At his inauguration in January 2009, President Barack Obama spoke directly to the people of the developing world, recognizing the importance that their well-being and security hold for Americans: “To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders, nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.”

A year since his historic win President Obama has only partially fulfilled his three clear campaign pledges linked to foreign assistance: 1) to elevate development as a central tenet of U.S. foreign policy; 2)  to double the budget for foreign aid; and 3) to make the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) the focus of U.S. foreign assistance. Obama frequently reiterated these positions in speeches on the campaign trail, such as his August 2007 address “The War We Need to Win” at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., and his speech on foreign policy at DePaul University in Chicago that October.

Within the development community, assessment of the administration’s ability to translate those pledges into action is mixed. Many remain optimistic about the president’s commitment to engage with the developing world as a partner and are heartened by the launch or expansion of major initiatives in global health and food security that target the world’s poorest people. But among leaders of U.S. development and humanitarian relief nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and some current and former public officials, the administration’s failure to appoint a USAID administrator more than nine months after the inauguration overshadows progress made on specific foreign assistance issues and represents a loss of momentum that may be hard to regain.

“This is a presidency of historical and great importance, with a president who has exceptional international experience and understanding, along with a great commitment to development,” said Carol Lancaster, the interim dean of Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and a deputy administrator of USAID in the Clinton administration from 1993 to1996. “It is puzzling and painful that key leadership positions in development within the administration have not yet been filled.”

“The Obama campaign committed itself to significant increases in the budgets for international relief and development,” said George Rupp, CEO and president of the International Rescue Committee. “The administration has followed that intention in pressing for substantial increases in health and agricultural development programs—both very important priorities. But there has not been the focused leadership in restructuring the foreign aid system that many of us had hoped.”

Evaluations of Obama’s first year do not overlook the positive steps his administration has taken on a range of foreign assistance priorities, nor the many challenges and competing priorities the administration and Congress have faced in 2009. InterAction’s Foreign Assistance Briefing Book Progress Report highlights the demonstrated progress on a number of policy recommendations that InterAction put forth at the beginning of the term (see sidebar).

But the leadership gap has colored the reception of the White House’s Presidential Study Directive (PSD)—a government-wide assessment of development with the goal of establishing the first-ever national strategy for development—and the concurrent, and first, Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) underway at the State Department. “The administration doing a review of U.S. development policies without a development expert at the table is inappropriate,” said Andrew Natsios, professor of diplomacy in Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and the administrator of USAID from 2001 to 2005 “You appoint the administrator and then do the review. [National Security Advisor] Jim Jones needs to hear an independent development voice, one that hasn’t been filtered through the State Department.” Natsios also questioned how the two assessments will align with one another: “The QDDR/PSD process is confusing, there shouldn’t be two strategies.”

“A honeymoon is a terrible thing to waste, and in reaching for foreign aid reform, the administration has not worked as effectively with allies in Congress as would be desirable,” said Rupp, citing legislation introduced in both the House and Senate to overhaul the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.

“We need to see a USAID administrator and senior USAID officials who command respect in the interagency process and who can lead an agency that is in need of direction,” said Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on International Development and Foreign Assistance, Economic Affairs, and International Environmental Protection. “It needs to be clarified how foreign assistance will relate to foreign policy priorities and specifically how USAID and the State Department will work together to achieve those goals.”

Candidate Obama pledged to double U.S. foreign assistance to $50 billion by 2012; the 2010 budget includes a proposal to increase foreign assistance by 10 percent with a long-term goal of achieving this promise. But the economic crisis and soaring national debt, combined with the lack of a deadline or timetable in the budget proposal, indicate that the goal of doubling foreign assistance might be delayed until a second term. And the administration’s second fiscal year budget is being written without the input of the country’s most important development agency.

In his address to the United Nations General Assembly in September, Obama reiterated his campaign pledge to incorporate the MDGs as a foundation of U.S. foreign assistance. While the president and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have given attention to some of the concepts underlying the MDGs, awareness of and support for the MDG framework to reduce poverty worldwide has not caught on in this country. “We’d like to hear the president speak to the American people directly, to help energize the growing movement of Americans, young and old, who care about how our country relates to the world’s poor,” said Samuel A. Worthington, president and CEO of InterAction. “The movement is looking for a new form of U.S. global engagement; Obama has talked about that engagement but hasn’t linked it to foreign assistance.”  

“We have been very encouraged by the emphasis the administration is placing on global poverty and development,” said Ruth Messinger, president of American Jewish World Service and a member of the Task Force on Global Poverty, Health and Development of the White House Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. “But the new focus doesn’t solve all problems. While we understand why the administration is not further ahead on implementing change, in these troubled economic times globally we’re not seeing the funding for important new initiatives. We need to remind them that the emphasis must be on empowering local communities; it’s not just food security, but food sovereignty—control of land, water, seed, the resources to produce food. We need to start treating food as a right.”

Moving forward, said the IRC’s Rupp, the NGO community should continue working with all of the review processes underway, including the drafting of legislation in Congress. “We should also continue to call for basic reform that addresses the need for increased non-earmarked funding focused on humanitarian relief and development,” he said. “Such aid is at the core of our NGO mandate in that it builds from the local community level and from the first stage of an emergency, and then continues to press for longer-term development that will prevent the need for further outside intervention.”

“Foreign assistance reform is just getting started,” said Messinger, “we’ll have to see. But it will have to be transparent and it must focus on global poverty. Our commitment is to keep on the case, keep commenting and see how the administration acts. I’m cautiously optimistic.”

“It’s too soon to see a change on the ground, but we have seen a change in tone and a rhetorical commitment to reinvigorating our foreign assistance programs,” said Sen. Menendez. “In the last two years I’ve heard more about the need for foreign aid reform than in all my years of public service; there is clearly a wellspring of concern. The NGO community is a vital voice advocating support for foreign assistance. Washington needs to hear from people around the country who support these programs and will continue to pressure the administration to produce tangible differences in the lives of real people and make sure that these results can be shown back to the American taxpayer.” 

Tawana Jacobs and Leslie Rigby of the Communications Unit, InterAction, contributed to this report.