That is indeed a perfect Catch 22 situation and also one of the biggest dillemas faced by the international cooperation or aid setcor (whatever you want to call it) in several contexts. The clearest example were the famine and the floods in North Korea, where aid operations were highjacked by the regime and the security apparatus: food aid was channeled to the army and witheld to the population of certain remote districts, all local staff was imposed and designated by the regime, and no freedom of movement to monitor aid. While the US, and the biggest aid donor, pressured the UN to stay on, several NGO’s left because they could not work in such circumstances.

The ineffectiveness of many if not most programmes is caused by several factors. A major one is indeed, that international organisations (esp. UN and international banks but also some of the NGOs) often tend to engage with the wrong people: local arrivistic elite groups who have no clue and don’t care about reality outside of their own privileged surroundings. Another is that international programmes are often based on neo-liberal concepts and wishful thinking that is totally disconnected from reality in the countries and region.

Often they cause more harm than good. In the nineties, for example, the ‘economic reforms’ propagated by international economic consultants and market fundamentalists like Anders Aslund definitely contributed to the economic and social dislocation of Kyrgyzstan. Right, that is not the only cause of the mess but it gave international legitimacy, or at least the perception thereof, of the dire situation in the country. Another example are HIV-AIDS prevention projects of international organisations who give free medical care and condoms to prostitutes and thus de facto encourage and propagate prostitution.

Finally, the expats. I agree with you that a minority of them are great people with a genuine passion for the region. Much more others have been willy nilly sent there by their employer and hate the place – it’s not one of the sexy exotic duty stations – until they move to another post. And yet anohter category are characters, losers and sometimes even outright dogdy types who are on the run for personal problems or nobodies in their own societies. Many do not know Uzbek, Kyrgyz or Eurasian society nor the language (not even Russian) and hence become totally dependent of a local entourage consisting of the same elite brats and ‘expat milkers’ (as I like to call a certain kind of local people who are specialised in taking advantage of expats).

“What Russia has to do with Gulnora’s moving to the UN?”

I did not meant to say that ‘Russia’ has ordered her to move to the UN. Rather, I also see it as a business and political move, yet one that has been hastened by the fact that after a short post-Andijan period of hugs and Vetshnaya Druzhba, relations between Tashkent and the Kremlin cooled down even if it is not admitted openly. It also explains why Karimov cozies up more with the EU lately. And then, of course, it comes in handy to have googoosha in Europe.

But, why is it surprising that these expats blame the spoiled children of local elites that they work with? You could argue that they shouldn’t hire these spoiled (usually useless and incompetent) kids to begin with, but how would you avoid this problem while still getting the government to cooperate with you?

Let’s say people in Unfreeland are starving. You are the head of an organization that has the ability to bring in food and save these people from death by starvation. However, the ruler of Unfreeland demands a personal cash payment before he will allow your group to bring in food to the people. Also, you will be deported and all your group’s in-country assets confiscated if you say anything publicly that angers the ruler of Unfreeland. Do you hold on to your beliefs, refuse to compromise, and ignore the suffering of the people? Or, do you give in and save people from starvation? Thing is, if you give in, you will continue the cycle and nothing changes.

This might be an “extreme” example, but it illustrates the dilemmas that face these organizations. You cannot expect expats to change the countries they work in. (And, yes, too many expats overestimate their ability to make changes in these countries). They can provide some help, but their actions are constrained.

I think Mirsulzhan identifies the real impediment to change in his post Central Asia, tear down this wall!: “… too often it seems that the populations of Central Asia continue to lay about, waiting for a Stalin or Putin to lift them from their morass. Their inertia testifies to a belief that prosperity and freedom must be things that happen to a society, not things to be worked toward.”

This being said, I think that it will neither be EU sanctions nor NGO’s nor the IMU who will enigneer Karimov’s downfall, but Russia. I understood that the day that he moved his daughter from the Uzbekistan embassy in Moscow to a UN(!) post in Geneva.

Not that I am keen to slip into primal comparisons and into Godwin’s Law, but somehow it ‘itches’ somewhere… ;-)
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/czechrepublic/theresienstadt/theresienstadtghetto/history/redcrossvisit.html