U.S. Foreign Assistance Reform Takes Center Stage

Tomorrow will be a big day for U.S. foreign assistance reform. The day begins with a panel on "The Future of Foreign Assistance" at the annual conference of the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign and the Center for U.S. Global Leadership featuring the top three U.S. aid officials: Henrietta Fore, acting director of foreign assistance and acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development; John Danilovich, CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation; and Mark Dybul, U.S. global AIDS coordinator. In the afternoon the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a confirmation hearing for Henrietta Fore's appointment as USAID administrator.

Foreign assistance aficionados and skeptics alike are hoping that the double header will provide fresh insight into where U.S. foreign assistance reform efforts stand following Director of Foreign Assistance and USAID Administrator Randall Tobias's departure in April and recent congressional hearings highlighting concerns about the reform process, much of which was captured in a Washington Post article by Glenn Kessler on "Hill, Aid Groups: One Opaque System Replaced Another."
Among the concerns expressed by Congress and others about the reform process is that the administration-appointed director of foreign assistance lacked authority over two of the U.S.'s biggest foreign aid programs--the Millennium Challenge Account and the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. The morning joint appearance by Fore, Danilovich and Dybul may be part of an administration effort to address these concerns.
Further scrutiny of the foreign assistance reform efforts is expected in the afternoon during Fore's Senate confirmation hearing. Notably, the director of foreign assistance is not a Senate confirmed position, so the hearing is limited to Fore's confirmation to become administrator of USAID. Even so, the hearing is expected to focus on broader foreign assistance reform efforts. Among the questions that may be asked:

• What steps will Fore and the administration take to ensure our foreign assistance programs meet the challenges of the 21st century and strengthen America’s role in the world?
• Will Fore and the administration consider changes in the U.S. foreign assistance architecture, such as rewriting the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and/or creating a cabinet-level development agency?
• Will USAID shift its programmatic focus, towards weak states for example, and/or consider closing USAID missions?
• How does the current foreign assistance system ensure that U.S. policies for foreign assistance are aligned and not working at cross-purposes with U.S. policies for defense and security as well as trade, environment, and investment?
• Are the top ten recipients of U.S. foreign assistance in the FY2008 budget the right countries on which the U.S should be focusing the majority of its foreign assistance resources and what further steps will be taken to rationalize a budget based on country priorities, rather than sector-based approaches?
• How will U.S. foreign assistance efforts improve monitoring and evaluation so that it moves beyond tracking how money is spent to measure impact of U.S. development programs?

I’ll be at both events, and will report back with what I learn.