Amanda Glassman, executive vice president and senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, praised the additional funding for DIV and GIF, but added, “I don’t think it’s a wholesale transformation of the aid apparatus.” Glassman argues that USAID’s biggest problems include the fact that “the budget is organized very inflexibly”: money is siloed for specific purposes, from family planning to malaria to education to women’s empowerment, which makes innovation harder. FIGDA doesn’t particularly address this issue.
Ultimately, how effective the bill proves to be will depend as much on its implementation as its actual text. “It’s not super directive; it’s more about providing USAID with some additional authorities or flexibility,” Erin Collinson, director of policy outreach at the Center for Global Development, says.
