Identified as a key principle of effective development, country ownership has become an ever-present part of the foreign assistance reform debate. While the Obama administration has embraced country ownership in the Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development (PPD) and other executive initiatives, it remains unclear how to put this principle into practice on the ground.

When we went to press Friday afternoon, the House had passed H.R. 2055, the “megabus” conference agreement on the nine remaining appropriations bills including State, Foreign Operations. The vote was 296-121.

Written by Tawana Jacobs, InterAction's Associate Director of Public Relations.

“Country ownership” has become an often used term in international development. The purpose of this paper is to provide some clarification by presenting InterAction’s definition along with an outline of its core elements and recommendations for ensuring meaningful stakeholder participation in U.S. government development processes.

This week House and Senate appropriators inched closer toward a nine-bill omnibus spending package to complete the FY2012 appropriations process by Dec. 16, which is the date when the continuing resolution currently funding the government is set to expire. Please see the Washington Update section for more details on the end game for FY2012 appropriations.

The Busan Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation is the outcome document of the 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, held November 29 - December 1, 2011 in Busan, South Korea.

Sam Worthington's op-ed on foreign assistance, published on the day of the CNN National Security Debate on 11/22/11.

After a week of rumor and innuendo, amendments and points of order, the FY2012 Senate State, Foreign Operations (SFOps) bill appears headed for inclusion in a nine-bill omnibus that leadership will attempt to push through by mid-December.

Late last week, the Obama administration announced that it has sent a “small number of U.S. military advisors” to central Africa to assist forces in the region that are pursuing the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

Did you know…
… that together, InterAction members and U.S. corporations manage an estimated $19.4 billion in international development program funds?

Humanitarian groups are increasingly worried about the looming budget cuts in U.S. foreign assistance. They argue that lives are at stake in places like the Horn of Africa, which is suffering its worst drought in decades.

Raising public and private money for that crisis been a challenge in the current economic environment.

The House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations finally released their FY2012 report, available here.

The budget table details account levels for international poverty-focused and humanitarian assistance as well as other pertinent accounts within the U.S. International Affairs Budget (Function 150) that InterAction tracks and analyzes for its members.

On September 26th, grassroots activists across the U.S. will mobilize for a national call-in day.

This week the House Appropriations Committee unveiled the Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2012, a stopgap measur

InterAction News Release:

Steinberg's remarks are titled, "Delivering Effectivev Development Assistance in a Changing Global Landscape."

InterAction continues to monitor the situation in the Horn of Africa and advocate for the needs of the over 12 million people who have been affected by the drought that has engulfed the region.

Recent developments in the aid strategy of the United States — such as reversing a previous reduction in technical experts, and promoting more country-driven, outcome-oriented systems — have been endorsed by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic

This week, the House State, Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee unveiled its draft bill for FY2012, which contained substantial cuts for humanitarian and poverty-focused development assistance.

InterAction Statement: House Republican appropriators today continued their assault on U.S. international efforts to reduce poverty, address climate change, and respond to famine and other disasters. This comes a week after the House Foreign Affairs Committee also sought to gut core development accounts.

Calling it "debilitating to my efforts to carry out a considered foreign policy and diplomacy," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is warning members of the House of Representatives that she "will recommend personally" that President Barack Obama veto a bill pending in the House that would severely restrict State Department operation

InterAction condemns the alleged staging of an immunization campaign in Pakistan by the U.S. government in order to gather information for counterterrorism purposes

Desperate to win hearts and minds in Pakistan, the U.S. has begun pushing aid organizations working in the country's most dangerous region along the Afghan border to advertise that they receive American assistance.

On Capitol Hill next week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee is holding a markup hearing of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 2012 on Wednesday, July 20 at 10:00am in room 2172 of the Rayburn House Office Building. Check for other upcoming hearings in the Update below.

On July 8, the full House of Representatives passed the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2012 by a 336-87 vote, with 12 Republicans and 75 Democrats opposing the spending measure.

Today's edition of the Weekly Update includes news on the debt limit deadline and the Senate Budget Committee’s long-awaited draft FY2012 budget resolution. It also includes the regular menu of upcoming hearings, hearing summaries (including the contentious Senate Foreign Relations hearing on U.S. involvement in Libya), and articles of interest.

This presentation will share the preliminary results of a mini-campaign Mercy Corps is doing on hunger. The model we are using is a "low threshold" model suitable for organizations with limited resources to devote to campaigning, but with a desire to more fully engag

This week, The House this week passed its FY2012 Agriculture appropriations bill, containing deep cuts to international food aid grant funding—even as volatility in global food prices persists.

