Restructure and streamline USAID

Obama better coordinates foreign aid, but restructuring stalls

Updated: Thursday, December 27th, 2012 | By Becky Bowers

In 2008, candidate Barack Obama promised to "coordinate and consolidate” foreign assistance in a newly empowered U.S. Agency for International Development.

The agency, created by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, needed to be "restructured,” "streamlined” and "elevated,” the Obama campaign wrote.

Four years later, there's evidence of better coordination of foreign assistance efforts, but almost none of the promised consolidation.

"There are pieces that are happening in terms of empowering and elevating USAID,” said Sarah Jane Staats, director of the Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance Program at the Center for Global Development.

But, she said: "The emphasis has been on coordination versus consolidation."

• PEPFAR, the multibillion-dollar President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief launched under President George W. Bush, remains by statute under the State Department.

• Millennium Challenge Corporation, also a Bush-era creation, is still an independent agency with a nine-member board of directors including the secretary of state, the Treasury secretary, the U.S. trade representative and the USAID administrator.

• Middle East Partnership Initiative, a decade-old project in the Middle East and North Africa, remains part of the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.

Meanwhile, there's been at least one step backward in putting USAID in the lead, said Larry Nowels, a consultant on foreign assistance who was part of the agency's 2008 Obama transition team.

The Global Health Initiative, pitched as a six-year, $63 billion effort to consolidate U.S. efforts in more than 80 countries, has never been fully funded and hasn't delivered on its goals.

The push to organize global health spending under USAID fell apart in a very "unconstructive” way, Nowels said.

"They basically gave up because the infighting was too much,” Nowels said.

Still, there are two strong examples of progress under the Obama administration:

• The White House pulled together foreign assistance agencies to collaborate on a shared approach, encapsulated in the first Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development. The interagency group still comes together to work on a variety of issues, Staats said.

• One result of that process is the Partnership for Growth, a pilot project in four countries to pull together the development efforts of more than a dozen U.S. agencies — including USAID.

Those efforts are just now taking shape, with promise for greater progress.

Experts tell us USAID has a stronger voice under Obama, but it's still not the vision of his campaign. We rate this promise a Compromise.

Sources:

Interview with Sarah Jane Staats, director of Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance program, Center for Global Development, Dec. 20, 2012

Interview with Larry Nowels, consultant on foreign assistance, Dec. 20, 2012

USAID, "Who We Are,” accessed Dec. 27, 2012

USAID, "Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review," updated June 15, 2012

State Department, Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development, Sept. 22, 2010

PEPFAR, accessed Dec. 26, 2012

Middle East Partnership Initiative,accessed Dec. 26, 2012

Millennium Challenge Corporation, accessed Dec. 26, 2012

Millennium Challenge Corporation, Partnership for Growth, accessed Dec. 27, 2012

The Lancet, "The US Global Health Initiative: where does it stand?” May 2012, via Nexis

Center for Global Development's Global Health Policy blog, "Failure to Launch: A Post-Mortem of GHI 1.0,” July 9, 2012

White House, "Statement by the President on Global Health Initiative," May 5, 2009

U.S. Government Global Health Initiative, Strategy Document, accessed Nov. 14, 2012

PolitiFact Obameter, "With the G-8, launch Health Infrastructure 2020," updated Nov. 15, 2012

White House names nominee for USAID

Updated: Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 | By Angie Drobnic Holan

President Obama pledged to restructure, empower and streamline the U.S. Agency for International Development, an agency charged with distributing economic and humanitarian aid worldwide.

After a significant delay -- one that prompted Democratic senators to ask Obama to expedite a nomination -- the White House said Rajiv Shah would be named to head USAID.

Shah already serves in the administration as undersecretary of agriculture for research, education and economics. In theory, that means his nomination should proceed more quickly than someone who needed to be vetted and approved by the Senate for the first time.

In October, U.S. senators led by Sen. Christopher Dodd called on Obama to appoint a USAID administrator as soon as possible. A Senate resolution said that "a highly capable and knowledgeable individual should be nominated with all expediency and exigency to serve as the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development."

Nominating the head of USAID is a significant move that prompts us to label this promise In the Works.

Sources:

The Washington Post, Shah to be named head of USAID , Nov. 10, 2009

The Washington Post, Leadership Vacancy Raises Fears About USAID's Future , Aug. 5, 2009

Thomas, Senate Resolution on USAID , introduced Oct. 13, 2009

The Associated Press, Obama administration's foreign aid job left open, Oct. 24, 2009