As the US announces it is to withhold military aid to Pakistan, find out how much money America has given to the country since 1948
The Obama administration has announced it will withhold more than one-third of all military assistance to Pakistan – an aid envelope worth some $800m (£498m). The withheld aid includes funding for military equipment and reimbursements for selected Pakistani security expenditures – including a payment of $300m for counterinsurgency programmes.
US aid to Pakistan has a long political history and this is not the first time money has been withheld. Here we’ve pulled out all the figures for both US military aid and economic assistance (including development assistance) to Pakistan between 1948 and 2010.
The dataset comes from Wren Elhai, at the Washington-based Center for Global Development (CGD), who in May published a report along with Nancy Birdsall and Molly Kinder analysing the long-term impact of US aid to Pakistan. The numbers – which come from the US Overseas Grants and Loans database and the Congressional Research Service – have been adjusted for inflation and are presented in terms of the value of the US$ in 2009.
Some highlights:
• US economic assistance to Pakistan peaked in 1962, at over $2.3bn
• in 2010, military assistance to Pakistan totalled $2.5bn – including $1.2bn in coalition support funds
• US assistance to Pakistan reached its lowest level in the 1990s, after President George H.W. Bush suspended aid flows over Pakistan’s emerging nuclear programme
• US military assistance dropped dramatically during and immediately after the Indo-Pakistani wars of 1965 and 1971
• in the 1970s, President Carter suspended all aid to Pakistan (except food aid) in response to Pakistan’s decision to construct a uranium enrichment facility
• although US assistance (both economic and military) to Pakistan has fluctuated considerably over the last 60 years, it has risen steadily since 2001
Pakistan has historically been among the top recipients of US aid – since 1948, the US has sent more than £30bn in direct aid to the country. Nearly half of this has been for military assistance. However, since Osama bin Laden was discovered and killed in Abbottabad earlier this year, US president Barack Obama has come under increasing pressure to justify US aid spending in the country.
Although military assistance is currently the only form of US aid to Pakistan to be withheld, Congress has considered other – as yet unsuccessful – bills to also block US economic assistance, and civilian aid to Pakistan will no doubt be up for debate again next year, as the 2012 budget battles get underway.
What can you do with the data?