Will Obama create an American DFID?
Daniel Korski 10:42pm
Rumour has it that on Monday Obama will announce that USAID will be separated from the State Department and turned into its own cabinet level department. The move, which would be reminiscent of New Labour's decision to hive the Department for International Development (DFID) off from the Foreign Office, would provide a fillip to a demoralised and disorganised US aid community and win Obama applause overseas.
However, there are compelling reasons for Obama not to go through with this. The British experience shows that creating a separate international development department can make it harder to pursue strategically effective aid programmes; DFID has noticeably failed to step up to the plate in Afghanistan. Obama would be far better off building on the Bush administration's creation of a deputy secretary of state for aid.
The U.S is unlike any other bilateral donor. The Department of Defence manages considerable amounts of U.S aid. Between 1998 and 2005, the percentage of Official Development Assistance controlled by Pentagon went from 3.5 percent to nearly 22 percent, while the percentage controlled by USAID shrunk from 65 percent to 40 percent. Many other departments manage development projects. There is the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the Millennium Challenge Corporation as well as programmes run by the Departments for Homeland Security, Justice and Treasury.
Though nominally coordinated by the Secretary of State, in reality these programmes are autonomous. In total, 20 government agencies and 50 offices have an aid role. The Bush administration sought to reform this chaos in 2005. But by then the president's stock was so low in Congress that changing the Foreign Assistance Act -- a sine qua non of serious reform -- was out of the question and he had to settle for moving the bureaucratic pieces around.
The U.S. already spends more on aid than any other country. If the U.S were to adhere to the UN's call for 0.7 percent of GNP to be spent on overseas aid, then the U.S would give around 100 billion in foreign assistance - roughly equivalent to total global spending on overseas assistance today. Such a tsunami of money would probably reinforce dependency on outside assistance in most countries, rather than build the basis for a functioning economy.
A hard-headed deputy secretary of state -- created in legislation and with the role filled by a senior figure -- would be able to coordinate the various aid programmes, make sure that US aid was not simply a hand-out-the Millennium Challenge Account is a model in this regard, and ensure that aid is available to assist the military in post-conflict situation. This would be far more useful and effective than a cabinet-level administrator for US Aid. In pursuing this kind of reform, Obama would be showing the Tories-who are struggling to work out how to reconcile their commitment to the 0.7 percent target with the clear failings in the current DFID mode-what to do.
Carl Hammerdorfer
January 18th, 2009 9:48am Report this commentThere's not enough money for USAID to be effective in all of the countries where they work. We in the US aren't even close to the .7% promise, yet we field missions in practically all developing countries.
USAID is not unlike the military, in that there is a limit to the numbers of wars that they can fight effectively.
USAID needs more autonomy (and backbone), so that they can make rational choices on where to work. The congress needs to prioritize development objectives so that the agency can do analysis to produce long term cost estimates versus budget expectations. If the budget will allow you to work effectively on priorities 1 through 9, then you need to get out of countries 10 through 87. By taking money that will only allow you to be effective in 9 countries and spreading it over 87, you end up being ineffective globally and becoming the whipping boy of Congress and the taxpayer. Just look at all of the places they work, not to mention the BS reporting of 'results': http://dec.usaid.gov/partners/1999_apr/pdf_docs/10anxb_99apr.pdf
American Aid is used to dole out money to foreign governments and to provide leverage to achieve other US commercial and foreign policy interests. This is why they exist in 80+ countries. It ought to be used to implement programs that get development results. But, again, you can't get results anywhere when you are stretched to cover everywhere. It's basic business.
Because they've been forced to be ineffective, the agency has been slapped around by the Congress so often that they now operate on fear. This causes a systemic defense reaction known as BOARS (Bureaucratic Over Analysis and Reporting Syndrome). Those of us who've had to implement AID projects know how much time that the whole reporting framework takes away from our ability to implement projects, but agency administrators have no real choice.
It would be good to see a new Administrator with the backbone to tell congress that there are limits to what can be accomplished with limited resources. I'm tired of the agency agreeing to do the impossible, and then creating
RFPs that 'force' contractors to promise the impossible, that then 'forces' oodles of reports that claim to have achieved so many marevelous results. Meanwhile the poor and disfunctional remain so.
This emperor has no clothes.
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