In a new piece in The Washington Times, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) calls for Congress and the Administration to complete and institutionalize their work to make foreign aid programs “more effective, more efficient and more accountable.”
“Without an innovative “civil-military” political strategy and careful consultation with both authorizing and appropriations committees, a Republican-dominated House is likely to place the International Affairs budget on the chopping block, even though it only accounts for a sliver of our federal budget. Our civilian and military leadership must speak in unison to underscore how vital rebuilding our civilian institutions is to our national security.”
In a new report called “U.S. Foreign Aid Reform Meets the New Congress,” MFAN Principal and Executive Director of the Sustainable Security and Peacebuilding Initiative at the Center for American Progress John Norris explores how foreign assistance reform can succeed in the new-look 112th Congress.
However, supporters of a foreign aid overhaul in the development community remain hopeful that with the completion of the State Department’s Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review in the coming weeks, the administration will step up its engagement with Capitol Hill.
“The congressional drive to pass a wholesale reform of foreign-aid distribution has also been dealt a blow due to the GOP takeover of the House. The most comprehensive bill on this front was written by outgoing House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-Calif.) — but his bill failed to move out of committee, and it’s unlikely that his successor, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), will take up the cause. Expect congressional Republicans to also resist large increases in the budget for the State Department, which is taking on increased roles all over the world, including in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Sudan. The State Department’s budget for fiscal 2011 is still under consideration.”
“Of course, aid is about more than money; how rich countries design their aid programs is as important as how much they give. In this sense, the pressure on the budget could help drive aid reforms and force the administration and Congress to make tough choices about where and how we spend our aid dollars and push for stronger evidence on what works in development. The push to be more selective with our development assistance, focus on economic growth, and do a better job of measuring impact and results (and share it publicly) is already lined up in the presidential policy directive on U.S. global development policy and seems like a reform mantle that both parties could get behind.”
A major focus on aid transparency is emerging within U.S. foreign assistance, with the launch of the U.S. “aid transparency initiative” and an “aid dashboard” as part of the new framework on aid effectiveness. These steps demonstrate the political will for accountability and aid transparency, yet real value for money is still not being delivered. What is needed to ensure that aid money is used to best effect is comparability. For more effective foreign assistance, U.S. efforts should complement those of other donors.
“If current polls hold, Republicans will make significant gains in the Senate and likely take the House of Representatives, elevating a set of lawmakers to new heights of power and complicating Obama’s efforts to execute his foreign-policy agenda.” -Josh Rogin, Foreign Policy
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) issued a statement today praising President Obama’s new development policy that was released yesterday in conjunction with his speech at the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Summit.
“This is a major step toward building a 21st-century approach and apparatus for promoting development, which President Obama’s first National Security Strategy (NSS) called a “moral, strategic, and economic imperative” for the U.S. It is also a long overdue step, as U.S. foreign assistance legislation has not been overhauled since President Kennedy signed the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.”
