On behalf of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network, thank you to the following organizations and individuals who endorsed MFAN’s Open Letter to President Obama:

Organizational Endorsements

34 Million Friends of the United Nations Population Fund, Jane Roberts, Co-Founder

3D Security Initiative, Eastern Mennonite University, Lisa Schirch, Director

Abt Associates, Kathleen L. Flanagan , President & CEO

Academy for Educational Development, Stephen F. Moseley, President & CEO

ACDI/VOCA, Carl H. Leonard, President & CEO

Action Against Hunger

ActionAid USA

Advocates for Youth

Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation, R. Gordon Douglas, Jr. M.D., Executive Chairman

Africa Action, Gerald LeMelle, Executive Director

Alliance to End Hunger

America’s Impact, Executive Committee

American Friends Service Committee

American Jewish World Service, Ruth Messinger, President

American Refugee Committee, Daniel Wordsworth, President

Americans for Informed Democracy, Karen Showalter, Executive Director

Americas Relief & Development Team, Dr. Teo A. Babun, Jr., Executive Director

Amnesty International USA, Larry Cox, Executive Director

AMREF USA, Lisa Meadowcroft, Executive Director

AROGYA, Nalini Saligram, Ph.D. Founder & CEO

Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs, Randall Kempner, Executive Director

Barer Institute for Law and Global Human Services, University of Washington School of Law, Manisha Singh, Executive Director

Better World Campaign, Peter Yeo, Executive Director

Bread for the World, David Beckmann, President

Building Tomorrow, George Srour, Executive Director

Business Council for Global Development, LLC

CARANA Corporation, Eduardo Tugendhat, CEO

CARE, Helene D. Gayle M.D., MPH, President & CEO

Cargill, Incorporated

Caterpillar

Catholics for Choice, Jon O’Brien, President

Center for American Progress, John Norris, Executive Director, The Sustainable Security and Peacebuilding Initiative

Center for Health and Gender Equity, Serra Sippel, President

Center for Interfaith Action on Global Poverty, Jean F. Duff, Executive Director

Centre for Development and Population Activities, Carol Peasley, President & CEO

ChildFund International, Anne Lynam Goddard, President & CEO

Christian Reformed World Relief Committee, Andrew Ryskamp, Director

Church of the Brethren Global Mission Partnerships, Jay Wittmeyer, Executive Director

Church World Service, Rev. John L. McCullough, Executive Director & CEO

Congressional Hunger Center, Edward M. Cooney, Executive Director

Creative Associates International, Inc., Charito Kruvant, President & CEO

Cummins Inc., Tim Solso, Chairman &CEO

Devex, Raj Kumar, President

eBay

Episcopal Relief & Development, Robert W. Radtke, President

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Rev. Andrew D. Genszler, Director for Advocacy

Evangelicals for Social Action, Ronald J. Sider, President

Family Care International, Ann M. Starrs, President

FHI, Albert J. Siemens, PhD, Chairman & CEO

Florida Association for Volunteer Action in the Caribbean and the Americas, Demian Pasquarelli, Executive Director

Food for the Hungry, Dave Evans, President & Global Executive Officer

Foundation Builders –Nigeria, Aigbe Omoruyi, CEO

Freedom House, Jennifer Windsor, Executive Director

Global Action For Children

Global Alliance for TB Drug Development

Global Health Council, Jeffrey L. Sturchio, President & CEO

Global Rights: Partners for Justice, Mary E. McClymont, Executive Director

Global Washington, Bookda Gheisar, Executive Director

Habitat for Humanity

Heifer International, Charles Stewart, Interim CEO

Helen Keller International, Kathy Spahn, President & CEO

iLEAP: The Center for Critical Service, Britt Yamamoto, Ph.D., M.S., Executive Director

Initiative for Global Development, Jennifer Potter, President & CEO

INMED Partnerships for Children, Linda Pfeiffer, Ph.D., President & CEO

InterAction, Sam Worthington, President & CEO

International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, Seth F. Berkley, President & CEO

International Center for Religion and Diplomacy

International Center for Research on Women, Sarah Degnan Kambou, President

International Foundation for Electoral Systems, Bill Sweeney, President & CEO

International Fund for Animal Welfare, Jeff Flocken, DC Office Director

International Housing Coalition, Bob Dubinsky, CEO

International Medical Corps, Nancy A. Aossey, President & CEO

International Population & Health Services, LLC

International Relief & Development, Dr. Arthur B. Keys, President & CEO

International Rescue Committee, George Rupp, President &CEO

International Resources Group, Asif M. Shaikh, President

International Women’s Health Coalition, Adrienne Germain, President

International Youth Foundation, William S. Reese, President & CEO

Interplast, Susan W. Hayes, President & CEO

IREX, Amb. W. Robert Pearson, President

Just Foreign Policy

Khmer Institute of Democracy, Chhaya Hang, Executive Director

Levi Strauss & Co.

