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Posts Tagged ‘poverty’

Sec. Clinton Goes to Bat for FY2011 International Affairs Budget

Monday, March 1st, 2010
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Reuters-Secretary Clinton testifies before Congress

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made a forceful case to Congress last week on the importance of President Obama’s recently submitted request for the fiscal 2011 International Affairs Budget.  In four separate hearings – on back-to-back days – before House and Senate authorizers and appropriators, Clinton discussed the budget request for U.S. foreign affairs spending and explicitly linked it to our national security and national interests.

Of the $4.9 billion increase from FY2010, $3.6 billion would go to what the State Department calls “frontline states”—Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.  The remainder represents a mere 2.7% increase that Clinton said would “address global challenges, strengthen partnerships, and ensure that the State Department and USAID are equipped with the right people and resources.”

She acknowledged current economic constraints, citing her former role as U.S. Senator and the valid concerns of constituents across the country: “For every dollar we spend, we have to show results.” But she went on to affirm that the budget request supports programs that are “vital to our national security, our national interests, and our leadership in the world, while guarding against waste, duplication, and irrelevancy.”

In elevating the role of development within U.S. foreign policy, Clinton said the budget “makes targeted investments in fragile societies which, in our interconnected world, bear heavily on our own security and prosperity.”  She also argued for paying it forward, that a little bit now will go a long way: “These investments are a key part of our effort to get ahead of crises rather than just responding to them, positioning us to deal with the threats and challenges that lie before us.”  To bring this point home, she emphasized: “We can bury our heads in the sand and pay the consequences later, or we can make hard-nosed, targeted investments now, addressing the security challenges of today while building a stronger foundation for security and prosperity in the future.”

She highlighted the Administration’s global food security and health initiatives, along with climate change, as the major components of the budget’s investments in development.  A cross-cutting focus of these initiatives is women and girls “who are the key drivers of economic and social progress in the developing world.”

There will also be money for an additional 410 Foreign Service Officers at the State Department and 200 at USAID in an ongoing effort to ramp up civilian capacity.

“These initiatives are designed to enhance American security, help people in need, and give the American people a strong return on their investment,” Clinton concluded.  “Our aim is not to create dependency, but to help people develop solutions that they can sustain for themselves over the long term.”

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Best of 2009: Congressional Hearings on Foreign Assistance Reform

Monday, January 25th, 2010
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The second installment in our “Best of 2009” series features a recounting of key foreign assistance reform-related hearings from the House and Senate over the past year.  MFAN Principals testified before several key committees, offered expert opinions on the structure and vision for foreign assistance reform, and helped shape the debate in Washington on U.S. development policy.  See quotes with links to full testimony from MFAN Principals below:

Senate

“Alleviating Global Hunger:  Challenges and Opportunities for U.S. Leadership”

March 24, 2009 – Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Panel I - The Honorable Daniel R. Glickman, the Honorable Catherine A. Bertini, MFAN Co-chair David Beckmann, Robert Paarlberg.

Panel II - Edwin C. Price, Gebisa Ejeta.

“The Obama administration, especially Secretary Clinton, is actively considering what is needed to make our aid programs better coordinated and more effective…But right now, people outside the beltway don’t have a very effective way to urge their senators to show their support for the Committee’s work for foreign assistance reform. We need a bill or resolution they can ask their senators to cosponsor.” (Beckmann)

“USAID in the 21st Century”

April 1, 2009 – Senate Foreign Relations Committee

The Honorable Andrew S. Natsios, MFAN Principal Steve Radelet, MFAN Principal Carol Lancaster.

“For our development policies and programs to contribute to the U.S. smart power agenda, we need to be smarter about who sets our development policies, how they inform the decision-making process and where they sit within the U.S. government.” (Radelet)

“There is more consensus today than ever before among our political leadership, public officials, scholars and policy analysts and the American public that promoting development abroad should be a key element in US foreign policy – along with diplomacy and defense.” (Lancaster)

“The Case for Reform:  Foreign Aid and Development in a New Era”

July 22, 2009 – Senate Foreign Relations Committee

MFAN Principal Peter McPherson, MFAN Co-chair David Beckmann, Jeffrey D. Sachs.

