Let's Be Smart about Foreign Aid in the Debates Ahead (The Hill)

CGD was mentioned in The Hill's Congress Blog regarding Administrator Shah's recent speech at CGD and USAID reforms.

From the Article:

Over the next seven days the House will act on finalizing the fiscal year 2011 budget and President Obama will unveil his spending blueprint for 2012. Washington is abuzz about budget cuts starting with White House plans to freeze non-security resources for five years and House Republican initiatives to roll back spending levels to 2008 or earlier.

Every aspect of the budget is receiving close scrutiny and foreign aid is no exception. In fact, the degree of attention focused on these programs -- that help protect U.S. national security interests, provide opportunities for the world’s poor, save lives through health interventions, expand American exports that create jobs at home, and respond to humanitarian disasters -- often seems out of proportion to the less-than 1% of the budget that foreign aid receives.

Smartly, some among the Obama foreign assistance team have been scrutinizing their agency budgets for some time and identifying where cuts can be made. In a speech three weeks ago hosted by the Center for Global Development, Raj Shah, the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, acknowledged that USAID would need to do “more with less” or at least with a stagnant budget. Administrator Shah previewed some reductions, announcing the graduation from foreign aid of at least seven countries by 2015, the closure of expensive offices in Europe and Tokyo, and administrative savings of $50 million over five years.

Read the Article.