LTL Strategies, René Lake

Lundy Foundation, Vic Dukay, Ph.D., President

Lutheran World Relief, John A. Nunes, President & CEO

Malaria No More

Management Sciences for Health, Dr. Jonathan Quick, President & CEO

Mars Incorporated

Medicines for Malaria Venture, Dr. Dennis Schmatz, CEO

Mennonite Central Committee U.S., J Ron Byler, Executive Director

Mercy Corps, Nancy Lindborg, President

Micah Challenge USA, Jason Alfonse Fileta, National Coordinator

Millennium Water Alliance

Nathan Associates, Lakhbir Singh, President & CEO

Nike Inc.

Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, David Krieger, President

ONE, David Lane, CEO & President

Outreach International, Matthew Naylor, PhD, President

Oxfam America, Raymond C. Offenheiser, President & CEO

Partners In Health, Ophelia Dahl, Executive Director

Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa, Julie Howard, Executive Director & CEO

PATH, Christopher J. Elias, MD, MPH, President &CEO

Pathfinder International, Daniel E. Pellegrom, President

Peace Action West, Jon Rainwater, Executive Director

Philanthropy Support Services, Inc.

Plan USA, Audrey Bracey Deegan, Interim President & CEO

Population Action International, Suzanne Ehlers, President & CEO

Population Communication, Robert Gillespie, President

Population Institute, Bill Ryerson, President

Pre-vent, Robin Jafari,MD MBA, Chairman of the Board

Professional Services Council, Stan Soloway, President & CEO

Project Concern International, George Guimaraes, CEO

Publish What You Fund, Karin Christiansen, Director

Puget Sound Millennium Goals Project

Relief International, Farshad Rastegar, President & CEO

Root Capital, Willy Foote, Founder & CEO

SAFE NEPAL, Jayaram Poudel, President

Save the Children, Charles MacCormack, President & CEO

Sensitization Centre, Abdul Samad Said

Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S., Joseph DiNorcia, Jr., President & CEO

Sibley International LLC, Donna Sibley, President

Sojourners, Rev. Jennifer Kottler, Director of Policy and Advocacy

Student Global AIDS Campaign, Ntiokam Divine, Founding President

Taxpayers for Common Sense, Ryan Alexander, President

The Episcopal Church

The Nature Conservancy, Mark. R. Tercek, President & CEO

The Timmy Foundation, Matt MacGregor, Executive Director

Transparency International-USA

Trickle Up, William M. Abrams, President

Truman National Security Project, Dr. Rachel Kleinfeld, CEO

U.S. Coalition for Child Survival, Andrew E. Barrer, Ph.D., Executive Director

U.S. Fund for UNICEF, Caryl M. Stern, President & CEO

U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, Liz Schrayer, Executive Director

United Methodist General Board of Church and Society, James E. Winkler, General Secretary

University of South Florida Office of International Affairs, María de los Angeles Crummett, Ph.D., Dean of International Affairs

U.S. Overseas Cooperative Development Council, Robert I. Nooter, Executive Director

USAID Alumni Association, Hank Bassford, Terry Brown, Co-Chairs

USF Health International, Ann C. DeBaldo, Ph.D., Associate Vice President

Vermont Council on World Affairs, Gail Stevenson, Executive Director

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

Washington Office of Public Policy, Women’s Division, United Methodist Church

Washington Office on Latin America, Joy Olson, Executive Director

Water for Humans, Rick McKenney MBA, Executive Director

Water For People, Ned Breslin, CEO

WaterAid, America, David Winder, PhD, CEO

Wellstart International, Audrey Naylor, MD, DrPH, President & CEO

Women of Reform Judaism, Shelley Lindauer, Executive Director

Women Thrive Worldwide, Ritu Sharma, Co Founder & President

World Learning, Adam Weinberg, President

World Neighbors, Melanie Macdonald, President & CEO

World Wildlife Fund, Carter Roberts, President & CEO

Individual Endorsements

Eli Y. Adashi, Professor of Medical Science, Brown University

J. Brian Atwood, Dean, Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota; Former USAID Administrator

Richard H. Beahrs, Senior Advisor, Revolution Foods, Inc.; Former Senior Executive, Time Warner Inc.

