“To date, only one official — USAID Administrator Raj Shah — has been confirmed. While Shah has skilled and capable leaders in his front office and throughout the agency, several of whom have been doing yeoman’s work in acting positions, it is unconscionable that all remaining management seats remain unfilled 18 months into this administration. Shah cannot captain the USAID ship without a crew.”

“USAID cannot be the premier development agency everyone envisions without appointed and confirmed leaders at the helm of its regional and functional bureaus. Nor can it elevate development across the U.S. government — as Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and even Secretary of Defense Robert Gates have called for — without a full cadre of assistant administrators to inform major development policy reviews taking place right now and congressional efforts to rewrite foreign assistance legislation.”

Josh Rogin later reported on The Cable that President Obama intends to nominate Nancy Lindborg — current President of Mercy Corps and MFAN Principal — to be Assistant Administrator for USAID’s Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Affairs Bureau, as well as nominate Donald K. Steinberg to be Deputy Administrator of USAID.  The other names working their way through the nomination process are: Mark Feierstein to be Assistant Administrator of Latin America and Nisha Desai Biswal to be Assistant Administrator of Asia; both were approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week.  The Obama Administration is now batting 5 out of 12 for Senate-confirmed leadership positions at USAID.

President Obama is releasing the US’s MDG strategy today…but where’s the bigger plan?

The Millennium Development Goal (MDG) Summit is coming up in September. World leaders will discuss how to end hunger, send kids to school, keep mothers and their babies healthy, stop HIV/AIDS from becoming a death sentence, and all kinds of other poverty-fighting goals.

It’s a tall order. So President Obama asked USAID to produce a plan for doing the US share to meet the MDGs. Today, the White House releases that MDG action plan.

A plan to fight the MDGs is a great stepping stone in fighting global poverty, but it’s not the whole story. If the US is committed to fighting global poverty, President Obama needs to deliver a global development strategy at the upcoming MDG Summit.

I’m happy to report that the MDG action plan mentions a new “development policy” coming out soon. Why is it so important that the US come up with a plan to fight poverty? Until the US has some kind of mission statement, all of these piecemeal reform efforts are like a ship without a compass. Why bother investing in “game changing innovations” if we don’t know what destination we’re trying to get to?  Which innovations? To do what? How do we know when we’ve succeeded?

The good news is the White House may already have its mission.  In a document leaked this spring, here’s what they had to say:

“Helping to create a world with more prosperous and democratic states, able to meet the needs of their people and to be our partners in addressing common threats, challenges and opportunities.”

I think that’s a pretty great mission. Why not make it official?

And while you’re at it, tell us how you intend to get there. On the campaign trail, you committed to “Elevate, streamline, and empower a 21st Century US development agency.” I can’t think of a better way to put global poverty front and center!

And finally, show us how the US can make a truly lasting impact, and put ourselves out of the aid business. Borrowing a line from your own playbook, in the leaked document this spring:

“The US will respond directly to country priorities, making new investments in line with established national strategies and country development plans.  Where our partners set in place systems that reflect high standards of transparency and accountability, the US will empower responsible governments to drive development and sustain outcomes by working through national institutions rather than around them.”

President Obama, thanks for the MDG action plan. Looking forward to seeing that global development strategy at the MDG Summit in September!

With the deadline fast approaching, the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network (MFAN) is happy to report that over 130 organizations and individuals have endorsed the Open Letter to the President on the U.S. Commitment to Global Development.  We look forward to sharing the Open Letter with the community in the coming days.

Just to name a few of the signatories:

Alliance to End Hunger

Better World Campaign

Center for Interfaith Action on Global Poverty

Devex

International Housing Coalition

NIKE

ONE

Truman National Security Project

You can still sign the Open Letter on our website or take a few steps listed below to help us spread the word on this important call to action:

• Circulate the Open Letter
• Download a badge for your Facebook, MySpace, or other profile to show you support more effective foreign aid and get your network to sign the letter
• Tweet: “I signed a letter urging Pres Obama to increase U.S. foreign aid’s impact.  YOUR TURN!http://bit.ly/12FBms #ReformWithinReach”

Staats applauds three aspects of the working draft:

1) it appropriately defines the scope of “development” as being far broader than foreign assistance, to include debt relief, trade, agriculture, migration, environmental protection, arms sales, and all other U.S. policies that affect development;

2) it restores authority to the administrator of the U.S. Government’s lead development agency, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and calls for the administrator to serve at a minimum as vice-chair of a new interagency Development Policy Committee (the chair is left at the President’s discretion); and

3) it puts a premium on transparency, calling for information – ranging from funding amounts to country strategies to impact evaluations – to be made publicly available.