“While foreign assistance is part of overall U.S. foreign policy, development must have a strong voice to articulate how a development strategy strengthens foreign policy goals.” (McPherson)

“When we try to achieve defense and diplomatic goals with the same dollars, aid is usually much less effective in reducing poverty. In my mind, that’s the basic reason we need a strong development agency, with its own capacity to plan and carry out programs. These programs should be coordinated with other foreign policy purposes, but distinct from them.” (Beckmann)

House

“Foreign Assistance Reform:  Rebuilding U.S. Civilian Development and Diplomatic Capacity in the 21st Century”

June 25, 2008 – House Committee on Foreign Affairs

The Honorable Howard L. Berman, MFAN Principal Peter McPherson, MFAN Principal J. Brian Atwood

“Because of these staff cuts, USAID has been forced to move from an implementation to a contracting agency…The existing situation means less coherence in the overall effort, less flexibility and diminished leverage with other private and public donors.” (McPherson)

“Diplomacy and development are mutually reinforcing assets in preventing conflict, but they are distinct missions requiring very different mandates and resources. Unfortunately, these two missions have been pitted against one another as rivals for a limited resource base within the foreign affairs budget (the 150 account).” (Atwood)

“Building a 21st-Century Workforce”

February 25, 2009 – House Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations

Thomas Pickering, Prudence Bushnell, MFAN Principal Jim Kunder.

“The Role of Civilian and Military Agencies in the Advancement of America’s Diplomatic and Development Objectives”

March 5, 2009 – House Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations

John Hamre, MFAN Principal Nancy Lindborg, Gordon Adams, George E. Moose.

“…we now must turn more effectively to the challenge of “complex development” in countries burdened by a potent combination of deep poverty, insecurity and weak governance. The solution in these environments is not humanitarian in the sense of saving lives, but rather adapts the fundamentals of development practice to the challenges of these complex environments.” (Lindborg)

“Striking the Appropriate Balance:  the Defense Department’s Expanding Role in Foreign Assistance”

March 18, 2009 – House Committee on Foreign Affairs

The Honorable Howard L. Berman, General Michael W. Hagee,  MFAN Principal Nancy Lindborg, MFAN Principal ReubenBrigety, the Honorable Philip L. Christenson.

“We now have a pivotal political moment, with an emerging and welcome bi-partisan consensus in Washington and beyond around the idea of “smart power – the notion that America’s foreign policy is best served when there is a more balanced application and funding of the now familiar “Three Ds” of Diplomacy, Defense, and Development.” (Lindborg)

“Development assistance is not just a moral good or a matter of enlightened self-interest. It is in our vital national interests. There is no greater evidence of this than the military’s increasing involvement in this sphere.”(Brigety)

“U.S. Assistance to Africa:  A Call to Foreign Aid Reform”

April 23, 2009 – House Foreign Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on Africa & Global Health

The Honorable Donald M. Payne, Earl Gast, Ousmane Badiane, MFAN Principal Steve Radelet, Meredeth Turshen, Bill O’Keefe.

“We can, and must, do better with our foreign assistance. But we must also bear in mind that foreign assistance alone will not be enough to achieve U.S. foreign policy goals…Getting a bigger bang for our development bucks requires being smarter about our development strategy, legislation and organizational apparatus.” (Radelet)

“Hearing on USAID: Management Challenges and Strategic Objectives”

April 28, 2009 – House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform, Subcommittee on Government Management, Organization, and Procurement

Mike Walsh, MFAN Princpal Jim Kunder, MFAN Co-chair George Ingram, Thomas Melito.

“While we perform many important humanitarian and development services around the world, it is notable that there is not a comprehensive model for foreign aid from the United States that addresses, worldwide, our nation’s strategic goals and the needs of the developing world.” (Kunder)

“The trend toward focusing on the results of development projects is a good thing. We should care about whether our developmentdollars are invested in ways that improve peoples’ lives.” (Ingram)

“A Call to Action on Food Security:  the Administration’s Global Strategy”

October 29, 2009 – House Foreign Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on Africa & Global Health

The Honorable Donald M. Payne, Thomas Melito, Helene Gayle, Julie Howard, MFAN Co-chair David Beckmann, Richard Leach.