Richard C. Blum, Chairman, Blum Capital Partners, LP

John J. Castellani, President, Business Roundtable

William H. Clapp, President, Seattle International Foundation

John J. Danilovich, Former CEO,Millennium Challenge Corporation

Maria Eitel, President, Nike Foundation

Daniel J. Evans, Former U.S. Senator

Claude  Fontheim, Fontheim International, LLC; GlobalWorks Foundation; Business Council for Global Development

Henrietta Holsman Fore, Former Director, U.S. Foreign Assistance; Administrator, US Agency for International Development

Samuel P. Fried, Executive Vice President, Limited Brands

Laurie Garrett, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations

John Githongo Kenyan Transparency & Accountability Campaigner

Cate Goethals, Academic Director, Global Business Forum, Foster School of Business, University of Washington

David Goldberg, CEO, Survey Monkey

Mark Green, Ambassador and Member of Congress (ret.)

William D. Green, Chairman & CEO, Accenture

Gerald Grinstein, CEO-Emeritus, Delta Air Lines, Inc.

Rajat Gupta, Senior Partner Emeritus, McKinsey & Company

Tony  Hall , Former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Agencies in Rome

Lee H. Hamilton, President & Director, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Carla A. Hills, Former U.S. Trade Representative; Former Secretary of Housing & Urban Development

George Ingram, Vice President, Academy for Educational Development

Neville Isdell, Former Chairman & CEO, The Coca-Cola Company

Sally Jewell, President & CEO, Recreational Equipment, Inc.; Chair, Initiative for Global Development

Farooq  Kathwari, Chairman, CEO & President, Ethan Allen Interiors Inc.

Robert Kissane, President, Community Counselling Service LLC

Charles E. Kolb, President, Committee for Economic Development

Jim Kolbe, Former Congressman; Senior Transatlantic Fellow, German Marshall Fund of the United States

H.L. Kotkins, Jr., Chairman & CEO, Skyway Luggage Company

Katrin Kuhlmann, Transatlantic Fellow, German Marshall Fund of the United States

Jim Kunder, Senior Resident Fellow, German Marshall Fund of the United States

Carol Lancaster, Dean, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service

William C. Lane, Washington Director, Caterpillar

Mark Malloch Brown, Former Administrator, United Nations Development Programme

Harold W. McGraw, III, Chairman, President & CEO, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Peter McPherson, President, Association of Public and Land-grant Universities

Robert A. Mosbacher, Jr., Former President & CEO, OPIC; Chairman, Mosbacher Energy Company

Jane Nelson, Senior Fellow & Director, CSR Initiative, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; Director, Business Strategy, International Business Leaders Forum

Larry Nowels, Independent Consultant

Michael J. Phillips, Former Chairman & CEO, Russell Investments

William K. Reilly, Senior Advisor, TPG Capital, LP; Former EPA Administrator

Anna E. Roosevelt, Vice President, Global Corporate Citizenship, The Boeing Company

William D., Ruckelshaus, Former EPA Administrator

George F. Russell, Jr., Chairman Emeritus, Russell Investments

Raffaele K. Salinari, President, Terre des Hommes International Federation

Sheryl Sandberg, COO, The Facebook Inc.

Dean A. Scarborough, Chairman, President & CEO, Avery Dennison Corporation

John M. Shalikashvili, Former Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

Gregg Sherrill, Chairman & CEO, Tenneco Inc.

Faryar Shirzad, Former Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs

Charles Slaughter, Founder, TravelSmith; President, Living Goods

Sarah Jane Staats, Director of Policy Outreach, Center for Global Development

Richard S. Swanson, President & CEO, Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines

Noam Unger, Fellow, Global Economy and Development, Brookings Institution

Ann Van Dusen, Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service

Dr. Nancy J. Walker, Director, Michael S. Ansari Africa Center, Atlantic Council

John Whitehead, Former Co-Chairman, Goldman, Sachs & Co.; Former Deputy Secretary of State

James D. Wolfensohn, Chairman, International Advisory Board, Citigroup Inc.; Former President, The World Bank

Thank you again for your support! We couldn’t have done this without you.

To join MFAN’s effort to urge President Obama to show leadership on foreign assistance reform and strengthen the U.S. commitment to development, please sign our Open Letter to the President, which has already been endorsed by more than 70 organizations and prominent individuals.

CQ WEEKLY – IN FOCUS
July 19, 2010

Backers Say Time Is Ripe For Foreign Aid Overhaul

By Emily Cadei, CQ Staff

The earthquake that slammed Haiti in January also rocked the U.S. Agency for International Development and its brand-new administrator, Rajiv Shah, who were promptly assigned to head up the civilian U.S. response to the disaster. The experience of the next several months afterward was eye-opening and “helped me shape my agenda for reform for the agency writ large,” Shah said in a speech last month.

That agenda is packed, given the multitude of challenges facing USAID, an agency once viewed as the country’s lead repository for expertise on international development. But its role has declined over the past decade into what the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Democrat Howard L. Berman of California, describes as “somewhat of a contracting agency where money passes through without a creative and well-staffed process.”

