US Foreign Assistance

More from the Series

Blog Post
Amid Partisan Rancor, Congress Reaches Bipartisan Agreement on Foreign Aid Spending
December 20, 2019
In a flurry of activity, Congress completed its work on Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 spending bills just ahead of the holiday break. For the third year running, lawmakers rejected the steep cuts to foreign assistance proposed by the Trump administration, providing a modest increase in funding for developme...
CGD NOTES
Linking US Foreign Aid to UN Votes: What Are the Implications?
May 04, 2018
The Trump administration has pledged to tie foreign aid more directly to countries’ United Nations (UN) votes, threatening to punish countries who vote against the US position by cutting their foreign assistance. While the administration’s harsh rhetoric marks a shift from the recent pas...
Blog Post
With New Spending Bill, Congress Steers Foreign Assistance Away from Deep Cuts
March 30, 2018
Last week, Congress completed work on a spending package that funds the federal government through the remainder of the fiscal year. As far as development and diplomacy are concerned, the bill is an unmistakable rejection of the deep cuts proposed by the Trump administration. Here are a fe...
Blog Post
Will Trump’s Big Aid Cuts Hurt Chances for Reform?
February 16, 2018
The Trump administration delivered its FY 2019 budget request to Capitol Hill this week. Containing deep cuts to the international affairs budget, it looks a lot like a repeat of the FY 2018 request. And with a 30 percent reduction in topline spending, few programs were spared. Meanwhile, ...
Blog Post
The Incredible Shrinking US Multilateralism
February 13, 2018
In 1944, the United States created a blueprint for economic statecraft that relied heavily on a new class of multilateral institutions to pursue US interests in the world. The blueprint itself is now under serious duress in the “America First” strategy of international engagement of the ...
Blog Post
Why It’s Important to Get the United States Back to the Pledging Table at IFAD
February 07, 2018
As donors gather next week in Rome to pledge funds to the International Fund for Agriculture Development , they may be wondering where the United States is. Given the generally high marks this independent fund earns for development effectiveness, the uncertainty around a US pledge is troub...
POLICY PAPERS
Working Itself Out of a Job: USAID and Smart Strategic Transitions
December 01, 2017
USAID has announced its intention to pursue “strategic transitions”—shifting select countries which have achieved an advanced level of development to a model of US engagement that relies less on traditional development assistance and more on other forms of cooperation. This paper s...