Memo To The President-usaid Admin

To: President-elect Barack Obama Re: Historic Opportunity to Strengthen the U.S. Foreign Policy Toolbox From: Samuel A. Worthington, President & CEO, InterAction

Your Administration has the extraordinary opportunity to strengthen the United States foreign policy toolbox by updating foreign assistance and bringing it into the 21st Century. Your stated support for improving U.S. foreign assistance, matched with the potency of your newly nominated national security team, and the work of House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman could realistically lead to the first total overhaul and reorganization of our foreign assistance structure since its incarnation in 1961. Please consider the following four points as you continue to shape your Cabinet.

First, nominate a highly respected individual to be Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Consider elevating this appointee to serve as an integral member of your National Security Team along with the re-elevated U.N. Ambassador and department Secretaries. This would demonstrate a commitment to adding a strong development arm to our national security apparatus. USAID, like State and Defense, has staff deployed overseas in war zones and other post-crisis environments conducting critical development work.

The USAID nominee should meet the following qualifications: 1) Be a visionary. The nominee must be able to shape U.S. government thinking on foreign assistance in a way that is much broader than just USAID. S/he must be able to communicate new ideas and lead an effort to engage interested parties in building a new foreign assistance apparatus in partnership with the National Security Council and Congress. And after identifying management hurdles, the nominee must clearly articulate a forward thinking vision to USAID staff, the Executive Branch, and Congress. This new plan should include a strong focus on the issues of personnel and technology, areas where USAID has been marginalized in the past. 2) Possess credibility and have great stature. The nominee must be someone in whom you have great confidence. S/he should possess such a stature that the nomination sends a clear message to the world about how critical international development is to the health of our foreign policy and our national security apparatus. The nominee must also be someone who is viewed as a partner to the Secretary of State. 3) Have exemplary management experience. The nominee needs to have sufficient prior experience with managing large organizational transitions to successfully influence a wide variety of audiences, including Congress, Executive Branch, State

and Defense Department Secretaries, and the broad community involved with assistance. 4) Share your worldview. The nominee must share your world view and understand the enormous potential that U.S. foreign assistance has to both support U.S. national security and to improve lives in the developing world. S/he must be someone who understands the power and impact of development assistance. In addition, the nominee must be able to speak candidly with you on foreign assistance and development matters and have full access to the White House, attending all meetings with foreign policy principals.

Second, as you reorganize the National Security Council, appoint a National Security Deputy for Stabilization and Development. By including a new Deputy Security Advisor for Stabilization and Development, you would effectively raise the profile of foreign assistance in the day-to-day policy deliberations of your National Security Council. The new advisor would lead a government-wide effort to develop a National Development Strategy with your nominees for State, Defense and USAID. The strategy would clearly identify the goal of all U.S. foreign assistance and recommend necessary streamlining of foreign assistance programming for desired effectiveness and impact overseas.

Third, direct the USAID Administrator and the Deputy Security Advisor to promptly complete an inventory of the U.S. foreign assistance and development portfolio. This task would include programs at the departments of Defense, State, Treasury, and Commerce, along with USAID, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator (OGAC), the Trade and Development Agency (TDA), the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and the African Development Foundation. The overarching goal would be to assess and evaluate the numerous programs, identify duplication and overlap of missions, and determine gaps in delivery.

Fourth, charge the Deputy Security Advisor and the USAID Administrator with leading a government-wide National Global Development Strategy process to articulate our national priorities in development and frame an operational structure to achieve these goals. Through such a process, your Administration would send a clear signal that it is engaged and supportive of a robust and efficient U.S. foreign assistance program, and in turn support Chairman Howard Berman’s effort to overhaul the woefully outdated 1961 Foreign Assistance Authorization Act. Never before has there been such a clear understanding of the challenges facing U.S. foreign assistance. With the leadership in the executive and legislative branches now in place to address these complex problems, we urge you to take the opportunity.