Shah says the rapid mobilization of USAID after the quake demonstrated that much of that expertise, although often dormant, still exists. The Haiti response, he said in an interview, shows there are “so many different ways where this agency could be nimble, it could move quickly, it could be focused on results,” as opposed to “just getting money out the door.”

Development experts say that while Shah is moving ahead with a package of operational changes at USAID, both President Obama and Congress will ultimately need to weigh in to better delineate both the over-arching strategy and the chain of command for U.S. international development operations in the 21st century. While there is a broad consensus about the general changes that need to be made, many of the more controversial details still need to be decided, including how the authority gets divvied up among the government agencies involved.

Congress is driving the reassessment of development policy already under way with a series of legislative initiatives from Berman and the two leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: Chairman John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, and top Republican Richard G. Lugar of Indiana. But before progressing further, these lawmakers and development officials are waiting for the White House to deliver its vision for development as a pillar of its foreign policy, as well as demonstrate the political leadership to implement that vision.

Backers of a foreign aid overhaul say they will need buy-in across parties, congressional chambers and branches of government. These development boosters say that Obama elevating the role of foreign aid in places such as Afghanistan, combined with a group of allies in important positions — including Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and top Senate and House leaders — makes the next 18 months a rare window of opportunity to reconfigure the architecture for international development to an extent not seen in half a century, since Cold War foreign aid policies were set by the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. If they don’t succeed, backers of an overhaul worry that it could be another 50 years before they get as good a shot.

Beyond the Crisis

A disaster like the quake in Haiti “plays to AID’s strength, because it has a very strong, positive history in responding to humanitarian emergencies,” says George Ingram, a former deputy assistant administrator at the agency who’s now co-chairman of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network, a coalition put together two years ago to advocate for aid changes.

“What doesn’t get attention is those 50 to 60 countries that are relatively stable, not-so-well- or moderately well-performing, and are really the countries that are struggling for how to do development better,” Ingram says. “That’s sort of the day-to-day meat and potatoes of USAID.” The challenge, he says, is to put in place a structure that lifts some of the stifling bureaucracy and allows USAID “to do what Shah wants to do — be more creative, be more responsive, be more analytical, engage your local stakeholders more.”

Shah, who before joining the Obama administration spent seven years working on global economic development for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, expressed the desire to introduce “some of the flexibility we have in our humanitarian relief operations,” such as in Haiti, more broadly across the organization. “I would like to replicate that capability throughout our agency,” he says.

Flexibility is exactly what Berman is hoping to achieve with a rewrite of foreign aid policy that he and his committee staff have been working on for the past two years. After a series of meetings and discussions with lawmakers, government officials and representatives of nonprofit aid organizations, Berman unveiled an initial draft this month. If Democrats hold the House this fall, he hopes to win passage of the legislation next year.

Drafters are hoping to write a bill that, in the words of one Berman committee aide not authorized to speak about the matter, would embody “a new grand bargain” of “accountability in exchange for flexibility.” The president would have to provide more detailed information about his international development plans and set ways to measure their results, the aide says, and in exchange Congress would “lighten up on the very specific directives and earmarks.”

The trick will be in getting all involved — lawmakers, the White House, the State Department and the non-governmental organizations — to endorse that system. Of course, the legislation would have some specific mechanisms for limiting congressional earmarks for specific projects — by creating, for example, accounts that would be reserved for certain countries or types of aid, such as for farmers or HIV/AIDS eradication.

But mostly, the drafters are hoping an overhaul of the system will by itself reduce the inclination to earmark. “When you have a coherent, intelligent process, where there is a rational examination by the agency, a rational process of determining some national priorities and a built-in flexibility to allow a significant amount of resources to be shaped by the mission and the country,” says Berman, “I think the temptation to do this becomes less.”

Forging Consensus

Such a grand bargain would also require an unprecedented level of coordination between the executive branch and Congress. “The biggest thing that needs fixing is to get the Congress and the administration maybe not on the same page but on the same playing field,” instead of everybody “going at it in their own little way,” says Ingram.

The Obama administration is in the midst of two major policy reviews — the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review being run by the State Department, and a National Security Council review of foreign aid, both of which have dragged on longer than initially intended.

The administration kick-started the reviews last year after Berman wrote language into the State Department reauthorization bill that would mandate the processes. The bill quickly stalled in the Senate after passing in the House, but it’s clear that “Congress got this process going,” says David Beckmann, president of the anti-hunger advocacy group Bread for the World, and Ingram’s co-chairman at MFAN.