Despite the good, she raises a few key questions along the way:

• If development is more than foreign assistance, how do we deal with committee turf battles for those development-related issues that fall outside the purview of the foreign affairs/authorizing committee?
• How do we marry funds for both country-specific strategies and global (non-country specific) sector strategies effectively without making an already messy system even more complicated?
• How do we limit adding another layer (or two) of bureaucracy – read: more paperwork – with these plans?
• How can we be less prescriptive by finding that equilibrium of greater flexibility for the Executive Branch in exchange for heightened accountability to Congress?

Finally, Staats points out that the success of the reform effort ultimately hinges on the still-unresolved Presidential Study Directive on development policy at the NSC and the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) being undertaken by the State Department and USAID. She writes, “More concerning is that State and USAID have had little interaction to date with staff writing the new bill. This doesn’t bode well for striking a grand bargain between the administration and Congress on either a new development direction (which will likely require some legislation) or passing a new global partnership act (which will require support from the administration, including State and USAID).”

Speaking of the QDDR, Staats’ colleague at CGD, Todd Moss, provides a sobering perspective on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s attempt at elevating development within the U.S. foreign policy prism.  In his piece, he comments on: the one-man show at USAID – namely, Administrator Raj Shah – as there appears to be no sense of urgency around staffing him with a team of development experts to truly provide a development voice; the Secretary’s reluctance to empower the USAID administrator to really own the development agenda and portfolio; the importance of development practice as a distinct discipline and doing development for development’s sake (versus as a tool for security or diplomatic or other objectives); and the shortsightedness of not institutionalizing an elevated development function for the long term, i.e., after the Secretary departs.

Moss writes, “The staffing gap seems to be particularly acute since Raj Shah is now more than 6 months into the job (and it’s 18 months into the administration) yet still has zero of his top twelve managers in place.  Disgracefully, only two have even been named yet.  I can find only two ways to interpret this.  Either (a) no one really cares about filling these positions so it is just taking an embarrassing amount of time or (b) these mid-level spots are deadlocked in petty personnel battles between the White House and State.  It’s not good when “no one cares” may be the preferable answer.”

To read more, click here.

• To provide strategic recommendations to strengthen transatlantic cooperation in development
• To support the creation of conditions for reform.

The taskforce recently launched a blog series to explore what it identifies as a major challenge to development: coordination among the three Ds.  The series is jointly written by former USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios and former chair of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Richard Manning.

In a new post, Natsios notes the “policy paralysis” in the development debate and argues for what will need to happen in Washington in order for development to be elevated alongside diplomacy and defense in a blog titled, “Development and Security: Can the United States overcome beltway disputes and elevate Development alongside Defense and Diplomacy?” He lists three decisions made by the Obama Administration that have weakened USAID, as well as Secretary Clinton’s decision to build on the architecture put in place by Secretary Rice at the State Department during the Bush Administration.  Most importantly, Natsios echoes MFAN’s Reform Within Reach call to action when he specifically urges the President to show leadership and create a strategy for U.S. development that will ensure the U.S. is an effective partner and leader in foreign assistance.  See excerpts from Natsios’ post below:

“In the absence of a clear, unified vision for U.S. foreign assistance – particularly long-term economic development – the United States will continue to be limited in its ability to lead and partner with Europe, other donors, and host-countries in addressing major global challenges – from global health to fragile states.”

“Absent direct, personal intervention by President Obama to define his own vision of aid reform and to take the actions needed to enforce the reforms, the stalemate will continue, and plans to strengthen the third D will suffer.  In the absence of a robust and institutionally independent foreign aid program underpinned by a strategy for U.S. foreign assistance, the United States will be unable to lead and strengthen global and transatlantic development partnerships, which are so critical to our success in spurring economic growth and poverty alleviation.”

