Foreign Service Journal - October, 2009

CYBERNOTES

Waiting for Godot at USAID

On Aug. 12, foreign aid guru, Harvard professor and medical doctor Paul Farmer confirmed the expectations of many observers by bowing out of consideration for the position of Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

An experienced practitioner of foreign health and development assistance, with extensive on-the-ground experience in Haiti, Rwanda and elsewhere, Dr. Farmer had seemed an impossibly well-qualified candidate for the position. Now, with his graceful exit to become the U.N. deputy special envoy to Haiti under former President Bill Clinton, fears for USAID’s prospects in the Obama administration have grown.

Many blame the White House’s sluggishness in selecting a nominee for Farmer’s exit (http://kristof.blogs.ny times.com/2009/08/10/update-on- paul-farmer-and-usaid/). Even Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton commented that “the clearance and vetting process is a nightmare, and it takes far longer than any of us would want to see” ( http://thecable.foreign policy.com/posts/2009/07/13/clin ton_complains_of_nightmare_ve tting_process).

But that issue is only a lightning rod for more deep-seated concerns. Many see the inability to fill the post, empty

Without a strong administra- tor, USAID’s voice will be lost in the current interagency debate.

— Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., Letter to the Editor, Aug. 9, www.washingtonpost.com

for an unprecedented seven months now, as a sign of the administration’s failure to deliver on its commitment to advance foreign aid ( www.thedaily beast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009- 08-15/can-usaid-survive-without-a- leader/?cid=hp:beastoriginalsR2).

Strong leadership is required to do this. Without it, as Senator Richard Lugar, R-Ind., ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote in an Aug. 8 letter to the Washington Post, “President Obama’s pledge to double foreign assistance would be like adding a third story to a house that had a crumbling foundation.”

Institutional atrophy and a loss of expertise at USAID have seriously compromised the effectiveness of U.S. foreign assistance, as three former administrators acknowledge in their comprehensive review of the agency and its mission, “Arrested Development: Making Foreign Aid a More Effective

Tool,” in the November-December 2008 issue of Foreign Affairs (www. aplu.org/NetCommunity/Page.asp x?pid=1075).

The only way to correct this, say Andrew Natsios, J. Brian Atwood and M. Peter McPherson, is to re-establish USAID as the vital, autonomous and authoritative leading agency for American foreign assistance — whether as an entity within State or as a new federal department devoted to development.

Sen. Lugar’s Foreign Assistance Revitalization and Accountability Act of 2009, introduced in late July with Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., and a group of bipartisan co-sponsors, would give USAID the lead role in strengthening the capacity, transparency and accountability of American foreign assistance activities (www.opencongress. org/bill/1/111-s1524/show). The legislation is now in committee.

In a related development, at a July 10 State Department town hall meeting Sec. Clinton announced the launch of a “Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review” modeled on the Department of Defense’s Quadrennial Defense Review ( www.state.gov/sec retary/rm/2009a/july/ 125949.htm).