The Washington Times cites Sheila Herrling's blog on the HELP Commission.
From the article:
"As far as foreign aid is concerned -- a crucial component of 'soft power' -- the problem is, as correctly identified by the HELP commission, that billions of U.S. dollars have been spent on foreign assistance with very little or no change in poverty worldwide. The commission recognizes the good governance approach of the Millennium Challenge Account as the only one that holds the promise of sustainable progress, which is the good news. The bad news is that Congress has been busy cutting funding for the MCA. The Senate has proposed to come up with just half of the president's $3 billion request for the account. As it is, the MCA represents a mere 10 percent of the U.S. foreign aid budget.
As Sheila Herrington at the Center for Global Development noted in her blog, the HELP commissioners use the MCA as an example of good development assistance that meets their criteria for country-led development. The underlying problem, also identified by the HELP commissioners, may be that the timeline for the definition of success is too short -- reflecting impatience, which in the context of foreign policy has an awfully familiar ring to it."