Everyone says August in Washington, D.C. is quiet. That is of course, unless you are planning to attend the presidential conventions and from what I can tell, just about everyone is sending someone to the conventions. And this time around, CGD is going to both of them.
CGD President Nancy Birdsall and I are headed to Denver next week for the Democratic National Convention and to Minneapolis the following week for the Republican National Convention. While some may think we’re going for the parties (Kanye West? Willie Nelson? LeAnn Rimes? Rage Against the Machine?) we are not. There is actually a lot more going on related to global development at the conventions than one might expect.
For starters, the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and friends are hosting an...
The U.S. Congress launched a new bipartisan Caucus for Congressional-World Bank Dialogue at a packed event on Capitol Hill July 16. The caucus, co-chaired by Kevin Brady (R-TX) and Betty McCollum (D-MN), provides a forum for members of Congress to engage the World Bank, parliamentarians and policy experts on poverty reduction, global development and trade.
As many Hill and Bank-watchers know, World Bank rules prevent its president and senior staff from testifying before Congress and restrict discussions to closed-door meetings. While some argue this protects the bank from type of congressional meddling that has hobbled USAID, it also means that the bank misses opportunities to educate and inform Congress about its work through public, congressional testimony. Reuters' reporter...
Two former administrators of the U.S. Agency for International Development -- Peter McPherson and Brian Atwood -- said the U.S. government should give greater prominence to development and rewrite the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 in their testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week. Their testimony and other events around town signal growing momentum for a dramatic overhaul of U.S. foreign assistance.
The hearing on "Rebuilding U.S. Civilian Development and Diplomatic Capacity in the 21st Century" was convened by House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) Chairman Howard Berman who previously helped launch the "New Day, New Way" proposal for modernizing U.S. foreign assistance where he promised to hold a series of hearings on reform. Nearly a dozen...
Last week, CGD launched a new video to help convey why the next president needs to give U.S. foreign assistance policy something akin to an extreme makeover. "Bring U.S. Foreign Assistance into the 21st Century" has since been watched on YouTube by nearly 10,000 people and many have taken the time to send us their thoughts. The overwhelming response from viewers is: this video is "fun," "short" and "makes the point" but that they want more details of the underlying policy analysis and recommendations.
Many of the policymakers I talk to in Washington tell me they care about foreign aid and global development but that the "American people" don't want to hear about it and aren't interested in the policy details. So the enthusiastic call from people wanting to learn more is...
The day after the launch of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network's New Day, New Way Proposal, Representatives Betty McCollum (D-MN), Christopher Shays (R-CT), John Tierney (D-MA) and Frank Wolf (R-VA) introduced a bipartisan resolution to elevate global development and foreign assistance in our national interest. Continuing to build on the surge of momentum for modernizing U.S. foreign assistance, ten cosponsors of the resolution call on their colleagues to recognize that:
America faces a new generation of threats in the 21st century including terrorism, global health pandemics and climate change. Winning these battles will require all of America's weapons -- defense, diplomacy and foreign assistance -- and foreign assistance strategies such as long-term...
*This is a joint post with Steve Radelet
Yesterday in an interview with NPR, Defense Secretary Robert Gates made a strong and smart argument for supporting American troops. No surprises there, right? Except for the fact that he is defending the build-up of civilian troops -- our diplomatic and development corps -- to be America's front line of defense in fighting global poverty and insecurity. Much as he did in his brilliant speech at Kansas State University in November, Gates encourages the United States to devote more resources and create new institutions for nonmilitary means of influence abroad: diplomacy, strategic communications, foreign assistance, civic action, and economic reconstruction and development. His message:If we are to meet the myriad challenges around the world in...
I join my colleague Rachel Nugent in offering Three Cheers for CARE Decision to Forego U.S. Food Aid!
U.S. food aid has a long and complicated history. Most people think of food aid as "doing good"—feeding the starving—and it is often used for this purpose. However, large amounts of food aid are sold to finance development projects, often administered by the U.S. or by NGOs. And, in the process, food aid can actually do harm.
