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February 10, 2012
The budget season officially opens February 13 when the president releases his 2013 request. We at Rethink are at the ready to crunch the numbers and see if the administration will live up to its rhetoric on being more selective and focused with U.S. foreign assistance. Considering the budget blues are likely far from over, members of the development community should continue to brace for across-the-board cuts. With this in mind, CGD convened a joint working group with the Center for American Progress on aid priorities amid declining resources with the hope of turning pressures to cut into momentum to fix our ailing foreign aid architecture. This month’s newsletter highlights one of the big ideas from the upcoming working group report slated for release in early March (hint: more trilateral cooperation). We are also keeping close tabs on the Global Health Initiative (GHI), as USAID makes its case for taking the lead. Stay tuned for more sneak previews of the working group to come.
Living up to the Rhetoric: Will the FY2013 Request Show More Selectivity?
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The Obama administration’s Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development calls for two important concepts to guide U.S. foreign assistance – selectivity and focus. Still, in FY2011 economic assistance went to a whopping 102 countries, program objectives are wide-ranging, and presidential initiatives operate in too many countries (see the GHI). In her recent blog, Connie Veillette asks whether the 2013 budget will show any more focus and calls on the administration to make aid selectivity a priority.
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Guidelines for Trilateral Cooperation Wanted
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Trilateral cooperation –a partnership among a traditional donor, an emerging donor, and a low income country – is increasingly popular, but the U.S. isn’t on board yet. Connie Veillette warns that a lack of clarity about how these partnerships operate is producing misguided opposition to the concept. Trilateral aid offers many advantages from cost-savings to greater effectiveness. But without a strategy or set of guidelines for how to use trilateral engagement, opponents will stop the approach before it has a chance to prove effective.
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Where Oh Where Has the GHI Gone?
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The QDDR calls for USAID to take the lead of the GHI and coordinate the work of three major agencies involved in global health: the Department of State, Health and Human Services, and the Centers for Disease Control (CGD). But Nandini Oomman warns that if PEPFAR remains at State, USAID will have little real authority over the GHI. With so much at stake, Amanda Glassman explains that there’s still time to “reshape the GHI as a model for effective global health aid in a period of austerity.” Connie Veillette argues in a recent blog that doing so will require a major rethink of the GHI and the whole of government approach.
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