Until both policy reviews are complete — likely by early fall — the administration has declined to provide any formal feedback to Congress’ activities to overhaul the foreign aid process. But development experts are starting to get restive, with several former USAID administrators issuing calls in the past few days for faster action.

One thing they would like to see the president outline is an over-arching rationale for American foreign assistance programs. “Only the president can clarify the mission,” says Gregory Adams, aid effectiveness director at the global humanitarian group Oxfam. Obama, he says, needs “to define what we are going to do and what we’re not going to do and how we make choices about that.” The legislation from Congress, Adams says, can then provide “the statutory framework to support that.”

The same groups of people are also looking for the president to take a stand on the long-running debate over the relationship between the State Department and USAID. During George W. Bush’s presidency, the aid agency was effectively subsumed more deeply under State. But for years, there has been a debate over how much autonomy USAID should have — something that has played out most recently over Caribbean earthquake relief.

“The Haiti response has made clear a lot of the divisions going on between State and USAID over who should be in charge and what should happen,” one senior congressional aide says. This split in authority was evident in something as simple as the State Department’s briefing last week on the six-month anniversary of the quake. Cheryl Mills, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s chief of staff and lead counselor on issues surrounding Haiti, fielded questions while Shah played backup.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee was so concerned about the lack of a clear government head of the Haiti rebuilding effort that it proposed, as part of a relief measure it approved in May, establishing a new coordinator position under Clinton to oversee the government’s policies.

Clinton’s involvement in development, as well as that of some of her key deputies — including Jacob J. Lew, her deputy secretary for management who was tapped last week to become White House budget director — is lauded by many development boosters, but it has added heat to the turf battle still playing out.

State has already signaled its displeasure with part of Berman’s plan. An internal department e-mail, sent earlier this month to solicit comments on the chairman’s draft, noted it would create a development policy committee that included the secretary of State “only as a co-equal member as opposed to placing her as the lead, as had been earlier requested.” Other provisions “do not vest authorities in the secretary, as had been requested for comparable provisions.”

Berman has held off taking an explicit position on just how the relationship between State and USAID should break down. But, he says, “As a general principle I want to elevate the role of development, and therefore I want to elevate the role of AID.”

Clinton, he acknowledged, is “a big friend and big booster of development,” but to make the changes enduring, “you can’t make decisions based on any one person that is in any one position at a given time.”

FOR FURTHER READING (Note: a subscription to CQ is require to access additional reading.): Lew, p. 1759; fiscal 2011 foreign aid spending, CQ Weekly, pp. 1629, 1274; State Department reauthorization (HR 2410), p. 44; fiscal 2010 foreign aid spending (PL 111-117), p. 28; background, 2009 CQ Weekly, p. 1303; Foreign Assistance Act (PL 87-195), 1961 Almanac, p. 293. The Senate Foreign relations’ Haiti relief bill is S 3317 .

• Create America’s first-ever development strategy
• Signal a willingness to work with Congress on a new Foreign Assistance Act
• Empower USAID with clear authority

A significant part of Ingram’s argument is based on weighing the policy successes against the lack of bureaucratic and systematic reform.  Ingram writes:

“At a policy level, the administration should be commended for its approach to development…Progress on actual nuts and bolts of turning policy into action has been less forthcoming. It is time to act on the broad recognition that multiple agencies carrying out similar or inconsistent programs is not good practice; that assistance programs need greater transparency and accountability; and that the legislative foundation for our foreign assistance system, a 500-page Cold War-era statute, lacks clear goals and objectives and is bursting at the seams with outdated, overlapping, and duplicative and conflicting provisions.”

Nancy Birdsall, president of MFAN Partner the Center for Global Development, put this argument in more stark terms – grading the Obama administration on its development efforts thus far:  “When it comes to global development, I’d give President Obama and his top advisors an A for strategic vision and a big fat F for failure to get on with it.”  Birdsall’s blog post, which takes the form of a letter addressed to Secretary Clinton, National Security Advisor Gen. Jim Jones, and National Economic Council director Larry Summers, offers a five-step process that focuses on empowering USAID.

Media outside of MFAN’s network is also abuzz with updates on the debate.  Foreign Policy blogger Josh Rogin reported yesterday on the stalled development reviews, including a quote from MFAN Co-Chair and World Food Prize Laureate Rev. David Beckmann:  “The Obama administration is doing smart and creative things to help hungry and poor people around the world. But they are hung up by organizational confusion, and the president needs to make it clear that USAID, not the State Department, has the lead responsibility for development.”

With the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Summit in September – where last year President Obama promised to return with a plan – serving as a deadline, we need action now.  Learn about the ways you can contribute to this strong push for reform and join the 70 organizations who have already signed our Open Letter by clicking here.

