U.S., Kenya, and the Global War on Terror: Exploring the impact of shifting U.S. aid policies on NGOs

The world changed, in a multitude of ways, the day of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon. The impact of this day reverberates beyond the countries of Iraq and Afghanistan, where the United States has engaged in a controversial and persistent war. The "Global War on Terror" (GWOT) phenomenon has, indeed, become a global endeavor. The focus on the continent of Africa in the GWOT sharpened as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan lingered and rhetoric in U.S. policy circles increasingly turned to oft-invoked concerns of Africa's "porous borders" and "weak law enforcement and security services". While the United States has often emphasized maintaining an indirect presence throughout the continent, its military base, Camp Lemonnier, in Djibouti and the establishment of AFRICOM in 2008 suggest anything but a light footprint. Specifically, the East African country of Kenya, a long-standing ally of the United States government, has received substantial military and developmental/humanitarian aid throughout the last decade.;It is Kenya's status as a key beneficiary of U.S. foreign assistance and the nature of U.S. aid policy under the rubric of the GWOT that provide the impetus for this thesis. Specifically, I examine the impact of shifting aid policies within the context of the GWOT and its impact on U.S.-funded non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating in Kenya. As the notion of underdevelopment and poverty were re-conceived as dangerous to global security, foreign assistance has been championed as a method for combating broader security issues, such as terrorism and the dangers associated with weak and failing states. The increasing securitization of aid suggests potentially serious implications for development and humanitarian NGOs and actors working in regions perceivably vulnerable to extremism.