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As the troubling details of the Department of Energy's loan program continue to roll out, I can’t help but think of another beleaguered agency…USAID. And, I also wonder if, in thinking how to generate new clean energy technology at home, we might also find insights to better promote development abroad? Here’s how:
Followers of this blog know that I’ve been critical of the direction and implementation of U.S.
This post originally appeared on devpolicy.org and devex and is based loosely on a February 10th talk at the Development Policy Center at Australian National University’s Crawford School and a March 1st speech at The International Development Research Centre in Ottawa..
The maxim that armies are always fighting the last war might just as aptly apply to development agencies: they are too often tackling yesterday’s problems with an outdated set of tools. If our development policies and agencies are to serve our interests, then we need them to both live in the present and prepare for the future. So, what then might development policy look like, say, a decade from now? What should we be thinking about now to get ready? Here are three big trends I think will be shaping the development future:
This post originally appeared on the Huffington Post.
While talking beautifully about its development plans, the Administration is really not living up to its rhetoric of elevating development to equal status with diplomacy and defense, the so-called 3Ds. If development is really such an equal partner alongside defense and diplomacy, why is USAID increasingly a minor subcomponent of the State department? The promises of making USAID the “world’s premier development agency” are ringing embarrassingly hollow. How can an agency be influential when it doesn’t even control its own budget or set its own strategic priorities? Even in areas where USAID has traditionally been very strong—disaster relief and food security, for instance—the State Department has taken over. (The Feed-the-Future initiative is effectively directed by State and, despite early promises that USAID would lead on Haitian earthquake relief and reconstruction, it was recently leaked that a State coordinator is running the show.) And it should hardly be surprising that USAID is getting its lunch eaten in the interagency when it had no head for a year and, nearly two years in, still has less than half of its top managers on the job.
But what if the problems of the 3Ds aren’t really about the staff vacancies, the battle of Washington egos, and an empire-building State Department? What if the real problem is that the much-vaunted “whole-of-government” approach is fundamentally unworkable in the United States?
Very interesting op-ed in Sunday’s WashPost on U.S. efforts to promote health care in Afghanistan that cuts to the heart of the debate over integrating development into U.S. foreign policy. The authors, two noted health experts, claim that American programs have done immediate good: up to 100,000 infants and children have been saved from early death this year alone. Perhaps more importantly for the long-term:
Given his background, Raj Shah is well placed to lead U.S. development efforts in the already-big areas of global health and agriculture.
This blog also appeared on the Huffington Post
Secretary Clinton will be leaving August 5 for a seven-country tour of Africa. She will hit Kenya, South Africa, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Liberia, and Cape Verde. (Whew!) The itinerary suggests that the theme of the trip will be more real politik than President Obama’s recent visit to Ghana which stressed good governance and was a celebration of Ghana’s recent electoral and economic successes. The Secretary, in choosing the largest economies and the continent’s most influential capitals, is likely to highlight more traditional U.S. economic and security interests. A few thoughts on what to expect -- and what Africa can hope for:
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