June 28, 2010 (WASHINGTON) – This statement is delivered on behalf of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network (MFAN) by Co-Chairs David Beckmann and George Ingram:

MFAN commends President Obama for showing leadership on development with his statement at the G8 Summit in Muskoko.  We continue to strongly support the Administration’s efforts to elevate and institutionalize the idea, most recently articulated in the National Security Strategy, that fighting global poverty is a “moral, strategic, and economic imperative for the United States,” as well as a key component of our “comprehensive, integrated” foreign policy in a world of complex challenges.

We eagerly await the impending release of the development policy directive highlighted in the G8 statement, and we support the general themes of growth, innovation, partnership, and accountability that were affirmed in the document.  We are particularly hopeful that the directive will answer a critical question that has not yet been addressed by the Administration: How will the U.S. foreign assistance system be modernized to institutionalize the importance of development, make U.S. assistance more responsive to local priorities, and deliver transformative results for the poor people we are trying to help?

In conjunction with the release of the directive, we call on the Administration to take three important steps to catalyze and strengthen the reform process:

• Fill the senior leadership void at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which currently lacks the full complement of Deputy Administrators and Assistant Administrators needed to effectively execute the Administration’s new approach;

• Prepare America’s first-ever Global Development Strategy ahead of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Summit in September, in order to set a strategic foundation for U.S. development efforts and deliver on the President’s pledge to announce “a plan” for how the U.S. will contribute to eradicating extreme poverty by the MDG deadline in 2015; and

• Announce now that the Administration will work with Congress to modernize foreign assistance in a durable way, including by rewriting the antiquated Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.

We look forward to continuing to work with the Administration and Congress to make U.S. foreign assistance more effective in support of global development and poverty reduction.

The Aid Reform team, directed by Gregory Adams, is conducting analytical and field research to assess the structure and shortcomings of the current U.S. aid system. They have created a report “Foreign Aid 101” to provide a factual overview of U.S. aid and dispel common myths about aid. The report also provides stories that demonstrate aid at its worst, sometimes completely failing to reach the people who need it most, and aid at its best. Examples of the latter include:

• the eradication of polio;
• increases in literacy worldwide;
• and the National Solidarity Program that gives rural villages in Afghanistan ownership over their own development. In 2003, as part of the National Solidarity Program, villagers in Dadi Khel were able to build their own hydropower plant to bring electricity to about 300 families. The program provides a model for other villages to identify and complete their own development projects.

Oxfam’s Aid Reform initiative has also developed a campaign called “Ownership in Practice: The Key to Smart Development” that demonstrates that when used in smart ways, aid can help people lift themselves out of poverty. “Ownership in Practice” explains that aid must strengthen the compact between citizens and states. With the implementation of the specific reforms that Oxfam advocates, U.S. foreign aid will be able to support effective states and active citizens in a meaningful way. Oxfam’s recommended reforms focus on increasing transparent information, building local capacity and extending control to responsible governments.

At a minimum, U.S. aid should:

• be transparent, providing recipient governments and civil society with comprehensive and useful information;
• be “untied” so that local contractors are able to develop their own capacity, thereby generating local jobs and much needed economic activity;
• and limit earmarks that are inconsistent with a country’s development priorities.

At best, Oxfam recommends that U.S. foreign aid:

• be predictable, allowing governments to plan for longer term programs and initiatives;
• be provided through indigenous financial systems;
• and increase direct budget support for states with responsible governments.

To get the word out about aid reform, Oxfam hosted a series of events tied to the Ownership report; watch the most recent event at the Newseum here. Oxfam hopes that through political advocacy such as this, the voices of committed aid experts and those affected by poverty will be heard by policy makers who have the power to make U.S. foreign aid truly effective in the fight against global poverty.

Shah used the speech as an opportunity to outline reforms at USAID saying, “My job as administrator is to make good on the President’s promise to revitalize USAID by modernizing the agency” through a “comprehensive set of operational reforms designed to partner and deliver high impact, cost efficient development.”  Below are excerpts from the speech that describe Shah’s reform agenda for the agency:

• “…we will rebuild USAID’s budget accountability with a strong focus on getting better results for U.S. taxpayers. We will pursue a development strategy that is based on focus, scale, and impact. We will focus in fewer sectors in each of the countries that we work.”
• “Second, to achieve greater returns from our investments we are readying a package of procurement reforms… We are redoubling our efforts to support local institutions and build local capacity.”
• “Third, to get the best out of each employee we are reforming our personnel policies. A development entrepreneur needs real flexibility and the ability to take risks.”
• “Fourth, we need to do a much better job at monitoring and evaluation so we can easily identify what works, what doesn’t work, and why, and implement changes quickly in our programs to optimize against that information.”
• “Finally, our agency will embrace the concept of extreme transparency. We will meet President Obama’s open government directive and seek to set a standard on transparency for the field of development…We owe American taxpayers hard evidence of the impact their money is making.”

