The [redacted] USAID shell game

A U.S. government force with a reputation for speed and daring plans to spend as much as $2.5 billion over the next eight years to try to bring peace and democracy to trouble spots and flash points around the world.
The Office of Transition Initiatives, or OTI, has a long list of potential targets, including Cuba.
OTI, which is part of the Agency for International Development, or USAID, operates some programs openly, but disguises others so the American government role is not readily apparent.
During a meeting with contractors in June 2012, Stephen Lennon, chief of OTI’s Field Program Division, highlighted the group’s ability to cloak its activities while in Colombia from 2007 to 2011. 

OTI was asked to go in and we did. And we didn’t go in as the U.S. government. In Colombia, nothing was branded. Nothing was branded USAID. It was all - that’s right, soccer balls from the Colombian government, Acción Social (a Colombian government agency). We had a couple of different brands.

What we did was create entities that looked, smelled, acted like they were the Colombian government and we worked very very closely with the Colombian government and the Colombian military to project their presence. (See 78-page transcript of the meeting).

Perceptions matter, Lennon told the group.

For example, OTI might support an activity with the local government to repair a school. OTI would measure its success based on how that activity improved attitudes and perception toward the government in that community rather than how the refurbished school impacts educational outcomes.

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