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FAQ on Foreign-Aid Reform and S.1524
9/24/2009
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What is foreign assistance and how does it work? Foreign assistance, also called foreign aid, is money provided by the United States to other countries for a variety of purposes, some strategic, some humanitarian. Fighting poverty and disease, and promoting economic development and growth, are among the chief objectives of foreign assistance. In many cases – particularly where poverty alleviation is concerned – foreign assistance is not sent directly to another country’s government, but rather is delivered by non-governmental organizations, including faith groups like Episcopal Relief and Development, Church World Service, or Catholic Relief Services. They, in turn, work with churches and other faith communities in low-income countries (like the many Anglican and Episcopal churches in Africa, Asia, and Latin America).
Does U.S. aid work? Yes, U.S. foreign assistance works. It puts children in school, helps women start businesses to provide for their families, prevents the spread of malaria and HIV, and assists farmers working to improve their crops local economies. This leads to results. In the past six years alone, for example, the number of people in poor countries receiving antiretroviral medicines to treat HIV/AIDS has increased tenfold to almost three million. In the past two decades, more than a billion people – a fifth of the world’s population – have gained access to clean water. This assistance is critical to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a mission priority of our church.
When was the current U.S. foreign-aid system designed, and what purpose was it intended to serve? The current American system of distributing foreign aid was designed by Congress in 1961 through legislation called the Foreign Assistance Act and has not been updated comprehensively since. In 1961, most foreign aid was given for strategic purposes like supporting the growth of democracy in free markets at the height of the Cold War. Today’s world is very different, and congressional efforts to supplement the Foreign Assistance Act have led to a behemoth bureaucracy that now sees U.S. aid managed and distributed through 12 different cabinet departments, 25 different agencies, and almost 60 government offices. While foreign aid works, it clearly can work better in the 21st Century.
What is S.1524, and how does it fit into the process of reforming foreign aid for the 21st Century? S.1524, the “Foreign Assistance Revitalization and Accountability Act” is a bipartisan bill introduced by the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Dick Lugar (R-IN). Intended to be a first-step in a broad congressional effort to update the 1961 foreign-aid law comprehensively, the bill initiates several concrete reforms to enhance the policy, planning, and evaluation capacity of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in order to make American development programs more responsive to the needs of people living in poverty, more effective in their implementation, and more accountable to taxpayers at home. Significantly, the bill stresses the intent of Congress that U.S. development policy should be used to reduce extreme poverty and hunger and promote good governance abroad.
Is S.1524 the same as the House’s bill initiating reform, H.R.2139? The two bills take slightly different approaches to reaching the same end: laying the groundwork for comprehensive reform of the foreign-aid system. The Episcopal Church endorses both and believes the Senate and House approaches are complementary of one another – as well as of President Obama’s recently issued Presidential Study Directive on global-development programs. Taken together, the three begin the process of reform and create momentum for a full-scale rewrite of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act.
Specifically, what is included in S.1524? The legislation addresses the initial steps towards foreign-aid reform. It (1) Establishes the finding of Congress that the promotion of global development, good governance, and poverty/hunger reduction are central to U.S. foreign policy; (2) Makes staff and organization changes at USAID to enhance the agency’s capacity for strategic planning and deployment and effective use of personnel; (3) Creates an independent Council on Research and Evaluation of Foreign Assistance (CORE), comprising both government and private-sector representatives, to assess the impact of current development programming; (4) Promotes transparency by requiring the President to make public all information on U.S. foreign assistance – country-by-country and program-by-program; and (5) Implements reforms to streamline USAID administrative expenses and promote cost-effective use of resources.
Is S.1524 the final step in the process? No. On the contrary, it is only a first step, but a critical one. Chairman Kerry, like Chairman Berman in the House, has expressed publicly his intent to initiate the larger process of reforming all foreign-aid programs later this Congress. This will require numerous legislative and policy steps. S.1524 is intended to place the endorsement of the full Senate behind such an effort, and supports the Administration in carrying out its Presidential Study Directive on national global-development policy.
Given the current economic crisis, shouldn’t lawmakers be focusing attention on people hurting here at home rather than those living overseas? This should not be an either/or question. Congress certainly should be, and is, focusing attention on the economic needs of Americans, and the Episcopal Church and other faith communities have been strong advocates for this work. As difficult as problems in American communities are, however, on sheer scale, poor people in developing countries are facing even greater levels of poverty and hunger – poverty that kills. Approximately 1.4 billion people – more than a fifth of the world’s population – live on the less than a dollar a day, and experts forecast that this number will grow by 50 million as a result of the economic crisis. As need is rising, so does the U.S. responsibility – as part of a single human family – for responding to that need. A couple of other things should be kept in mind too. First, foreign-aid reform would mean that limited resources would be spent in a smarter way and with greater accountability and impact. That means that results will increase even if resource allocation stays the same. Additionally, foreign-aid reform is in our own nation’s interest. In an increasingly interconnected world, investments in global development increase security and prosperity here in the U.S. by creating more stability, as well as lasting and long-term solutions to problems, around the world. The impact of fighting poverty and building more prosperous communities today will be felt for generations to come.
What does this mean for the MDGs? The Millennium Development Goals currently are just six years from their completion point, and even as dramatic progress has been made in some goal areas, others – like the fight against AIDS – have been slower overall despite enormous numerical successes in some places. Part of the reason is a lack of coordination and cohesion between the many different donors, including rich countries, private institutions and nongovernmental organizations, and multinational-development programs. Reforming U.S. foreign-assistance programs will allow better focus and cohesion in the world’s efforts to meet the MDGs by 2015.
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