Sec12 Interaction Foreign Assistance Briefing Book

POLICY BRIEF

November 2008

A Call for a Comprehensive National Development Strategy PROBLEM The U.S. Government’s system for allocating, managing, delivering and monitoring foreign assistance is fragmented and lacks strategic direction. There is no centralized management or oversight of United States government programs. The proliferation of Presidential Directives, Congressional earmarks, new assistance structures and funding streams, stymies the achievements of America’s foreign assistance goals of peace and stability.

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RECOMMENDATIONS Under the direction of a deputy national security advisor for stabilization and development, develop and approve a national development strategy with the goal of unifying the administration and operation of all U.S. Government foreign assistance. The Administration’s effort should be coordinated with the Senate and House Authorizing Committees’ efforts to draft and pass a new Foreign Assistance Act. This recommendation is made in close coordination with the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network and ConnectUS.

ACTIONS • Nominate early a USAID Administrator to be sworn in as part of the national security team (Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and National Security Advisor) on January 20, 2009 to ensure a smooth transition and provide direction and vision for U.S. assistance programs throughout the world including Afghanistan, Iraq, and other potentially crisis prone areas; • Create a deputy security advisor position at the National Security Council (NSC) and staff it comparably to other directorates at the NSC. Charge the new deputy to coordinate the effort to lead and write a government-wide national development strategy; • Write and promulgate a national development strategy which would be updated every two years which would, in clear concise terms, define the overarching goals in major areas of the U.S. foreign assistance program; • Rewrite and authorize a Foreign Assistance Act which would harmonize priorities among U.S. Government agencies, multilateral institutions, and recipient governments to assure the best use of limited U.S. Government development resources; and • Submit a budget in March 2009 which would decrease the military development budget and re-allocate development funding to a centrally empowered U.S. Department for Global and Human Development.

RESULTS The national development strategy will bring cohesion and coherence to the multifaceted foreign assistance programs sponsored by the U.S. government. It will identify overlapping agendas, programs working at cross purposes and gaps in U.S. government development assistance programming.

BACKGROUND AS IDENTIFIED IN THE 2002 NATIONAL SECURITY STRATegy and, reaffirmed in the 2006 version, the U.S. national security relies on three pillars: diplomacy, defense and development. But U.S. foreign assistance (the development pillar) is broken and needs to be fixed. This will require a serious administration-lead and congressional bipartisan effort, addressing a number of major initiatives including agreement on our goals in foreign assistance and the principles that should guide those efforts, rebuilding and rationalizing budgets and organizational structures, and new legislation to reflect these priorities. All are major tasks and must be undertaken together. Each is critical for the success of the others. To that end, an effort undertaken at the direction of the President by the newly created position, deputy national security advisor for stabilization and development, would look at and bring together the fragmented foreign assistance programs under one all encompassing national development strategy. The development of the strategy would include the incorporation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) as a framework for the delivery, monitoring and evaluation of U.S. foreign assistance. It is our belief that when this stock-taking is completed, it will become clear that a major a re-organization and consolidation of foreign assistance programs should be undertaken. In cooperation with Congress, the national development strategy process would support and align itself with the reauthorization of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act, a broken, unwieldy instrument of the Cold War era. With the consolidation of various foreign assistance structures including the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), the President’s Malaria Initiative, and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), InterAction believes, at the heart of the organizational restructuring, there will be recognition of the need to create a new Cabinet-level Department for Global and Human Development (DGHD). Its mandate would be to promote people-centered, sustainable development and provide humanitarian assistance. It would effectively coordinate the use of U.S. foreign assistance funds and give development the seat at the table it needs to be an strong and effective counterpart to the Departments of State and Defense. The Secretary of the DGHD would be the lead voice within the U.S. Government, below the President, on development assistance and humanitarian issues and a member of the National Security Council. After a government-wide assessment and evaluation of the myriad of U.S. foreign assistance programs has been undertaken, numerous development assistance and humanitarian programs presently scattered across various departments and agencies, would naturally be placed in the DGHD. The DGHD would manage programs in key development sec-

tors including: agriculture, civil society, economic growth, education, environment, good governance, health, and rule of law. Gender equality is essential for meaningful progress and would be a guiding principle for DGHD activities in all sectors. InterAction proposes all functions relating to development and humanitarian assistance presently under the Department of State’s Bureau for Population, Refugees and Migration housed in the DGHD. Department of Agriculture programs relating to food aid would move to the DGHD, as would smaller programs currently located in the Departments of Commerce and Labor and elsewhere. Recently created programs that give the Department of Defense (DoD) a large role in development promotion would move to the DGHD. However, under the overall coordination of the DGHD, DoD would continue to play a key role in many complex international humanitarian relief operations. The Department for Global and Human Development would receive its budget from Congress and make decisions on the proper allocation of funds across countries and sectors. It would have a direct relationship with the Office of Management and Budget on budget issues; its budget would not be vetted by the Department of State. The Department of State would play an important role in providing advice to the DGHD on important diplomatic considerations to take into account when considering allocations, but ultimate decisions on budget levels would be based fundamentally on development and humanitarian criteria. Economic Support Fund (ESF) levels would be set by the Department of State after examining DGHD allocation levels.