House appropriators marked up the FY2011 foreign affairs spending bill at $52.656 billion yesterday. The subcommittee mark up is roughly $4 billion above last year’s enacted levels, but also $4 billion below the president’s request for FY2011.
The Obama administration’s new Feed the Future initiative is big—$3.5 billion over 3 years—and bold. It has been touted as “a new way of doing development” and aims to reach 40 million people, including 25 million children, in ten years in an effort to tackle chronic hunger and achieve global food security. The objective and approach of the new initiative are laudable. Indeed, it is hard to find fault within the new initiative; the challenge is what lies just beyond its reach: a U.S.
Strategy documents from the U.S. and other donors over the last few years almost always leave something to be desired. The documents are usually vague. They’re frequently heavy on rhetoric but light on action and measurable objectives, and they often propose doing a lot of everything everywhere rather than laying out a detailed and focused yet flexible approach.