ABSTRACT
For critics of US foreign aid, New Directions reforms were quickly embraced as a necessary and long-overdue corrective to the problems of the past. US assistance programs were increasingly faulted for failing to reach poor communities and for actually contributing to human rights abuses in Latin America. The New Directions mandate also linked the provision of US assistance to the protection of human rights. This was a fairly controversial measure at the time, in part because of basic disagreements over what constituted human rights. Critics have also linked the New Directions mandate with economic interests, since the Foreign Assistance Act of 1973 included much of the pro-corporate language of the past. New Directions legislation restructured US assistance programs in Latin America. This legislation emphasized meeting the basic needs of poor communities and encouraged the direct participation of grassroots groups in the development process. The New Directions mandate was clearly the product of new challenges at home and abroad.
