HELP!!

• Foreign assistance is critical to U.S. national interests.
• Our foreign assistance system is broken, a reality that is ignored at our peril.
• The American people, and those in the developing world, deserve better.

These assertions, leading off the Executive Summary, frame the subsequent report of the HELP Commission (“Helping to Enhance the Livelihood of People Around the Globe”), set up by Congress, at the initiative of Congressman Frank Wolf of Virginia, to undertake a thorough review of the U.S. government’s foreign aid program and offer make recommendations regarding the future direction of the program. The Commission’s mandate, composition and recommendations – most of which mirror long-time Bread for the World views – combine to make this a highly significant and welcome contribution to the ongoing discussions regarding foreign aid effectiveness and reform. Bread for the World and other NGOs (InterAction, Oxfam) have responded positively, even enthusiastically. (See Bread’s press release.) 

The report stresses the fundamental need for a bipartisan agreement between the Executive and Legislative branches on the U.S. strategy for foreign assistance, and for ‘development’ to truly stand on a par with ‘defense’ and ‘diplomacy’ among the country’s foreign policy tools. With an overall strategy agreed to, reform could then go on to fix the system -- restructure the involved agencies, strengthen the corps of professionals and involve new partners.

Positive features:
• The depth and degree of consensus (only one of the twenty commissioners did not sign) of the Commission report is remarkable given breadth of perspectives on the Commission -  the public and private, legislative and executive, conservative & liberal, "old hands" and newcomers to the subject.
• This report goes further than other recent reports and statements about the elevation of development to the level of the other “Ds” (defense and diplomacy) of the National Security Strategy, by putting forward very concrete, comprehensive recommendations.
• The focus on economic growth and policy coherence, particularly between trade and development, and the emphasis on the importance of local ownership and putting developing countries’ priorities at the center of development planning are particularly salient.
• Also encouraging is the distinction drawn between short-term political needs, to be address through Economic Support Funds, and long-term development, to be addressed through Development Assistance.  This is a line that the Administration has sought to blur in the transformational development” process.”
• There is a strong, well-argued, minority report that pushes the case for an overt focus on poverty alleviation as a fundamental objective for US foreign policy and for the establishment of a separate, cabinet-level department to ensure that development’s voice is heard at the highest levels of policy determination. 
• This report could not have come at a better time, as the presidential candidates lay out their foreign policy views and legislative priorities. The Obama and Edwards campaigns have already taken positions much in line with many of the report recommendations.

It is now up to all of us to ensure that the Commission’s report doesn’t just end up on dusty shelves or in remainder bins. I look forward to further dialogue on just how we, as a community of development practitioners and activists, make sure that the overall issue and the specific findings and recommendations of the HELP Commission remain in play over the coming months.

Comments

[Porter McConnell, Oxfam]

Thanks, Charles, for sharing Bread’s analysis of the HELP Commission Report. The Report is a crucial mile marker for aid reform, and we agree with you that many of the Report’s recommendations were dead on.

For example, the recommendation to “align America’s trade and development policies” is key. Commissioner Bill Lane (Caterpillar) made the point this way: each year, the U.S. government gives $80 million in aid to Bangladesh; but we collect $500 million in tariffs from it, a net loss for the very people we are trying to help. The committee took a brave stand in recognizing that the way our trade and aid work at cross purposes is not only unjust, it’s not efficient. The report is filled with other sensible reforms that, if implemented, would improve the efficiency and impact of development aid.

We are disappointed, however, that the Commission stopped short of recommending a department level authority for development. The majority of Commissioners recommended a super-State in which development was only one of four sub-departments. The Commission’s reasoning is that State and USAID must coordinate their work so closely that it’s only logical that their operations be merged into the same agency. By that same logic, the Department of Defense and the Department of State should be merged, since they are also regularly called upon to work closely together. That merger, I think we could all agree, would serve neither agency’s purposes well.

Making development one of four competing priorities within State does not provide the political authority or independence of purpose to do smart development. An autonomous department for development is simply the best way to make sure the long-term aid agenda is not co-opted by short-term considerations. And getting the right structure is a crucial step toward transforming our aid into the effective, poverty-fighting force it has the potential to become.

Kudos to you and Bread for your thoughtful analysis. The HELP Commission, along with the Lugar Report and other recent efforts, are mile markers that remind us to keep policymakers moving forward.

[Charles Uphaus]

You make some good points, and the structural question is, ideally, something that would be decided last -- form should follow function. Unfortunately, struggles over executive turf and Congressional committee jurisdictions are likely to drive the debate. Strong leadership from the White House, and considerable political capital, will be required to move this toward a positive outcome. Which is why it's all the more important to get it on the agenda of the presidential candidates sooner rather than later.

[Eric Munoz]

Among the positive features you list that the report was released just in time to inform and influence presidential candidates on their foreign policy agenda. While this is true, I'm afraid that the report will be lost in the run up to the election.

But the deeper concern is that the the big picture suggestion for reforming the structure of USAID/State will garner all of the scrutiny and attention. Debate around structural reform is sure to be contentious and in the meantime it will draw attention and action away from other actionable suggestions such as renewing attention to economic development, creating new instruments to support the creation of Small and medium business enterprises, and reinvigorating attention to agriculture. These helpful recommendations can very easily be lost in these larger conversations.

This of course raises the importance of civil society groups pursuing not just the big picture issues presented in the HELP Commission report, but the full panoply of smaller recommendations that will make foreign aid work better.