Shah also reinforced the administration’s commitment to reform, despite what the community sees as tension between the State Department and USAID, saying “I actually see all of this coming together as really elevating development, elevating all of the different parts of development policy, and certainly elevating in a very significant and fundamental way USAID.” Shah closed with an urgent call to action: “I think it’s incumbent upon us to get this reform agenda enacted and to make USAID the most effective and strategically significant development enterprise anywhere in the world.”  Watch the speech below.

On behalf of my fellow MFAN Principals and the entire network, I offer my most sincere congratulations to our friend and colleague Rev. David Beckmann for winning the 2010 World Food Prize.  Throughout his career as President of Bread for the World and, more recently, as MFAN’s Co-Chair, David has been a tireless advocate for millions around the world suffering from extreme poverty and hunger.  His strong and compelling voice has also helped drive unprecedented progress on foreign assistance reform, which will directly benefit those poor and hungry worldwide.

After the announcement, David commented on foreign assistance reform in the context of the award:

“Right now, we have exceptional opportunities to win changes in Congress to provide help and opportunity to hungry people in our country and around the world.  For example, we have the best chance we have had in decades to reform U.S. foreign aid so that we’ll make the best possible use of tax dollars and get more of our aid to people who really need help.  Getting more serious about ending hunger in this country and around the world would be good for our nation and good for our souls.”

I believe David’s prize will help energize the entire reform movement as we push for President Obama to deliver America’s first-ever Global Development Strategy and work with Congress on new foreign assistance legislation that will make our development efforts more effective and accountable than ever before.

Ambassador and Congressman (ret.)

I recently began posting a series of pieces with the reasons why I believe (a) America needs foreign assistance reform and (b) Conservatives should take up the cause.  Done right, foreign assistance can play a crucial role in our foreign policy. Unfortunately, with the status quo, it isn’t “done right” or, at least, done as well as it could be.

My first two reasons were:

Reason 1: Our current foreign aid system is organizationally incoherent.

Reason 2:  We need to reform the system to make our precious taxpayer dollars go much further.

And now . . .Reason 3: Foreign assistance reform is a great opportunity for Conservatives to reaffirm values and initiatives we care about. Some of America’s most important foreign assistance tools – like our AIDS and malaria initiatives – were first created during the George W. Bush Administration.  While they now have strong bipartisan support, they would never have happened without Conservative leaders like President Bush and the late Congressman Henry Hyde going to bat for them.

Presidents Bush and Kikwete speak in Dar es Salaam after signing a Millennium Challenge Compact (2008)

Since efforts to reform our development programs are already underway (as evidenced by the Presidential Study Directive on Development and Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review from the Administration and legislation in both the House and Senate), and those efforts will certainly affect Bush-era foreign assistance initiatives, why wouldn’t Conservatives want to engage in the process and try to shape and reinforce the tools we helped create?

One obvious example of such a program is the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC).  The MCC is an innovative, non-traditional approach to foreign assistance.  The only nations qualifying for its funds are those which meet certain internationally recognized standards of good governance and economic freedom. The good governance measures relate to protecting civil liberties and human rights, building a more accountable and non-corrupt political system, and promoting the rule of law.  The economic freedom measures relate to a country’s trade barriers, its bureaucratic and regulatory obstacles to starting a business, and its credit rating. Funds are distributed to recipient nations under the terms of a compact that obligates them to meet performance measures and to continue making progress on the aforementioned measurements.

In other words, the MCC strives to be an incentive-driven approach to foreign assistance that promotes many of the principles which Conservatives believe are fundamental to prosperity and freedom. As Bret Schaefer of the conservative Heritage Foundation has written, “The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) . . . seeks to maximize chances that aid will be used positively by focusing resources on coun­tries with good policies.”

A Tanzanian woman celebrates her award for helping to launch a “public expenditure tracking” project in her village

Not everyone believes in compact-based assistance. There are some who would probably like to move away from the MCC’s emphasis on performance measures and accountability. Conservative policymakers need to push hard for the MCC and the MCC model, and the foreign assistance reform discussion gives them a chance to do just that.

Mark Green is currently Managing Director of the Malaria Policy Center in Washington, DC.

Global Development in the U.S. National Security Strategy

Noam Unger, Fellow, Global Economy and Development

The Brookings Institution

President Obama’s national security strategy sets the stage for his administration to put a premium on global development cooperation. But, will the administration follow through?