“The appetite for meaningful reform of our food security efforts – and more broadly our foreign assistance programs – is large right now. But the window of opportunity for enacting reform is small. We must collectively capitalize on this rare moment in history to help poor people around the world.” (Beckmann)

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Best of 2009: MFAN in the News

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010
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As part of our “Best of 2009” series, below are of some of the greatest media hits from MFAN and its partners.  The past year saw unprecedented momentum for foreign assistance reform, and MFAN’s members offered keen insight into the nuances of the issue, successfully reaching out to a broad audience and strengthening the development voice in policy discussions.   Keeping development and reform in the news answers Secretary Clinton’s call to make the case to the American taxpayer and prove that development is a “strategic, economic, and moral imperative” tied to advancing American interests at home and abroad.

  • Ray-OffenheiserThe Advisors Obama Is Missing (ForeignPolicy.com-Ray Offenheiser, January) Despite his public commitments to elevate and strengthen U.S. global development efforts — those that alleviate poverty, fight disease, and create opportunity in developing nations while bolstering our security and prosperity at home — as a critical component of his foreign policy, he has yet to name even one senior official to be put in charge of bringing these critical changes to life.
  • Huffington PostThe U.S. Can (and Must) Do a Better Job Fighting Poverty, Disease, and Lack of Opportunity in the Developing World (Huffington Post-David Beckmann and Steve Radelet, March 17)  We support President Obama’s efforts to elevate development because the prosperity, health, and security of Americans are, now more than ever, inextricably linked to prosperity, health, and security of people in the developing world. We are urging foreign assistance reform because the economic and geopolitical realities of today, and the challenges of the future, demand that we use every dollar as effectively as possible to fight poverty and disease, increase prosperity, strengthen weak states, and further other U.S. strategic interests abroad.
  • lg_George-Ingram.jpgReorganization of USAID Is Focus of Senate Bill (CQ, July 29)  “There is clear, bipartisan momentum behind efforts to modernize the U.S. foreign assistance system to meet the diverse geopolitical and economic challenges we face,” George Ingram and David Beckmann, co-chairs of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network, an umbrella group seeking a broad reorganization, said in a statement. “While there are many issues to be resolved, we are optimistic about success because both houses of Congress and the Obama Administration are making dynamic progress.”
  • Committees Plan to Take Foreign Assistance Back to the Drawing Board (CQ, August 3)  “Reducing duplication, mandating reporting and accountability, being able to track resource flows, reducing double counting — those are things that I would anticipate that the appropriators would embrace,” said Todd Shelton, senior director for public policy at InterAction, an umbrella group of aid organizations that contributed to the paper. But rewriting the Foreign Assistance Act is the most important step in an overhaul, said Sheila Herrling, senior policy associate at the Center for Global Development.
  • Washington Post logoLeadership Vacancy Raises Fears About USAID’s Future (The Washington Post, August 5) “Both President Obama and Secretary Clinton have said how important development is. Increasingly, it’s a painful contrast between their rhetoric and the reality of having no leadership” at USAID, said Carol Lancaster, interim dean of the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, who served as deputy administrator of the aid agency under President Bill Clinton.  While development groups and experts have welcomed Obama’s boosting of the assistance budget, many are “very, very disappointed” with the lack of progress in reforming the aid system, said Brian Atwood, who headed USAID in the 1990s.
  • Ritu SharmaClinton Puts Spotlight On Women’s Issues (The Washington Post, August 18) Ritu Sharma, president of the anti-poverty group Women Thrive Worldwide, said she already sees the results of Clinton’s efforts in the bureaucracy. When Sharma’s staff recently attended a meeting about a new agricultural aid program, she said, one State Department official joked, “We have to integrate women — or we’re going to be fired.”  Still, Sharma questioned whether the program would succeed in reaching poor women, especially given the weaknesses in U.S. foreign assistance.
  • 20061031_markgreen_2Reform the right should embrace (The Washington Times-Mark Green, August 20) At a time when our national-security and foreign-policy priorities have become increasingly dependent on effective development, our political leaders must act swiftly and put partisan politics aside in order to enact reforms that will make our foreign-aid programs more efficient, more effective and therefore more capable of supporting and advancing our national interests around the globe.
  • NPR logoExperts Concerned by Leaderless USAID (NPR “All Things Considered”-Ray Offenheiser and J. Brian Atwood, August 27) Mr. OFFENHEISER: The State Department has advanced this quadrennial diplomacy and development review under Secretary Clinton that’s ambitious and potentially visionary, but there isn’t a development voice at the table presently, and that’s what we’re all concerned about.  Mr. ATWOOD: It’s a mess. It’s not fair to the taxpayer, but I think more importantly, it’s not fair to the poor of the world that we’re not doing our bit.
  • It’s Time for Foreign Aid Reform (Huffington Post-David Beckmann, August 27) The Obama administration has now made ambitious pledges to increase foreign assistance and modernize the system. This is largely because of an unprecedented consensus around the need to make development a pillar of U.S. foreign policy amid the complex and interconnected challenges we face.
  • Kerry and Lugar Push Obama on USAID (CQ, September 22) In an effort to expedite the process, the senators encouraged the president to appoint someone who has already been vetted by the Senate for another post or is well-known on Capitol Hill. Neither mentioned any names, but the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network, a coalition of development advocates, has organized their own unofficial poll on who should lead the agency.
  • Associated Press logoEx-Gates Foundation exec named foreign aid chief (AP, November 10) Given that speculation, and the delay in appointing an administrator, David Beckmann, co-chair of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network, said the administration needs to move quickly in defining Shah’s responsibilities.  “They’re going to need to give him some clear signals that he has real power,” he said.
  • David-Beckmann-photo-small-2Administration Names Agriculture Official to Run U.S. Aid Agency, Ending Delays (The New York Times, November 11) “This administration has inherited a very weak and fragmented Usaid and aid infrastructure,” said David Beckmann, the president of Bread for the World, a Christian group that advocates for hunger relief. “By getting someone in that position, Mrs. Clinton has taken a step forward.”  Mr. Beckmann called for Mr. Obama to restore the agency’s profile by giving Dr. Shah a seat on the National Security Council, and for Mrs. Clinton to give back its independent budget and policy-making authority, which had been subsumed by the State Department.
  • Politico logoShah meets with Kerry (Politico-Laura Rozen, November 19) ”The fact that we have a nominee with huge potential — finally — is a good thing,” O’Brien continued. “But he’s coming late to the conversation. And there’s a real question as to whether he is going to be given the face and authority going forward. The problem isn’t him. The problem is, is development going to be given a real seat at the table.”
  • Bill FristRaj Shah and America’s Development Future (Roll Call-Bill Frist, December 17) Dr. Shah has what is needed to carry on President Bush’s global health legacy and fulfill President Obama’s extraordinary development vision. The Senate should confirm him, and the Obama administration should give him the political support and resources he needs to succeed. Millions of lives will be affected by this choice.

