US Development Policy’s Demolition Crew Din

With the Trump Administration proposing 30 percent bilateral and multilateral development assistance cuts, and wide ranging yet undefined reorganization with management consultants first scouring the State Department, Washington researchers have scrambled to offer their own comprehensive reforms for executive and legislative consideration. The Center for Global Development unveiled a “practical vision” with over a dozen priority items to be coordinated across twenty agencies led by AID and more focused arms like OPIC and the Millennium Challenge Corporation, despite total spending at half the OECD average 0.3 percent of GDP. Four thematic areas—fragility, inclusion, health and humanitarian aid—would drive future interventions and strategy and offer a government-wide integrated approach. For fragile and transitional countries, AID’s traditional competitive bidding, typically a 2-year cycle, could be waived to allow quick program and personnel deployment. The surge would come under a new operation after previous attempts like State’s Conflict and Stabilization Bureau proved inadequate. The report recommends joint AID-MCC programs since the latter’s 5-year country compacts can frame broader economic policy change, and the former could deploy its credit authority to foster private financial flows.  It adds that agreements could be extended indefinitely on steady governance and inclusion improvement since few new eligible candidates appear annually. OPIC should be expanded into a full-service funding organization despite the initial Trump budget seeking abolition, with the existing range stretched to public equity investment and technical assistance, while enterprise ventures promoted elsewhere are transferred to its control. Disaster relief remains AID’s comparative advantage, although refugee humanitarian duties should be split with the State Department’s migration bureau. Food, which has to be shipped by US carriers under outdated law, should not be the Agriculture Department’s responsibility and reforms should focus on cheaper local supply and distribution not distorting traditional markets. Reporting and strategy should be streamlined and shared across a common platform, and a comprehensive review of UN and multilateral development bank contributions can weigh detailed costs and benefits for billions of dollars that may be better allocated under alternative arrangements.

The CSIS think tank convened another bipartisan task force on the subject, with the reminder that foreign aid is just 1 percent of the budget or around $40 billion, while the original enabling act is over 50 years old and over 20 government units are now involved with congress layering on hundreds of earmarks and information mandates. A main purpose is international economic partnership to create US jobs and sales, and the group warns about repeating the mid-1990s overhaul experience, with large layoffs “crippling” AID leadership and technical ranks. It notes that today’s complex challenges include forced migration, pandemics, terrorism, political dysfunction and transnational crime, as private capital flows to developing countries are five times official support. Canada will soon join the rest of the G-7 in launching its own full-fledged development finance arm, leaving the US alone with its lagging OPIC structure. Middle income recipients should graduate over time, and development bank burden sharing must be clearly defined after a 15-year period of “benign neglect.” The number of sectors should be narrowed following the base realignment parallel at the Pentagon, and short and long-term pools should stay separate with management from a dedicated career corps of specialists not cultivated under current work force planning, according to the blueprint.