The unveiling of the full strategy makes clear that U.S. global development policies will factor into each of the strategy’s four major pillars: security, prosperity, values and international order. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke at Brookings yesterday about the strategy and despite talking about development at times during her remarks, the degree to which development is infused in the strategy was not particularly underscored. Given her track record of speaking passionately and extensively on development, I was surprised that she did not explicitly emphasize its importance.

The point in the national security strategy on being strong at home in order to lead globally is understandably a separate but important pillar for U.S. security and global leadership. Nevertheless, aspects from all the other key points in the strategy connect to America’s ability to promote global development and effectively assist people around the world. In the security section, development features primarily through the lens of stabilization, reconstruction and conflict prevention. In the prosperity section, the focus is on global public goods and investments in sustainable and long-term development. The values section references a slew of development principles and actions – as Clinton noted in her speech that “democracy, human rights and development are mutually reinforcing.” Lastly, the section on international order highlights the administration’s intent to renew U.S. multilateral development cooperation.

In recent months, the administration has publicly said favorable things on a broad range of development topics, such as the linking of climate change adaptation and development aid, of health threats and health systems, of sustainable results and a reasonable time horizon for investment, of programming decisions and evidence-based research, of capacity building and local ownership of development projects. Obama and his team have also demonstrated a high level of commitment to development issues on the international stage. However, the problem is not in the administration’s rhetoric.

The problem is that the U.S. needs to fundamentally reform its internal systems for managing and implementing its global development policies. This includes foreign assistance, but it also includes areas such as trade, agriculture, international finance and migration. As USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah has expressed, development is a discipline, but it is presently a discipline that is marred by U.S. policy incoherence largely because it is organizationally fragmented and structurally weak in lacking its own distinct clout in policy deliberations. The U.S. needs to put itself in a better position to support the broad range of development imperatives, including post-conflict reconstruction, the alleviation of poverty and human suffering, and the promotion of good governance and equitable economic growth. Only by doing this can the U.S. government effectively promote its values and security interests.

It is quite possible that the 2010 national security strategy will help open the door for the systemic elevation and reform of U.S. global development policies and operations. If Obama chooses to seriously head in that direction, the path is already somewhat illuminated:

At a strategic level, the development policy review ordered by the president last summer is rumored to be finished and its conclusions captured in a document. A draft of the document was leaked and then published earlier this month. Let’s hope the final version retains an approach to development that includes a deliberate policy, a more effective and partnership-oriented operation, and a new architecture that truly elevates development and coalesces development resources around a more focused set of objectives. The leaked draft called for a routine U.S. Global Development Strategy. As others and I have noted in the past, such a strategy could substantively expand on the national security strategy. It could do so in much the same way as the national military strategy. Having just completed consultative government-wide reviews of national security and development, the White House should aim to deliver the first U.S. Global Development Strategy in time for Obama’s much-anticipated speech on development at September’s United Nations summit.

At the operational level, many more changes are already underway, including a broader global health initiative, a forward-looking global hunger and food security initiative, the re-establishment and revitalization of USAID’s policy planning bureau and further reforms to improve the agency’s procurement, human resources and transparency.

Since day one, this administration has needed to redefine America’s global development cooperation. While its efforts in 2009 were detrimentally sluggish, the new national security strategy could breathe new life into the effort.

We applaud the emphasis on global poverty reduction and development in President Obama’s new National Security Strategy (NSS), which states, “Development is a strategic, economic, and moral imperative.”  We are also delighted that the National Security Strategy calls for “development capabilities [to] be modernized.” This new, integrated approach that harnesses all the tools of American power – including development – will go a long way toward confronting the challenges of today that include extreme poverty, disease, food security, environmental sustainability, and good governance.

The White House and State Department have been studying development issues for months through two major policy reviews, a draft of one which was recently leaked to the press.  While the Presidential Study Directive draft is commendable for stressing the need for a coherent, government-wide approach and outlining ways to revitalize and strengthen the U.S. Agency for International Development, we still need presidential leadership that will articulate a clear, overarching vision for U.S. efforts.

Now that the National Security Strategy is in place, we look to the President to outline his policies for international development and how our government’s capabilities in this area should be updated. Key leadership from both parties and in both chambers of Congress have already taken steps that will contribute to more effective foreign assistance. The President should signal that his administration is now ready to work with Congress on driving the reform agenda and making U.S. foreign assistance programs more efficient and effective for U.S. taxpayers in this time of tight budgets.

We understand that the White House intends to develop a first-ever Global Development Strategy to complement the National Security Strategy.  We hope that President Obama will be able to deliver this strategy in time for the United Nations Summit in September, so that we can engage our partners and allies – fulfilling another principle of the NSS – in the fight against global poverty.

For more information, contact Sam Hiersteiner at shiersteiner@gpgdc.com or visit www.modernizingforeignassistance.net.