Understanding the complexities of the issue is hugely important in general and, specifically, now. Congress is mid-way through debating a new five-year Farm Bill: the House passed a Farm Bill in July that did not address calls for reform in food aid to “do best” and the Senate will take up the bill this fall. For those interested in...
Bill Easterly, in a recent Foreign Policy article, The Ideology of Development (subscription required), writes ominously that "a dark ideological specter in haunting the world," one in which "unelected outsiders imposing rigid doctrines on the xenophobic unwilling" and "favors collective goals such as national poverty reduction, national economic growth, and the global Millennium Development Goals, over the aspirations of individuals." He concludes that "Development ideology has a dismal record of helping any country actually develop." And finally that, "the only 'answer' to poverty reduction is freedom from being told the answer."
I've always wondered if Bill Easterly really thought the world would be a better place it there were no official development assistance....
At the first joint public appearance of the U.S. foreign assistance triumvirate this week, Henrietta Fore, acting director of foreign assistance and acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, John Danilovich, CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and Mark Dybul, U.S. global AIDS coordinator, argued U.S. foreign assistance reform is just beginning and this administration and the next must do more to fix our foreign assistance architecture. Fore's confirmation hearing, however, suggests this process may be slower than anticipated.
Speaking together at the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign and Center for U.S. Global Engagement's annual conference, the top three leaders of U.S. foreign assistance responded to questions from Brookings' Lael...
Tomorrow will be a big day for U.S. foreign assistance reform. The day begins with a panel on "The Future of Foreign Assistance" at the annual conference of the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign and the Center for U.S. Global Leadership featuring the top three U.S. aid officials: Henrietta Fore, acting director of foreign assistance and acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development; John Danilovich, CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation; and Mark Dybul, U.S. global AIDS coordinator. In the afternoon the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a confirmation hearing for Henrietta Fore's appointment as USAID administrator.
Foreign assistance aficionados and skeptics alike are hoping that the double header will provide fresh insight into...
Today at 4:00 p.m., Randall Tobias officially resigned from the position of Director of Foreign Aid and Administrator of USAID for "personal reasons." In the wake of this news folks are left wondering why he resigned and what happens to the foreign aid reform agenda he just launched. There appear to be two camps emerging on the "why". Given the fact that very close aides to Tobias say they were shocked, -- including Deputy USAID Administrator Jim Kunder who, in his email to staff says, "today I received shocking news..." -- one camp believes it is truly very personal. Another camp notes that it was fairly common knowledge that Tobias did not plan on finishing out his term but that his decision to resign now was prompted by his fury over Congressman Tom Lantos' infamous "We...
The sudden resignation on Friday of Ambassador Randall Tobias, the first U.S. director of foreign assistance, stunned staff at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department and left the administration’s beleaguered aid reform effort without a leader. The acting deputy administrator of USAID, Jim Kunder, wrote to staff late in the afternoon that he had just received the "shocking" news that the White House would soon announce Tobias’s immediate resignation for "personal reasons."
Things got more shocking when news broke that Tobias had confirmed to ABC News that he had patronized a high-end call girl firm run by Deborah Jeane Palfrey. Federal prosecutors allege Palfrey was providing $300-an-hour prostitutes, and a grand jury indicted her in...
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appointed Undersecretary of Management Henrietta Holsman Fore as acting Director of Foreign Assistance. The White House announced that the President has designated Ms. Fore acting USAID Administrator and his intent to nominate her for that post.
She's got a big job ahead of her to move forward the Adminstration's foreign aid reform agenda....
Members of the development community were pleasantly surprised when they opened their email box on Wednesday. After a year of voluble criticism from development advocates, U.S. Director of Foreign Assistance and USAID Administrator Randall Tobias had finally inserted the magic word “poverty” into the Bush Administration’s core objective for foreign aid. According to the revised Strategic Framework for Foreign Assistance (pdf), the central goal of the “transformational diplomacy” has been altered to read:
To help build and sustain democratic, well-governed states that respond to the needs of their people, reduce widespread poverty and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system.