This week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was busy with several nominations hearings, including one for former U.S. ambassador to both Pakistan and Iraq, Ryan Crocker, who this time is up for the position in Afghanistan. Furthermore, Dr. Ariel Pablos Mendez testified on Tuesday to be the next USAID Assistant Administrator for Global Health.

When critics suggest that the Obama administration is hard on the corporate sector, they may be missing specific elements of the Obama agenda that have lots of corporate sector promotions built into government programs. Take the volunteerism program of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

This week, House Appropriations Chair Hal Rogers (R-KY) announced a disappointing FY2012 subcommittee allocation for State, Foreign Operations that continues the radically downward trend in spending for international affairs begun in FY2011.

Attention this week focused like a laser-beam on U.S. involvement and assistance to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Previously scheduled Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings (summaries in the document below) provided a platform for senators to question experts on the utility of U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and whether and how our assistance strategy to Pakistan should change.

In the federal budget debate, Rep. Paul Ryan proposes cutting back U.S. foreign aid significantly. Here, U.S. Reps. Adam Smith and Jim McDermott as well as Global Washington founder Bill Clapp argue that such aid helps U.S. security and trade.

InterAction's analysis of the FY2011 federal budget for the last half of the year, to be signed by President Obama today. The analysis covers several humanitarian and development related accounts that InterAction tracks for members.

Note: Last updated April 20, 2011.

On April 14, 2011, InterAction President and CEO Samuel A. Worthington testified before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs. His testimony, below, championed the importance and value of the poverty-focused development and humanitarian accounts administered by USAID and the State Department.

Negotiations over FY2011 spending between Senate Democrats and House Republicans remain at an impasse this afternoon. A government shutdown looms if an agreement is not reached by midnight tonight. Please check out InterAction’s extended coverage of the FY 2011 appropriations process in the Washington Update section below.

InterAction is continuing to monitor the humanitarian situation in West Africa resulting from post-electoral violence in the Ivory Coast.

Last week, General David Petraeus and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michéle Flournoy testified before the Armed Services Committee in both chambers about recent developments in Afghanistan. Find a summary of these hearings below, as well as information about legislation on Haiti recently introduced by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and a list of upcoming hearings and articles of interest.

Policy brief from InterAction partner MFAN that makes the case for foreign assistance reform in this challenging budget environment.

Op-ed in The Christian Science Monitor by Ken Hackett, president of InterAction member Catholic Relief Services, on the choice faced by U.S. lawmakers about whether to cut foreign assistance in the FY2011 federal budget.

Congress is doing its part by preparing to cut the international affairs budget by close to 20 percent, a move that could undermine national security, defy military leaders’ advice and endanger U.S. interests and core values. Worst of all, these cuts would be disastrous for women and children—the majority of the world’s poor.

As the Senate begins debate on the budget for the remainder of fiscal 2011, senators will have to decide what this country’s international priorities are. This article recommends that the U.S. make foreign aid a priority.

InterAction's G8/G20 Task Force released a 2011 G20 Summit Policy Paper entitled G20 Must Increase Its Fight Against Corruption earlier last week.

Transcript of a State Department discussion on its FY2012 budget request.

Letter to the editor in The Miami Herald on why now is the wrong time to be cutting U.S. foreign assistance.

Letter from State Department Assistant Secretary of Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration Eric Schwartz. Posted from Liberia, the letter explores the positive impact of U.S. foreign assistance while the House of Representatives makes massive cuts in the FY2011 budget.

Article in The Washington Post on the cuts to the foreign assistance accounts in the federal FY2011 budget. Staff from InterAction members World Food Program USA, World Vision and ONE are interviewed.

Why it is worth investing in defense, diplomacy and development.

House of Representatives’ "Continuing Resolution (CR) Extension" bill for the rest of fiscal year 2011ignores the recommendations of military and business leaders and prioritizes relatively miniscule short-term budget savings over long-term security, prosperity and fiscal health.

President Obama’s proposed 2012 budget calls for a modest increase—1 percent—in spending on foreign affairs and development.

InterAction member CARE's statement on the FY2011 Continuing Resolution.

Offers line-by-line details on how InterAction is crunching the 2012 International Affairs Budget numbers. 

Note: Last updated June 27, 2011.