Other notable stories from 2009 include: The Kojo Nnamdi Show with MFAN Principal Sheila Herrling, Center for Global Development, and member Paul O’Brien, Oxfam America; Huffington Post op-ed by MFAN Principal Noam Unger, Brookings Institute; USA Today with quotes by MFAN Principal Carol Lancaster,  Montara Center for International Studies, and member Paul O’Brien; All Africa op-ed by Ray Offenheiser, Oxfam America; Huffington Post op-ed by J. Brian Atwood, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs; and Huffington Post op-ed by Ritu Sharma, Women Thrive Worldwide.

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MFAN Member Op-Blog: Did Hillary just offer us the “Red Pill?”

Monday, January 11th, 2010
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Paul O'BrienOxfamMFAN member and Vice President of Policy & Advocacy at Oxfam America Paul O’Brien weighs in on Secretary Clinton’s visionary development speech last week, reminding us that “development is full of complexity, pain and gritty truths.”  This is a useful message for foreign assistance reform advocates, as we look to build on 2009 progress in a challenging landscape.  Tell us what you think of O’Brien’s piece in the comments section below.

Did Hillary just offer us the Red Pill?

In many decent movies, there is a moment which tells the larger story.  For good movies, the moment becomes short-hand in pop culture for larger truths.  In my favorite movie, the Matrix, it happened when Morpheus offered Neo a choice between the blue and red pill.  Take the blue pill and he got the quiet comforts of living in a fantasy world.  Try the red one, and he would start to see reality with all its pain, and gritty truth.