Also see Richard Manning’s post for a European perspective on the issue.

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 .

New approaches to aid over the last decade have transformed the lives of countless individuals struggling with poverty, battling disease, and seeking opportunities to build a better life.  The onset of these new approaches has sparked a debate on reform and how the U.S. can build on them to make foreign assistance more accountable and effective for the people we are trying to help and the U.S. taxpayers who generously support it.  To demonstrate principles of effective aid – and communicate what still needs to be done – MFAN canvassed its Partners to share cases in which a new, innovative way of thinking led to improving the livelihood of an individual, a community or a country.  The following success stories articulate some of the core principles – Ownership, Partnership, Coordination, and Innovation – that MFAN believes should provide the underpinnings of foreign assistance reform.

Ownership

The most effective way of ensuring long-term development is to allow recipients of aid to take the lead in designing and implementing their own development programs.  Country ownership is about donors being transparent and consultative, helping to build capacity over the long term, and supporting local efforts to take control of their own development.  This principle of aid effectiveness has become the cornerstone of reform efforts, but is also the most difficult to put into practice because it is dramatically different than the current U.S. model for the delivery of aid.  The success stories that follow demonstrate ownership in action and prove that country ownership is essential for development. 

• Ethiopia halved malaria deaths in just three years (The Global Fund to AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria) – In 2005, the Ethiopian government, with support from the Global Fund, unveiled a strategy to deliver two mosquito nets to every family at risk for malaria.  By 2008, 20.5 million bed nets had been delivered, and 30,000 young women – two high school graduates per village – had been trained and mobilized to act as health advisors and to carry out on-the-spot malaria tests, made possible thanks to a new lightweight disposable kit.  The program shows strong roots of local initiative, leadership, and ground-up action.
  • Read more about Ethiopia’s grassroots health care initiative here.

• Establishing a community voice in mining activities (Oxfam America) – The Wassa Association of Communities Affected by Mining (WACAM) has gone door to door to inform communities, mobilize concerned citizens, and help people understand the risks of permitting the expansion of mining operations.  Oxfam is collaborating with communities, NGOs, and local governments to develop a strong collective voice in mining operations and has partnered with a spirited grassroots initiative to demonstrate the potential influence of local ownership on critical community issues.
  • Learn how WACAM’s efforts since 2007 have halted the operations of a foreign mining company in Prestea, Ghana here.

• Smart aid helps Ugandans fight corruption (ONE Campaign) – After a Public Expenditure Tracking Survey in 1996 showed that only 13 percent of educational funding in Uganda was actually reaching schools, the government implemented an anti-corruption program using newspaper and radio campaigns to inform parents associations’ of the amount of funding their schools should be receiving.  This model serves as a strong example of bottom-up accountability, engaging civil society, and empowering local communities in order to diminish the negative effects of corruption.
  • Learn more about the Ugandan government’s effort to empower civil society in order to reduce corruption here.

• Empowering women in Lesotho (Millennium Challenge Corporation – March 10, 2010) – The Gender Equality project provides training to thousands of women in Lesotho, as well as key institutions and the relevant authorities, in order to expand opportunities for meaningful participation in the economy by all sectors of Lesotho’s society.  The Gender Equality project is headed by MCA Lesotho, a local entity that manages the implementation of Lesotho’s MCC compact, demonstrating the power of indigenous ownership in an effort to improve awareness and practices that support gender equality in economic rights.
  • Learn more about MCC’s efforts to promote gender equality in Lesotho here.

Partnership

Realizing that we cannot do everything, everywhere, top officials in the Obama administration recognize the need tobebetter partners – with civil society, the private sector, international and multilateral organizations, and with country governments.  Both President Obama and Secretary Clinton have called for “partnership, not patronage” as part of a new model for development.  The stories below showcase examples in which the U.S. government and NGOs have engaged with people on the ground differently and reaped the benefits of a truly successful partnership.

