One Year Later: InterAction Highlights Foreign Assistance Activity of the Obama Administration and Congress

One year since the release of InterAction’s Foreign Assistance Briefing Book [1], foreign assistance reform has had to compete with urgent domestic concerns, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Pakistan’s instability as well as the worldwide financial crisis and a bold domestic agenda. This Foreign Assistance Briefing Book Progress Report [2] outlines the status of a number of the actions recommended by InterAction one year ago.

The Obama administration’s real commitment to raising development as a central tenet of U.S. foreign policy is commendable. InterAction remains concerned, however, that no visible progress has been made on one of the most critical of its recommendations—the naming of an administrator of USAID to strengthen the voice and role of development in Department of State and government-wide deliberations. Without a confirmed USAID administrator and without an ongoing commitment to elevate development not just as a policy framework but as a capacity delivered through effective bureaucratic structures, this powerful vision of the role development must play in U.S. foreign policy will falter.

InterAction particularly commends the congressional members under the leadership of Chairman Berman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Chairman Kerry, Ranking Member Lugar and Senators Menendez, Croker and Cardin of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee for their historic and far-reaching efforts to address the U.S. government’s deficits both in resources and responsibilities on foreign assistance. We urge Chairman Berman to continue his groundbreaking work on drafting and introducing a new Foreign Assistance Authorization Act that would bring America’s foreign assistance architecture into the 21st century.

Read More

• State of U.S. Foreign Assistance, One Year Later [2]

• The First Year – Obama and Foreign Assistance [3] (December 2009 Monday Developments)