Did Hillary Clinton try to pull the development community out of the Matrix yesterday?  Perhaps, and forgive the tortured metaphor, but we live in our own Matrix:  On one axis are the different sectors in which we want to work–health care, education, food security and so on.  On the other axis are the different types of countries in which we have to do development…from fragile states to fully functioning democracies.

For years now, reform efforts have gotten stuck in that Matrix.  The F Bureau tried to solve the problem by drawing out the matrix and sticking everything we already did into one box or another.  Perhaps because  they were forced to manage their way out of a leadership problem, the matrix didn’t work—no one wanted to see all the existing accounts rearranged in a new table—they wanted a real vision for development.

And so now, we find ourselves with some people looking for reform through sector based initiatives—the Global Food Security Initiative, the Global Health Initiative and so on; while others want to divide the world up along different types of countries and give good performers to the MCC, bad performers to an empowered OFDA, and everything in between to USAID.

I’d like to think that what Hillary said yesterday is STOP!  We have to do BOTH, and they may not always be in conflict.  We need to listen to what different types of countries want, and understand that a truly democratic government is a better mirror of its people’s needs than the priorities of foreign donors.  But at the end of the day, we also need to be able to fill short-term gaps in countries where governments are unwilling or unable to provide for their own.  In the world of gritty reality, different countries require different approaches.  And we have to be able to meet countries where they are, in order to help them get where they would like to be.

In other words, I think she was offering us a red pill.  The legacy of this speech may not be her big lists of priorities, but her reminder to all of us that development is full of complexity, pain and gritty truths.  Countries are poor for a reason and the solutions aren’t trite or easy.  The question now is whether policy makers and their development partners are ready to grapple with reality.  Taking Neo’s leap may mean that in countries that are doing right by their people, we have to surrender some control of our aid dollars in exchange for results that last.  And in others, we support citizens to hold their governments to account, and help meet basic needs in the meantime.  If Administrator Shah and Secretary Clinton can help us escape the old Matrix of employing either blank checks or crippling control,  they will  honor a good movie and they can truly call themselves “Neo”-reformists.

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Preview of Secretary Clinton’s Speech on Development Today

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
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Ahead of Secretary Clinton’s speech this afternoon hosted by the Center for Global Development, Director of Policy & Planning Anne-Marie Slaughter  and USAID Administrator Raj Shah briefed reporters on what to expect.  Key passages include:

Slaughter: “She will say in the speech development was once the province of humanitarians, charities, and governments looking to gain allies in global struggles. Today, it is a strategic, economic, and moral imperative as central to advancing American interests and solving global problems as diplomacy or defense.”

Slaughter: “So in that context where development is really a central part of our foreign policy, she is going to emphasize the need to ensure that all of our development activities are accountable, transparent, and results-oriented – that the measure for success is not how many dollars we spend or how many programs we fund, but results in terms of actual evidence of development, progress and health and education, economic growth more broadly, and the advancement of women.”

Shah: “The first is to pursue our work fundamentally in partnership, not patronage.  And the Secretary will speak more about this, but it is a real change in evolution where we will have very high expectations of political commitment and accountability for generating results in fields like agriculture and health and democracy…Second is around fundamentally elevating development to truly stand with diplomacy and defense as a major component of our foreign policy…A third is around coordination.  And we have – and the Secretary has used the phrase around a whole-of-government approach, bringing the best technical expertise from across the federal government to solve the problems that represent themselves as development challenges.”

Shah: “Another principle is around – is really around developing comprehensive strategies to create transformational change in a focused set of areas, areas like health and agriculture, security, education, energy, governance.  Our challenge will be in countries and in places where we work, really focusing on scale and transformative impact, and recognizing that if we try to do everything everywhere, we will likely be unable to have the kind of lasting impact that you can have when you focus our resources and focus our strategic thinking and approach a smaller set of challenges, but in a more comprehensive and strategically significant way…And the next principle is around investing and innovation…And finally, and perhaps most important, is the fundamental concept that I think Secretary Clinton represents to so many people around the world that women and girls are perhaps the most important area of focus for achieving sustainable development.”

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