A USG Development Policy Wish List for 2016

2015 was widely expected to be a landmark year for development. See here for a video round-up of our fellows' views on what happened. Now, 2016, is when the rubber will (start to) hit the road following the Addis Conference on Financing for Development, the SDGs, and the Paris COP.

Here’s hoping for great things globally in the year ahead. (World leaders take note, Nancy Birdsall has a few suggestions.) But we thought we’d take a moment to reflect on what 2016 is likely to bring in terms of US government development policy.

Only a moment because we anticipate a relatively uneventful last 12 months of the Obama administration (though whew, glad USAID Administrator Gayle Smith is in place at last and that IMF quota reform finally passed!). Development seems an unlikely issue area for big, last-minute executive orders or initiatives. And given the election year and the general stagnation, Congress is also likely be quiet on the development front.

So, what would we realistically hope to see before the next president takes office in 2017?

• Electrify Africa signed into law (the Senate passed it, now it’s up to the House).
• A US foreign assistance agency launch a pay-for-performance mechanism like Cash-on-Delivery Aid or a Development Impact Bond (MCC seems most likely, the agency’s latest compact with Morocco references creation of a social impact bond).
• A strong congressional push to modernize US development finance.
• Bipartisan recognition that migration, from the refugee crisis and otherwise, can benefit the United States (ok, so some of these are more realistic than others).
• Congress remove remaining hurdles to USAID investing more in helping partner countries mobilize their own resources for development.
• The administration sign its first investment promotion treaty, preferably with an African or South Asian country. The Administration spent two years overhauling its template agreement in the first term—now it’s time to use it.
• Congress authorize concurrent compact authority for MCC to allow it to invest in regional compacts.

In the meantime, we’ll keep our fingers crossed that 2016 is a year of constructive hearings, timely confirmations, and no new development initiatives. For a litany of specific proposals for US government development policy, see CGD’s White House and the World: Practical Proposals on Global Development for the Next US President, many of which could be implemented before the next president takes office (including new briefs from Nancy Birdsall on global public goods and Nazanin Ash on security and development assistance in the Middle East).