Reliving U.S. Aid and Envisioning Taiwan-U.S. Cooperation: the TaiwanICDF Releases Latest Quarterly Featuring Exclusive Interview with Raymond Greene

(中央社訊息服務20260723 11:42:11)This year marks the 30th anniversary of the International Cooperation and Development Fund (TaiwanICDF). To commemorate this milestone, issue 24 of Development Focus Quarterly focuses on the theme “Thirty Years of Shared Prosperity with Partners: Paradigm Shifts in Global Development Cooperation and Taiwan’s Practice.” The highlight of this issue is an exclusive interview with Raymond Greene, Director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). In the interview, Director Greene guides readers through a reflection on how U.S. aid profoundly shaped Taiwan’s early economic development and critical infrastructure, while proposing forward-looking strategic visions for the current Taiwan-U.S. partnership in international aid and geopolitical cooperation, setting a new blueprint for Taiwan-U.S. friendship and future collaboration.

In the interview, Director Greene points out that Taiwan was once a success story of U.S. aid and has now transformed into an active global aid provider. Taiwan-U.S. cooperation in development assistance is not only a continuation of historical friendship but also a vital force in addressing current global geopolitical and economic challenges. He highly commends the TaiwanICDF for its outstanding contributions over the past 30 years and expresses hope that Taiwan and the U.S. will continue to deepen development cooperation projects in other countries, joining hands to promote regional prosperity and stability.

Echoing Director Greene's historical review, Professor Wei-Hua Chen of Central Police University has written an article in which he traces the path of Taiwan from U.S. aid recipient to foreign aid provider. The primary legacy left by the large-scale U.S. aid between 1950 and 1965 was the inheritance of knowledge, institutional frameworks, and talent cultivation models. The core operations that the TaiwanICDF actively cultivates today—such as agriculture, public health and medicine, and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)—are precisely the fruit of Taiwan internalizing its past aid recipient experience into foreign aid capabilities, successfully transforming Taiwan from an aid recipient into an exporter of development experience.

Furthermore, Professor Kwei-Bo Huang of National Chengchi University and Associate Professor Chou-Hua Ni of National Quemoy University pointed out in their article that Official Development Assistance globally has undergone four major paradigm shifts—evolving from the Capital and Infrastructure Paradigm during the post-WWII Marshall Plan era to the contemporary Sustainable Development Paradigm, which integrates global risks and transnational partnerships. This evolution mirrors the exact journey of the TaiwanICDF aligning with international standards.

Facing changes in the global assistance landscape, Director Kristy Tsun-Tzu Hsu of the Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research warns in her article that shifts in geopolitics and foreign aid systems have presented challenges to developing countries in ASEAN and beyond. However, this also opens up new policy opportunities for Taiwan.

In their article, professor Philip Liu Hsiao-pong and Ph.D. student Chen-Wei Yen of National Chengchi University emphasize that Taiwan possesses exceptional technology translation capabilities, customizing and translating advanced technologies from developed nations into solutions that fit the local contexts of developing countries, thereby serving as a crucial intermediate bridge between Global North donors and Global South partners. The article suggests that Taiwan should actively integrate into blue finance governance frameworks such as Debt-for-Nature Swaps, while combining resources from the Ministry of Education's University Social Responsibility (USR) initiative and private enterprise ESG efforts to leverage our technical advantages in marine ecological monitoring and sustainable fisheries, embedding Taiwan’s aid capabilities more closely within global multilateral networks.

Regarding the publication of this quarterly issue and the evolution of Taiwan-U.S. cooperation, the TaiwanICDF Deputy Secretary General Peifen Hsieh noted that Taiwan's transformation from an early recipient of U.S. aid into a donor walking side-by-side with international partners serves as a prime model of global development cooperation. Director Greene's interview not only bears witness to the deep historical ties between Taiwan and the U.S., but also highlights that both sides have evolved their relationship from local practice to global partnership within modern geopolitical and sustainable development networks. In the future, TaiwanICDF will continue to leverage its expertise in technology translation and core fields such as public health and agriculture to expand cooperation with democratic allies like the United States, deepening Taiwan's contributions to the international multilateral system.

To expand the impact of the Development Focus Quarterly and complement the content of issue 24, the TaiwanICDF plans to hold the "6th Development Focus Forum" on Thursday, August 27, from 1:30 PM to 4:30 PM in conference room 301 at the National Central Library. All are welcome to register. Registration link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc-L5dvg6n2ujDB4dE1IC8EEcNe_kSbHEyVE7yVxqeiEbARAQ/viewform

Development Focus Quarterly issue 24 is now officially available online. You are welcome to download and read it for free on the official TaiwanICDF website:
https://www.icdf.org.tw/wSite/ct?xItem=75186&ctNode=31211&mp=1