By Celia W. Dugger The New York Times
Published: October 29, 2006
EUFAULA, Alabama Here in this courtly, antebellum town, Alabama's condom production has survived an onslaught of Asian competition, thanks to the patronage of straitlaced congressmen from this Bible Belt state.
Behind the scenes, the politicians have ensured that companies in Alabama won U.S. government contracts to make billions of condoms over the years for AIDS prevention and family planning programs overseas, although Asian factories could do the job at less than half the cost.
In recent years, the state's condom manufacturers fell hundreds of millions of condoms behind on orders, and a U.S. international aid agency began buying them from Asia. The use of Asian-made condoms has contributed to layoffs here that are coming next month.
But one of Alabama's two Republican senators, Jeff Sessions, has quietly pressed to maintain the priority for American-made condoms and will probably prevail if the past is any guide.
"What's wrong with helping the American worker at the same time we are helping people around the world?" asked the senator's spokesman, Michael Brumas.
That question goes to the heart of an intensifying debate among wealthy nations over the degree to which foreign aid is about saving jobs at home or lives abroad.
Britain, Ireland and Norway have all sought to make aid more cost effective by opening contracts in their programs to fight global poverty to international competition. The United States, meanwhile, continues to restrict bidding on billions of dollars worth of business to companies operating in America, and not just those that make condoms.
The wheat to feed the starving must be grown in United States and shipped to Africa, enriching agribusiness giants like Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill. The American consulting firms in Washington that carry out anti-poverty programs abroad - dubbed beltway bandits by critics - do work that some advocates say local groups in developing countries could often manage at far less cost.
The history of the U.S. government's condom purchases embodies the trade- offs that characterize foreign aid, American-style. Alabama's congressmen have long preserved several hundred factory jobs by insisting that the U.S. Agency for International Development buy condoms made here, although with a nod to their conservative constituencies, most have typically done so discreetly.
Those who favor tying aid to domestic interests argue that it not only preserves jobs and supports American companies, but also helps assure broad political support for foreign aid, which is not always popular.
On the other hand, skepticism of foreign aid is frequently rooted in the perception that the money is not well spent. Blame often falls on corrupt leaders in poor countries, but tied aid from rich nations - money that must be spent in the donor country - can also reduce effectiveness.
The U.S. government, the world's largest donor of condoms, has bought more than nine billion condoms over the past two decades. Under President George W. Bush's global AIDS plan, which dedicates billions of dollars to fight the epidemic, a third of the money for prevention must go to promoting abstinence. But that leaves two-thirds for other programs, so the U.S. government's distribution of condoms has risen, to over 400 million a year.
Over the years, the development agency could have afforded even more condoms - among the most effective methods for slowing the spread of AIDS - had it bought from the lowest bidders on the world market, as the UN Population Fund and many other donors did.
Randall Tobias, who heads the U.S. aid agency, declined through a spokesman to be interviewed on this topic. His predecessor, Andrew Natsios, sought to weaken the hold of what he sometimes called a cartel of domestic interest groups over foreign aid. He tried, for example, to persuade Congress to allow the purchase of some African food to feed Africa's hungry. Congress killed that proposal last year and again this year.
Hilary Benn, the British secretary of state for international development, said that Britain untied its aid in 2001 from requirements that only British firms could bid for the work.
"If you untie aid, it's 100 percent clear you're giving aid to reduce poverty and not to benefit your own country's commercial interests," he said.
The last American factory making condoms for the U.S. aid agency sits anonymously in a pine-shaded industrial park here in Eufaula. Inside a modern, low-slung building owned by Alatech Healthcare, ingenious contraptions almost as long as a football field repeatedly dip 16,000 phallic-shaped bulbs into vats of latex, with the capacity to turn out a billion condoms a year.
The equation of need is never straightforward. The African need to forestall its catastrophe of AIDS deaths is vast. But there is need in Alabama, too.
Most of the 260 people employed at this factory and the company's packaging plant in Slocomb are women, many of them struggling to support families on $7 to $8 an hour. The most vulnerable among them, single mothers and older women with scant education, are the most fearful of foreign competition. All feel the looming threat.
"It's cheaper, yeah," said Lisa Jackson, 42, a worker in the packaging plant. "But we Americans should have first choice. We need our jobs to stay in America. We got to feed our families."
