MFAN-GHTC Event Highlights Research and Innovation

By: Staff Person
August 3, 2010

“Even the way we change is changing,” Thomas Kalil, Deputy Director for Policy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), told attendees at the July 28 congressional briefing co-hosted by MFAN and the Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC). Nearly 90 individuals from congressional offices, US government agencies, and the development and global health communities participated in a discussion about how research and innovation can be leveraged to advance the nation’s foreign assistance goals.

MFAN Co-Chair Ingram’s New Op-Ed Praises Berman’s Draft Legislation

By: Staff Person
July 26, 2010

“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.”

New GMF Paper Creates a Model for a Global Development Strategy

By: Staff Person
July 23, 2010

MFAN Partner the German Marshall Fund of the United States this week hosted a discussion on a new paper that offers a model for a U.S. Global Development Strategy. The paper was written by MFAN Principal and GMF Senior Resident Fellow Jim Kunder and MFAN member Jonathan White, senior program officer at GMF. The paper, titled “The Roadmap for a Grand Bargain: Comments on a U.S. Global Development Strategy,” draws from existing foreign assistance approaches and recent support from the Obama Administration and Congress for the notion of formulating the United States’ first-ever global development strategy for the 21st century.

MFAN Partner CGD Reviews New FAA Draft, Questions Sec. Clinton’s Rationale for Elevating Development

By: Staff Person
July 22, 2010

“More concerning is that State and USAID have had little interaction to date with staff writing the new bill. This doesn’t bode well for striking a grand bargain between the administration and Congress on either a new development direction (which will likely require some legislation) or passing a new global partnership act (which will require support from the administration, including State and USAID).”

CQ Article Quotes MFAN Co-Chairs, Highlights Hill Aid Reform Leadership

By: Staff Person
July 19, 2010

Congress is driving the reassessment of development policy already under way with a series of legislative initiatives from Berman and the two leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: Chairman John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, and top Republican Richard G. Lugar of Indiana. But before progressing further, these lawmakers and development officials are waiting for the White House to deliver its vision for development…

20 Days and Counting

By: Staff Person
July 16, 2010

“At a policy level, the administration should be commended for its approach to development…Progress on actual nuts and bolts of turning policy into action has been less forthcoming. It is time to act on the broad recognition that multiple agencies carrying out similar or inconsistent programs is not good practice; that assistance programs need greater transparency and accountability; and that the legislative foundation for our foreign assistance system, a 500-page Cold War-era statute, lacks clear goals and objectives and is bursting at the seams with outdated, overlapping, and duplicative and conflicting provisions.”

Action Alert: Reform Within Reach Campaign Launches Today

By: Staff Person
July 14, 2010

To serve as the rallying cry for the campaign, MFAN created the “Open Letter to President Obama on the U.S. Commitment to Global Development.” This letter, which has already been signed by nearly 50 organizations, calls for President Obama to create America’s first-ever Global Development Strategy and partner with Congress to rewrite the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.

Washington Post Columnist: President Has Hard Choices to Make on Development

By: Staff Person
July 9, 2010

“The Pentagon says it wants out of the development business because that’s not what it does. So the question, which apparently the White House will resolve, is whether development is going to be a distinct, though coordinated, function. That is, who’s going to be in charge of development out in the field.”