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Halloween Has Come and Gone but USAID Remains Headless

by Global Washington Policy Coordinator, Danielle Ellingston

This is beginning to sound like a whiny broken record, but WHEN OH WHEN is the Obama administration going to nominate a USAID administrator?

Last January, the development community was full of hope.  It seemed that all the pieces were in place for meaningful foreign aid reform.  We knew we were going to get a USAID administrator who would represent the agency well in planning for reform.  Obama made all the right noises about development being one of the 3 D’s along with defense and diplomacy.  The major players in Congress were on board, and the NGO community was clamoring for change.  For once, development would matter!  Armchair development policy analysts sat around water coolers from coast to coast, guessing who the nominee would be.  We wondered if U.S. development assistance would be elevated above its recent State Department step-sister status, and maybe it would be given (gasp!) cabinet level status.  Not that we would insist on that, no, that would be asking too much, but maybe development could at least get a little more clout in making the big policy decisions?  Maybe we could have a voice of our own, and not rely on a benevolent State Department?  You could feel the excitement in the halls all year long, from the Ronald Reagan building all the way to our little office on Lake Union.

Then there was silence.  Dead silence from the White House.  Bills on aid reform were introduced in Congress, but without a USAID administrator nominee, they seemed ahead of the game.  How can we ask for a major commitment of time and energy toward reform when we can’t even get a USAID administrator?

Now we are starting to get a little nervous.  Why has the White House still not nominated someone to lead USAID?  Why do we feel like we’re being avoided?  Even President Bush managed to appoint Andrew Natsios by May of his first year in office.  Chairman John Kerry and Ranking Member Richard Lugar of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have written to President Obama expressing their concern.  The answer from the White House is “soon,” but we don’t know what “soon” means, since “soon” has already passed.  We have some clues.  Secretary Clinton vented some frustration last summer about the arduous vetting process for nominees.  Some folks are speculating that none of the top contenders want the job, because of the “ridiculous” vetting process combined with the ambiguous level of authority given to the USAID administrator.  So much for the three D’s.

At this point, many people feel that in order to get an appointment confirmed as soon as possible Obama should nominate someone who has already passed the vetting process for another position.  The downside of this approach is that we are limiting our options at a time when we need more than a warm body at the heart of the foremost U.S. development agency.  Still, it may be our best bet for getting an appointment before we break for the New Year.

Do We Hold Our Adversaries More Accountable?

A provocative debate over Bill Easterly’s critique of The Gates Foundation’s questionable data reporting continues to incite controversy. Easterly’s assertion that the Gates Foundation cherry-picked data to validate the success of their malaria treatment and prevention programs has been met with mixed criticism. David Roodman’s post for the Center of Global Development challenges Easterly’s own vigilance in subjecting those who share his views with the same scrutiny as his adversaries. How does an organization’s need to show programmatic success in order to gather donor support compromise standards and best practices in data collection and analysis? Furthermore, are we biased toward judging those who agree with us less harshly, even in the name of scientific research? Let us know what you think!

Is the U.S. a Development Commitment-Phobe?

by Global Washington Policy Coordinator Danielle Ellingston

The Center for Global Development released its 2009 Commitment to Development Index (CDI), and unsurprisingly, the United States ranked 17th out of 22, just below Portugal and above Greece.  The CDI rates rich countries on how much they help poor countries build prosperity, good government, and security. Each rich country gets scores in seven policy areas, which are averaged for an overall score.

The United States scored worst in the aid and environment policy areas, where it ranked 18th and 20th respectively.   In aid, the CGD found weaknesses in low aid volume, high tied aid, and poor targeting of aid to where it is needed most.  The environment policy weaknesses were high greenhouse gas emissions per capita, low gas tax, and not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol.  The U.S. got some bonus points in aid for high private charitable giving- and we know that Washington State organizations had a lot to do with that.

The U.S. did well in the area of trade, where it ranked 3rd, behind Australia and New Zealand.  Our (relatively) low agricultural tariffs and subsidies were cited as our strength in trade policy.  Now if only we could get somewhere on providing duty-free and quota-free access to all poor countries, we’d be #1 in trade.

Who was #1 overall?  Sweden.  Read Sweden’s policy for global development and you’ll understand why – it reads like MFAN’s proposal for U.S. foreign aid.

There is hope for the United States in 2010- or maybe 2011, at the rate we’re going.  Obama announced a Presidential Study Directive () and a Quadrennial Review on Development and Diplomacy, and there is a lot of talk about reforming the Foreign Assistance Act, which isn’t so much a policy as a hodge-podge of initiatives and constraints that have been put together over the last 40 years.  It is hard to say where this will all lead, but it’s promising that there is finally a lot of energy and attention devoted to foreign aid reform in the United States, all the way up to the highest levels of government.

Many Washington State organizations are involved in this debate, including Global Washington member Initiative for Global Development, which has a lot of policy reform information on its website.