• Providing 10,000 farmers with secure markets to sell rice (USAID) – Olam Nigeria Limited, a major Nigerian rice importer, wanted to invest in high-quality rice for Nigeria’s market, but farmers faced limited access to critical resources, like fertilizer and credit.  One year after partnering with USAID in 2006, more than 10,000 farmers were provided with access to secure markets, financing, and technical assistance to produce high-quality rice.  The result was an increase in productivity of almost 260 percent, accompanied by more than doubling of farmer net income.  The USAID/Olam partnership is an example of coordination among local private industry and international organizations, and sustainable development at a grassroots level.
  • Learn more about the successful partnership between Olam Nigeria Limited and USAID here.

• Kenyan reaps from AGOA (USAID) – As a result of the close U.S.-Africa trade ties made possible through the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), Mike King’ori, director of marketing and operations and an owner of Kenyan company K-Net Flowers Ltd., was able to visit U.S. trade shows and expand his business into the American mass market.  Because of the efficient, coordinating efforts of the AGOA and the USAID trade hubs, African flower merchants have been able to maintain reliable access to the American market, have learned how to better market and brand their product, and have begun to employ savvy and innovative business and technology practices.
  • Learn more about the success of Mike King’ori and the ways in which AGOA is expanding business opportunities in Africa here.

• Bangladesh primary education (Save the Children Bangladesh Report on USAID) – The Government of Bangladesh’s Primary Education Development Programme II (PEDP II) did not meet the need for early childhood development (ECD), with less than 15 percent of Bangladesh’s children under-5 participating in any kind of education program.  To fill this critical gap, since 2005 USAID has been funding a large and successful ECD and pre-primary education program, called SUCCEED, which works in 1,800 home- and school-based preschools across 600 communities.  USAID also funded the creation of a Bangla version of the children’s television show, Sesame Street, called Simsimpur, which is now the most widely viewed children’s television show in Bangladesh.  The Government of Bangladesh now recognizes the need for pre-primary education and, by 2015, intends to ensure that all preschool-age children have access to early childhood education.
  • Read more about smart aid approaches in Bangladesh in the full report here.

• Jordan and MCC: Empowering women through building networks, capacity and ideas (Millennium Challenge Corporation – March 6, 2009) – Jordan’s Women’s Knowledge Network, a Jordanian organization focused on enhancing the role of women in local government as a means of ensuring that women have a stronger voice in society, was launched as part of the country’s $25 million MCC Threshold Program and has flourished as a result of careful coordination and partnership between USAID, MCC and the local Jordanian government.
  • Learn more about Jordan’s Women’s Knowledge Network and its partnership with MCC and USAID to improve gender integration in government and society here.

Coordination

In the same way that the current administration recognizes the need to be better partners, policymakers and advocates understand the need to coordinate individual efforts to increase transparency, limit duplication, and encourage accountability.  Coordination – both in the field and here in Washington – plays a critical role in determining the overall impact of aid dollars, and it opens up the door for integration.  See what effective coordination looks like and the dramatic impact it can have on the ground below.

• Opening the door to Zambian businesses (Millennium Challenge Corporation – March 18, 2009) – The effort to create a stronger private sector in Zambia by encouraging business development and registration has been successful because of efficient collaboration between the MCC (through a two-year, $22.7 million threshold program) and local government agencies, thereby fostering local ownership and accountability.  The effort has also adopted innovative technology, like the fully-automated Customer Service Center in Lusaka, which reduces opportunities for corruption and removes would-be entrepreneurs’ dependence on intermediaries.
  • Read about the success of Zambian business owner Prosper Chanda thanks to the collaborative efforts of the MCC and the local government here.

• A Ghanaian working mother’s story (Millennium Challenge Corporation – April 14, 2009) – Farmers in Ghana receive supplies so that they can put into practice what they have learned about business planning and crop productivity through training provided by the Millennium Development Authority (MIDA), the local MCC-funded program.  The training provided by MIDA utilizes close collaboration between farmers and training providers and an innovative “value chain approach” to increase crop productivity, demonstrating the importance of collaboration and innovation to promote sustainable, grassroots development.
  • Read about the success story of Barbara Ayisa, one of the farmers who received collaborative training from MIDA providers here, or watch the “MCC in Ghana” video here.

