 million, "little progress had been made" because most of the first year was spent developing plans and building relationships. In addition, the security situation deteriorated and DAI had difficulty finding partners with the skills and resources to promote good governance, according to the USAID report.

A review of an earlier 2006 contract to aid local governments in southern and eastern Afghanistan showed that despite "severe delays," after two years and $41 million there were some results including on-the-job training for government staffs, assistance to ministries for solicitation of donor funds and building of a school that brought together two competing tribes.

Last month, after a USAID inspector general review, U.S. and DAI officials "expressed concerns that Afghan insurgents may have extorted protection payments" from some of DAI's Afghan subcontractors hired to provide security for a Local Governance and Community Development program. The review did find "indication of pervasive fraud" in DAI's office in Jalalabad and "endemic corruption" in the surrounding province. A spokesman for the company said that it has fired 17 Afghan employees who operated at or near the company's Jalalabad office, and restored greater international auditing and oversight over the operations.

Human challenges

The challenges faced by DAI employees were laid bare by the the death on Oct. 9 of Linda Norgrove, a British DAI development specialist who was kidnapped by Afghan insurgents in late September and killed during a U.S.-led rescue attempt. She played a part in about $50 million in DAI contracts in Afghanistan, which include not just agricultural development, but also small enterprise and local government development efforts.

Also, DAI development expert Alan P. Gross has been in a Cuban jail since December 2009, when he was arrested for entering the country on a tourist visa while working under a USAID contract that called for distributing cellphones and laptops with satellite links to the Internet to Jewish groups. The Cuban government charged Gross with trying to foment regime change, but U.S. officials have described it as a humanitarian effort.

In 2009, DAI lost 10 security contractors killed in Afghanistan. Five died in a July suicide attack in Kunduz. In December, another five were killed by an explosion in the Gardez office of the Local Governance and Community Development program.

A profit-making company that is employee-owned, DAI lists as one of its core values: "If we succeed as a business, we will have a deeper development impact, secure the future for our employees and employee owners, and have the resources to invest in our future. "