Ambassador Tobias explained the rationale in the following note to the...
Just after the 2006 midterm elections, I blogged about CGD research that suggested the new split between a Republican president and Democratic Congress would increase pressure on the foreign aid budget. CGD Senior Fellow Todd Moss, author of "The Surprise Party: An Analysis of ODA Flows to Africa" to which I referred, has now updated his data. His new note,"U.S. Aid to Africa After the Midterm Elections? A 'Surprise Party' Update" says U.S. aid to Africa has soared under the Bush administration and that a divided government, if history holds true, will lower aid.
Todd concludes:
The January 4, 2007 shift in power on Capitol Hill altered the configuration from an all-Republican government to a split one with a Republican president and a Democratic Congress. Based on...
From D.C. to Dhaka, scores of people gathered around live broadcasts of President Bush to play CGD State of the Union bingo and watch the president’s first address to a new Democratic majority in Congress. The rules are simple: listen for key policy terms in Bush’s address and be the first to mark your bingo card. The point: U.S. foreign policy, global warming and migration policies matter for global development and have an impact on poverty and inequality throughout the world. Some highlights from State of the Union bingo 2007:
The Diner in Adams Morgan, Washington, D.C: Policy wonks and development aficionados packed The Diner in Adams Morgan, which donated prizes for our bingo participants from the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Agency for International...
In
Africa,
Security and Development,
Climate Change,
Global Warming,
Environment,
Weak and Fragile States,
HIV/AIDS,
Advocacy,
Aid Effectiveness,
U.S. Foreign Aid Reform,
Foreign Aid Reform
President Bush called last week’s midterm election results “a thumpin’” as the Democrats took control of both the House and the Senate. Since then, Republicans and Democrats have been promising to work in a “bipartisan way for all Americans.” But what does it mean for global development that the Republicans hold the presidency while the Democrats control the House and Senate?
According to recent CGD research by Markus Goldstein and CGD senior fellow Todd Moss, the relative priority of aid to Africa is the same under Republican or Democratic presidents, but more importantly their results show:
The relationship between the president and Congress is what matters: when both are controlled by the same party, aid to Africa is higher; when it is split, aid is lower--both...
In the days preceding the October 17th United Nations International Day for the Eradication of Poverty we have seen the launch of PRODUCT (RED) in America, led by Bono and Bobby Shriver to engage American corporations and consumers in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and “Stand Up Against Poverty,”a worldwide effort to set a Guinness World Record for the most people literally “standing up” against poverty.
Both activities draw our focus again towards global poverty, Americans who care about it, and individuals who continue to find innovative ways to respond. But can we translate conscious consumerism and grassroots advocacy into political action?
The PRODUCT (RED) Manifesto summarizes the ingenious business model:
We believe that when consumers are offered this...
Last week, U.S. Foreign Aid Czar Randall Tobias kicked off the Society for International Development's 50-year anniversary celebrations with an update on U.S. foreign assistance reform efforts. Eight months in the works, and not much more to report than what was included in our last posting. Interestingly, attendees didn't seem too bothered by this fact. Why? In large part, Iit's because Ambassador Tobias is so darn likeable . A combination of rational thinking, demonstrated commitment to the need for foreign aid reform, and a seasoned stage presence -- plus very little time for questions from non-SID Board members -- resulted in an enjoyable but rather uninteresting update on the Administration's efforts.
Of note:
1. Operational plans, being built up from the country...
* This is a joint post from Sheila Herrling and Sarah Jane Hise.
In a meeting hosted by InterAction on Tuesday, staff of the Office of the Director of Foreign Assistance (OFA) provided an updated foreign assistance framework, as last reported by Sheila and me. There are some nice additions since the last round, including several recommendations from a working group of experts in development, diplomacy and defense organized by the Aspen Institute Global Interdependence Initiative. Most notably:
the addition of a category for global/regional issues;
clarification of the category “other USG agency contributions” over which Tobias would have coordinating but not budgetary authority; and
changing one of the basket titles...