Americans think they give far more aid than they actually do, and are clamorring to cut it. But aid isn't just about compassion, it serves our security and economic interests too.

Weekly Public Policy Update for Feb. 11, 2011. Covers the upcoming federal budget discussions next week and several hearings on Capitol Hill that took place Feb. 7-11, 2011.

The USG delivers more than $58 billion a year in foreign assistance through more than 20 agencies. This pie chart shows the slice of the federal budget that is appropriated for foreign assistance managed by State and USAID, which represents about 1% of the USG federal budget

 A new poll shows Americans continue to vastly overestimate the amount of foreign assistance given by the United States. Conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland, the November poll finds the median estimate of the percentage of the federal budget most Americans think is spent on foreign aid is 25%.

Global development assistance efforts are experiencing a critical moment of change. This moment is not a week or month but a several-year period in which political scales are tipping, rationales and underlying assumptions are being reexamined, and new systems and approaches are emerging.

"If you don't want to use military force any more than you have to, count me in. State Department, USAID, all of these programs, in their own way, help win this struggle against radical Islam. The unsung heroes of this war are the State Department officials, the [Department of Justice] officials, and the agricultural people who are going out there."

“We estimate that between 2005 and 2010, nearly half a billion people escaped extreme hardship, as the total number of the world's poor fell to 878 million people. Never before in history have so many people been lifted out of poverty in such a short period.”

U.S. government fact sheet on moving from humanitarian relief to reconstruction in Haiti since the January 12, 2010, earthquake.

Transcript of an interview of InterAction's president and CEO, Sam Worthington, and the State Department's Special Coordinator for Haiti, Thomas Adams, on the way forward in Haiti after the one year anniversary of the earthquake on January 12, 2010.

Transcript of a U.S. Department of State Special Briefing on Haitian food security from January 7, 2011.

The March 2011 issue of Monday Developments Magazine

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unveiled the final report of the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR). The report provides a blueprint for elevating American "civilian power" to better advance national interests and to be a better partner to the U.S. military.

John Ruthrauff,  InterAction’s International Advocacy Director, is quoted in this article about World Bank reforms to increase lending to low-income countries.

Sam Worthington quoted in Devex.com's report out on the QDDR.

InterAction members continue to respond to the cholera outbreak in Haiti. Find more information on our crisis response page.

InterAction members continue to respond to the cholera outbreak in Haiti. The international humanitarian community and Haiti’s government are acting quickly and coordinating efforts to respond to the outbreak and prevent further spread of the disease.

After a brief hiatus due to the mid-term elections, the weekly update is back!

Originally developed as part of InterAction's Africa Liaison Program Inititiative (ALPI) to foster relationships between the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and nongovernmental organizations in the U.S.

This policy brief, published by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network in November, 2010, explores the lessons from Orissa and advocates for a greater need for political engagement and leadership; high-level administrative coordination and inter-departmental consultations; broad stakeholder consultation; and integration with regular planning and budgetary processes.

InterAction President and CEO Samuel A. Worthington, in representative of the alliance of U.S. NGOs applauds the President Obama’s new global development policy.InterAction looks forward to co-work with the Administration to turn the policy framework into results.

The August 2010 issue of Monday Developments Magazine

InterAction applauds for President Obama’s action of announcing his MDG plan on July 30-over a month prior to the U.N. MDG Summit in September. Meanwhile, we strongly urges the Administration to consider the following key recommendations on each of the eight MDGs as the plan is finalized.

As members of the international community gather in Kabul for the International Conference on Afghanistan, InterAction is pleased that the expected focus of the conference is “Afghan priorities for the Afghan people”.

Almost a year since more than three million people fled fighting in Pakistan’s Swat valley and surrounding areas, the crisis is far from over. Over a million people are displaced, more are being forced into displacement every day, and two million are struggling to rebuild their lives after returning to their homes to find their villages destroyed.

 Notes from the "Consultation with the Global NGO Community on Building Back Better in Haiti" which occurred on March 25, 2010 in New York City.  The event was co-hosted by the European Union, InterAction, and the U.N. Office of the Special Envoy to Haiti.  

Letter from InterAction's President and CEO Samuel A. Worthington to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah regarding the USAID Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance's announcement that it would reduce funding across all regions to make room for its massive response in Haiti

This is the latest version of InterAction's budget table, which include numbers from the President's FY2011 Budget Request and the FY2010 Supplemental Request.

Discussion paper on rewriting the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) for the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

See also: InterAction's Response to HFAC Discussion Paper #1

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