The SAIS International Development Program and the SAIS Center for International Business and Public Policy hosted a discussion on Monday, March 3, 2008 with two leading critics of the HELP Commission Report on U.S. foreign assistance that was submitted to the President and Congress in December 2007. 

Leo Hindery, Vice Chairman of the Commission, has co-authored with Jeff Sachs and Gayle Smith, an "alternative" view to the Commission’s final report entitled "Revamping Foreign Assistance;" Nancy Birdsall, President of the Center for Global Development (and a distinguished SAIS alumnus), has been an outspoken advocate for a new Cabinet-level "Department for International Sustainable Development." Roger Leeds, SAIS Professor and Director of the School's Center for International Business and Public Policy, moderated the discussion by these two leading proponents of a more assertive U.S. development assistance program than recommended in the HELP Commission Report.