EUFAULA, Alabama Here in this courtly, antebellum town, Alabama's condom production has survived an onslaught of Asian competition, thanks to the patronage of straitlaced congressmen from this Bible Belt state.
Behind the scenes, the politicians have ensured that companies in Alabama won U.S. government contracts to make billions of condoms over the years for AIDS prevention and family planning programs overseas, although Asian factories could do the job at less than half the cost.
In recent years, the state's condom manufacturers fell hundreds of millions of condoms behind on orders, and a U.S. international aid agency began buying them from Asia. The use of Asian-made condoms has contributed to layoffs here that are coming next month.
But one of Alabama's two Republican senators, Jeff Sessions, has quietly pressed to maintain the priority for American-made condoms and will probably prevail if the past is any guide.
"What's wrong with helping the American worker at the same time we are helping people around the world?" asked the senator's spokesman, Michael Brumas.
That question goes to the heart of an intensifying debate among wealthy nations over the degree to which foreign aid is about saving jobs at home or lives abroad.
Britain, Ireland and Norway have all sought to make aid more cost effective by opening contracts in their programs to fight global poverty to international competition. The United States, meanwhile, continues to restrict bidding on billions of dollars worth of business to companies operating in America, and not just those that make condoms.
The wheat to feed the starving must be grown in United States and shipped to Africa, enriching agribusiness giants like Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill. The American consulting firms in Washington that carry out anti-poverty programs abroad - dubbed beltway bandits by critics - do work that some advocates say local groups in developing countries could often manage at far less cost.
The history of the U.S. government's condom purchases embodies the trade- offs that characterize foreign aid, American-style. Alabama's congressmen have long preserved several hundred factory jobs by insisting that the U.S. Agency for International Development buy condoms made here, although with a nod to their conservative constituencies, most have typically done so discreetly.
Those who favor tying aid to domestic interests argue that it not only preserves jobs and supports American companies, but also helps assure broad political support for foreign aid, which is not always popular.
On the other hand, skepticism of foreign aid is frequently rooted in the perception that the money is not well spent. Blame often falls on corrupt leaders in poor countries, but tied aid from rich nations - money that must be spent in the donor country - can also reduce effectiveness.
The U.S. government, the world's largest donor of condoms, has bought more than nine billion condoms over the past two decades. Under President George W. Bush's global AIDS plan, which dedicates billions of dollars to fight the epidemic, a third of the money for prevention must go to promoting abstinence. But that leaves two-thirds for other programs, so the U.S. government's distribution of condoms has risen, to over 400 million a year.
Over the years, the development agency could have afforded even more condoms - among the most effective methods for slowing the spread of AIDS - had it bought from the lowest bidders on the world market, as the UN Population Fund and many other donors did.
Randall Tobias, who heads the U.S. aid agency, declined through a spokesman to be interviewed on this topic. His predecessor, Andrew Natsios, sought to weaken the hold of what he sometimes called a cartel of domestic interest groups over foreign aid. He tried, for example, to persuade Congress to allow the purchase of some African food to feed Africa's hungry. Congress killed that proposal last year and again this year.
Hilary Benn, the British secretary of state for international development, said that Britain untied its aid in 2001 from requirements that only British firms could bid for the work.
"If you untie aid, it's 100 percent clear you're giving aid to reduce poverty and not to benefit your own country's commercial interests," he said.
The last American factory making condoms for the U.S. aid agency sits anonymously in a pine-shaded industrial park here in Eufaula. Inside a modern, low-slung building owned by Alatech Healthcare, ingenious contraptions almost as long as a football field repeatedly dip 16,000 phallic-shaped bulbs into vats of latex, with the capacity to turn out a billion condoms a year.
The equation of need is never straightforward. The African need to forestall its catastrophe of AIDS deaths is vast. But there is need in Alabama, too.
Most of the 260 people employed at this factory and the company's packaging plant in Slocomb are women, many of them struggling to support families on $7 to $8 an hour. The most vulnerable among them, single mothers and older women with scant education, are the most fearful of foreign competition. All feel the looming threat.
"It's cheaper, yeah," said Lisa Jackson, 42, a worker in the packaging plant. "But we Americans should have first choice. We need our jobs to stay in America. We got to feed our families."
