Sneak Peek At New Foreign Assistance Act: What Do You Think?
7/13/10
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The development community is getting a sneak peek at the first sections of a new U.S. foreign assistance act. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) and his staff released the first 55 pages of a new Global Partnership Act of 2010 discussion draft, aiming to replace the outdated and unwieldy Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. It’s a first step towards clarifying the mission, mandate and structure of U.S. foreign assistance programs, but also an opportunity to strengthen the draft before it is introduced as legislation.
There is a lot to like about the new draft sections of the bill. Above all, it attempts to make sense of the complex web of rules, regulations, objectives and directives tacked onto the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act and begins to fulfill Berman’s promise to reassert congressional authorizers in the process of legislating U.S. foreign assistance. My top three "likes" in the bill:
- Development is more than aid. The new "foreign assistance act" is a misnomer. The draft rightly notes that development must include "all United States policies having an impact on development" including foreign assistance, debt relief, trade, agriculture, migration and remittances, environmental protection, technology transfer and arms sales. The bill requires a United States Strategy for Global Development be written every four years. It also establishes an interagency development policy committee comprising senior staff from each of the federal agencies involved in development to coordinate U.S. budget, policy, and programs.
- Someone (read: USAID) is in charge. The bill mandates that unless otherwise noted the USAID administrator, acting under the foreign policy guidance of the Secretary of State, has primary responsibility for poverty reduction programs. The bill requires that the USAID administrator be at least vice chairperson of the development policy committee if not designated chairperson. It also gives the USAID administrator some much needed policy and budget authority and resources for evaluation.
- Public transparency is paramount. The bill requires detailed real-time descriptions of all funding--amounts, beneficiaries, locations, and intended purposes--be publicly available on the Internet. It also requires public availability of country indicators, strategies, and program and impact evaluations.
There are also a few things I’m not sure about yet:
- Sector specific funding. The bill creates new “development support funds” for country strategies as a way to move away from sector earmarks, but also outlines eight sector-specific investment areas—livelihoods and incomes; food security; health; education; environment; water and sanitation; equal opportunity; and democratic governance. While I realize it’s hard to walk away entirely from earmarks, I worry it’s a slippery slope that will encourage others to try and add their own sector to the list. Authors of the legislation are also grappling with what percentage of money should be allocated for development support funds for country strategies, as opposed to the sector areas. Maybe better: avoid the country vs. sector issue altogether and let the administration make proposals subject to review of Congress each year.
- New country strategy documents. The country strategy documents are again meant to move away from Washington earmarks to fund country needs, but it would create yet another planning document for developing countries to prepare (and the World Bank already helps do this).
The bigger outstanding questions in my mind include:
- How will it relate to the administration's two major development policy reviews? We're still waiting for the outcome of the Presidential Study Directive on U.S. Global Development Policy (PSD) and the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) but both are expected to address the same issues pertaining to the mission, mandate and structure of U.S. development policy. The leaked PSD, for example, emphasizes economic growth and increased selectivity of where U.S. development programs operate; the first sections of the draft bill say little on either. 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).
- If development is more than aid, do we need more than the foreign affairs committee? The House Foreign Affairs Committee has limited jurisdiction that doesn’t extend to the multilateral development agencies (which are overseen by House Financial Services), migration policy (House Judiciary), agriculture (House Agriculture Committee), trade (House Ways and Means) and so on. And of course, the Department of Defense has a growing role in development too (House Armed Services). The draft bill makes great strides in coordinating the disparate federal agencies that have a role in development, but congressional jurisdiction over policies that affect development is equally dispersed. I’d love to see some innovative ways to pull together congressional committees, through bipartisan meetings of committee chairs or joint committee hearings on development issues.
- Does it strike the right balance between flexibility for the administration and accountability to Congress? Ultimately, a rewrite of the foreign assistance act should give the administration more flexibility (read: fewer earmarks and directives from Congress) in exchange for more accountability to Congress. The draft does a very good job on accountability and public reporting for taxpayer dollars, but is already quite long (55 pages in the two-part preamble alone) and prescriptive (nineteen separate reporting requirements for each country strategy; ten for each sector strategy; detailed description of how and by whom, etc.). The new language seems like an honest and brave attempt to reign in earmarks, but does it go far enough? It’s still a long way from the UK’s operating legislation that comes in at a mere eighteen pages! Knowing we’ll never go quite that far, it would be nice to see more focus from Congress on the development outcomes and less on the inputs. (Perhaps through some innovative ideas like Cash on Delivery Aid?)
So I’ll give three cheers to Rep. Berman and his staff for putting something in writing (and legislative language) and for actively soliciting feedback as they aim to bring our development legislation into the 21st century. I’d also call for three things: Make it shorter! Focus on development outcomes not inputs! And, the administration and Congress need to play nice in the development sandbox!
What do you think of the new draft language? Leave a comment below!
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