As many of you who closely track U.S. development policy doubtlessly already know, one of CGD's first senior fellows, Steve Radelet, joined the U.S. government this week as a senior advisor on development in the office of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
I am pleased to announce that CGD has expanded its work in monitoring U.S. foreign assistance. Sheila Herrling, whom many of you know from her wonderful stewardship of our MCA Monitor, has been named Director, Monitoring Foreign Assistance Program and will be managing our Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance Program, a one-stop shop for information, dialogue and analysis on the progress and challenges in modernizing U.S. foreign assistance.
Word has it that the Administration’s candidate for MCC CEO has cleared the arduous vetting process.
As others before me have reported, Paul Farmer, the longest-rumored contender for the USAID Administrator nomination, is out of the running. And so begins again a courtship ritual that, funny enough, is captured in the old children’s rhyme that bears his name.
This is a joint posting with Sarah Jane Staats and also appeared on the Huffington Post
Amidst of a month of partisan battles on Capitol Hill over a Supreme Court nominee, healthcare and financial regulation, a new bill was introduced this week that rose above party lines: the Foreign Assistance Revitalization and Accountability Act of 2009 (S. 1524). Senators Kerry, Lugar, Menendez, Corker, Risch and Cardin--three Democrats and three Republicans--introduced the bill as “a first step toward comprehensive reform of U.S. foreign assistance,” showing they are ready, willing and able to work with the administration on a set of deeper reforms.
CGD was delighted to be asked by Senator Richard Lugar to post his op-ed on the urgent need to elevate global development and strengthen U.S. foreign assistance programs.
Last Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that she would undertake the first ever, and she hopes forever
On June 28, after months of tension over Honduran President Manuel Zelaya’s plan to lift presidential term limits, armed soldiers hauled him in his pajamas out of his home and put him on a plane to Costa Rica. Looks like a coup to me. Later that day the Honduran Congress voted to remove Zelaya and swear in Roberto Micheletti, head of the Congress, as the new civilian president. Even so, it still sounds like a coup to me. So, all the news stories call it a coup.
Sen. John Kerry called for a grand new vision to put diplomacy and development alongside defense at the heart of America's foreign policy in a knock-out speech at the Brookings Institution last week. Sen. Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, spoke of a new generation of global challenges—ethnic tension, religious extremism, financial crises, climate change and poverty—that require a dramatic overhaul of U.S. foreign policy to protect our common security and prosperity.
President Obama has generally gotten high marks for his performance after 100 days in office. But the development community has to be disappointed. Why?