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Tech-Aid: Innovation and Development

As Global Washington’s Conversation with USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah came to a close last Friday, Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA) left the audience with a new way of looking at an old question.

As Congressman McDermott explained, when faced with contemplating the future of global development, one can readily apply the age-old question “is the glass half-full or half-empty?” Similarly, we can ask ourselves is this the time in world history that the human race bands together to solve the critical problems of our time, or will we allow the global financial crisis to stifle our humanitarian spirit and maintain the status quo? Can we capitalize on the momentum building up to the Millennium Development Goals and eradicate hunger, disease, and extreme poverty, or are we setting ourselves up for a big disappointment with such lofty goals?

But these questions, however important, are insufficient in finding the solutions to the world’s ills. To solve these problems, Congressman McDermott exhorted the audience to consider how to fill the glass, rather than consider how full it is already. Indeed we must not ask ourselves if we will succeed, but how we will succeed in meeting the basic needs of all. And technology is inevitably a part of the answer to that question.

Such was the purpose of this panel discussion. Bringing together the USAID Administrator, two Congressmen, and representatives from Microsoft, Washington State University, PATH, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the panel discussed the role innovation and technology plays in development projects, particularly in the health and agriculture sectors.

Before introducing Dr. Shah, Congressman Adam Smith (D-WA) opened the discussion with a case for investment in development, saying funding foreign assistance can create a more stable and secure global environment. However, as Congressman Smith pointed out, the current foreign assistance structure is not efficient enough to get the most out of our resources.

Dr. Shah echoed Congressman Smith’s sentiments on the state of the foreign aid system, saying that programs are too often ineffective because projects are not guided by results and evidence from the ground. Fortunately, Dr. Shah has committed to basing programs off of conditions on the ground, beginning with the two new development initiatives Feed the Future, and the Global Health Initiative.

Using the right technology and the right means of delivering that technology may ultimately decide the success or failure of many development programs. Innovative new pieces of technology have already played a large role in improving development programs. For instance, M-Pesa allows you to safely and securely transfer money via cell phone, giving people without steady access to a bank a way to easily access their money.

With such promising technological innovations and committed leadership from our panelists, I can’t help but see that glass filling up quickly.

New U.S. Strategy for Meeting the Millennium Development Goals

The Obama administration recently released the U.S. Strategy for Meeting the Millennium Development Goals, a 28-page document that emphasizes innovation, sustainability, and accountability.  After a brief recap of progress achieved to date and the serious challenges ahead, the document outlines the three pillars of the U.S. strategy: innovate, sustain, and make it work.  According to the strategy, innovation can be a “powerful force multiplier,” and can be fostered in many ways: funding research, expanding access to technology, building partnerships, and stimulating innovation through prizes and the like.  The key to ensuring sustainability is found in broad-based economic growth, well-governed institutions, investments in women and girls, sustainable service-delivery systems, and mitigating shocks.  And to make it all work, the U.S. must build the enabling environment through strengthened monitoring & evaluation, accountability, and coordination with other donors.

In order to put these ideas into practice, the strategy promises to “marshal the full range of our development policy instruments.”  This includes pledges to fund innovation, invest in sustainability, and improve accountability.

Many of the initiatives discussed in the strategy are ongoing efforts that the U.S. government has worked on for years.  Some are newer, such as the Feed the Future and the Global Health Initiative.  There is not much news in this new document.

One new and promising initiative in this strategy document is a major aid transparency initiative, where the U.S. government will work with other donors and partner governments to streamline the dissemination of country-level information about aid flows.  If this works as planned, it will make it a lot easier to figure out who is doing what in each country, what money is being spent on which project where, and what the expected and measured results are.

What is missing from this strategy?  Any mention of who is in charge- who will coordinate this government-wide response?  If no one is in charge, there can be no real accountability.  Also, there is no talk of a Global Development Strategy, which is widely recognized as an important step towards greater transparency and accountability.  In general, this strategy is sparse on details, and leaves much to the imagination.

For more commentary on this strategy, see the Devex rundown here.

To read the full strategy document, click here.