• SMART aid and private partnership help Tanzania make bed nets for Africa (ONE Campaign Issue Brief) – A to Z Textile Mills, a Tanzanian manufacturer of long-lasting insecticide-treated mosquito nets to protect families from malaria, is a joint venture with a Japanese company, Sumitomo Chemical, which gave A to Z a royalty-free technology license.  The nets are then bought by Tanzanian government agencies, as well as international non-governmental organizations.  The A to Z Textile Mill demonstrates the positive results achieved when foreign assistance works in collaboration with private partnerships to support local industry and employment.
  • Read more about the successful collaboration of A to Z Textile Mill with international and government agencies here.

• Central African Republic: Government collaboration to immunize mothers (ONE Campaign Progress Report) – In the Central African Republic, the Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Population Fund and UNICEF collaborated to create the Mother and Child Survival Campaign to decrease the high rate of maternal and infant mortality.  Collaboration across organizational lines demonstrates the potential power of collaborative plans in implementing smart, focused aid.
  • Learn more about the collaborative effort to provide immunizations and other health services to women in the Central African Republic here.

Innovation

Given the constant influx of new technology and the desire to find development solutions that are sustainable, innovation has become key to effective development in the 21st century.  Innovation is about connecting people with new tools – like cell phones for rural farmers – and creating opportunity in places where traditional methods of aid have failed to bring about durable change.  The examples that follow speak to such game-changing approaches to aid.

• Lighting the way to economic growth with green energy (Millennium Challenge Corporation – April 19, 2010) – For Dona Mercedes Carranza and the 30 families in her rural community located in El Salvador’s Northern Zone, lack of electricity hindered development.  In response to these challenges, the Government of El Salvador and the MCC plan to bring electricity to rural communities by installing 1,950 solar panel units.  The collaborative work of the Government of El Salvador and MCC demonstrates how poverty reduction projects might align with efforts to counteract climate change and bring about sustainable development.
  • Learn how green energy brought hope for development to Honduritas, a rural community in El Salvador’s Northern Zone here.

• Smart aid helps mobile phones bring banking to Kenya’s rural poor (ONE Campaign) – Piloted by Vodafone, supported by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and implemented in early 2007 by local mobile phone provider Safaricom, M-PESA is a money transfer system that allows people to transfer, withdraw and deposit money by mobile phone without a bank account.  The M-PESA program is an example of partnership – bringing together support from international donor countries, technology from international private companies, and initiative from local businesses.  Additionally, the introduction of M-PESA may have huge benefits for customers in Kenya.
  • Learn more about the innovative and collaborative efforts of the M-PESA program here.

• Saving for a more secure way of life (Oxfam America in West Africa) – In 2005, Oxfam America established Saving for Change, a microfinance program that trains women in rural regions of West Africa – like Djouri Konaré in Mali – to save their money, invest in one another’s small enterprises, and offer programs on practical topics such as malaria prevention to develop skills that make everyday life more safe and secure.  The project demonstrates the positive results of innovative programs that foster indigenous business initiatives and local ownership.
  • Read more about Saving for Change’s innovative efforts to promote financial security in rural communities here.

• Computers improve commerce (USAID) – Through the Digital Freedom Initiative, USAID works together with leading U.S. companies and a team of local volunteers in Senegal to train small business owners and entrepreneurs to use technology in order to better manage their businesses.  The Initiative has flourished thanks to innovative use of information and communications technologies as a means of delivering efficient business practices and promoting economic growth, as well as international collaboration and ownership at a local level.
  • Read more about the success of the Digital Freedom Initiative in its effort to promote sustainable economic growth here.

According to Andrew Natsios, visiting fellow at the Center for Global Development and former Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) from 2001 to 2006, obstructive layers of bureaucracy pose the largest challenge to delivering effective foreign assistance for agencies such as USAID. In his essay, “The Clash of the Counter-bureaucracy and Development,” Natsios relates how bureaucratic obstacles hinder USAID development practices and even damage U.S. national security objectives. Follow the link below to read the full paper:

Clash of Counter-bureaucracy and Development – Natsios

Read another piece authored by Andrew Natsios and MFAN Principals J. Brian Atwood and M. Peter McPherson regarding the problems with the U.S. foreign assistance system titled “Arrested Development Making Foreign Aid a More Effective Tool” (Foreign Affairs, Nov/Dec 2008).