Another Step on the Path to Reform

It has been nearly 50 years since the U.S. foreign assistance system was formally established through the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (FAA). In that time, the structure of U.S. foreign assistance has become bloated and unwieldy. Currently, 12 Departments and 25 government agencies are charged with implementing foreign aid policy as defined through over 400 development objectives. To complicate things further, numerous amendments to the FAA and over 20 additional pieces of legislation were passed to direct U.S. foreign aid in the time since the FAA’s passage. With such a muddled structure, it is no wonder U.S. foreign assistance has come under assault in recent years, as calls for serious reforms have continued to mount. Luckily, reform efforts are moving ahead at full steam.

Two weeks ago, Representative Howard Berman, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced the first two sections, or preamble, of a draft of the Foreign Assistance Act rewrite. This draft marks an important step in the process of overhauling the U.S. foreign aid system to make it more coherent and effective in achieving the goals of global development. While the preamble is meant more as a formative document, designed to provide the development community with a first glance and guide a discussion, it offers insight into some of the new initiatives and strategies to be included in the final draft.

For the most part, this draft presents a broad picture of the direction in which the reform effort is moving. Through a declaration of general principles, policies, and goals of U.S. foreign assistance, the preamble offers insight to the guiding tenets of the reform process. Within these broad principles and goals, all four of Global Washington’s principles of effective development are accounted for: coherence and coordination, transparency and accountability, local ownership, and targeting aid to those most in need.

To ensure coherence and coordination, the draft calls for a streamlined foreign assistance structure to clearly delineate authority and responsibilities and to ensure consistency across all policy areas.

In order to improve transparency and accountability, the draft’s “principles of assistance” include a call for improved monitoring and evaluation mechanisms, as well as the need for detailed information regarding foreign aid budget and expenditures.

With regards to local ownership of aid projects, the preamble offers several principles to increase local capacity and ensure local ownership of development programs. According to this draft, it should be the policy of the U.S. government to develop assistance programs in partnership with local stakeholders that increase local capacity in the government and civil society. As a result, foreign assistance programs can be more effective and sustainable.

As a means of ensuring aid is targeted at those most in need, the preamble recommends that assistance be based on “poverty measurement tools and gender analysis.” Included in such measurement tools would be, among others, the Human Development Index rankings, per capita incomes, local capacity, and prior performance records.

Apart from the statement of general principles and policies, the preamble does introduce new, specific initiatives and organizational structures. Most important amongst the specific items in this draft is the designation of a national development strategy to guide foreign assistance activities and to ensure coherence across all foreign policy objectives.

The preamble also suggests that a rewritten Foreign Assistance Act would establish Development Support Funds to provide the USAID Administrator with the authority and resources to provide assistance to developing nations that will support local capacity and ensure aid is targeted at those most in need. Such an initiative offers stark contrast to the current policy planning strategy. Instead of using sector-specific goals and objectives to guide development policy, USAID would be afforded the flexibility needed to create effective programs.

To ensure that development activities reflect the needs and priorities in the field, each Development Support Fund will contribute a percentage of its funding to the administration of Country Investment Strategies for Development. Each Country Investment Strategy for Development will be prepared every three to five years by each USAID Mission Director. This is another departure from the previous policy of allowing specific goals and objectives to guide development policy. As a result, conditions in the field would inform the creation of development policy much more significantly than in the past, making programming more flexible and responsive to the needs in the field.

Paramount to the success of any reformed foreign assistance structure is consistency and coherence. In an effort to ensure development policy is consistent throughout the government, a rewritten Foreign Assistance Act would create a newly established Development Policy Committee. Such a committee would be composed of the USAID Administrator and a representative from each department and agency that has a stake in global development such as the Departments of Agriculture, State, and Defense, as well as at least eleven others.

While this draft is a mere outline of what a rewritten Foreign Assistance Act will look like, it provides a great deal of hope that reform is truly within reach. However, with only a few weeks of legislative business to go before Congress recesses for the mid-term elections, whether the new Foreign Assistance Act will even be considered in this Congress remains to be seen.

To review the draft preamble in its entirety, please follow the link here. To read more about Global Washington and our recommendations for a reformed foreign assistance structure, please visit the Policy Work section of our website.