By Clarke Hallum
From the aritcle:
SEATTLE — The United States’ foreign assistance plays a major role in the international effort to alleviate global poverty. As arguably the world’s greatest power and political agenda setter, its decisions on foreign aid have major impacts throughout the globe. However, consistency and coordination among the more than 20 aid agencies have proven difficult when, every four to eight years, a new president is voted into office, bringing with them their own unique interpretation of how to orient their executive bureaucracy. The ephemeral nature of the bureaucratic system and the stark contrasts seen in presidential leadership in the recent past have made it difficult for the United States to commit to a set of “well-defined core priorities” that underlie its foreign aid system. With the millions of lives, abroad and domestically, that are affected by U.S. aid, decisions made by the Trump administration about the future of U.S. foreign aid carry heavy weight.
Recently, The Borgen Project had the chance to speak with the authors of the policy brief “A Practical Vision for U.S. Development Reform”, published by the Center for Global Development (CDG). The brief, written by CDG experts Cindy Huang, co-director of migration, displacement, and humanitarian policy and a senior policy fellow and Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior policy fellow, discusses the future of U.S. foreign aid and details ways to increase coordination and incentive between the 20-plus government aid agencies. Huang and Konyndyk state in the brief: “To maintain its relevance in a changing global development landscape, U.S. foreign assistance should focus on four core development priorities: state fragility, inclusive growth, global health and humanitarian assistance.”
Read the full article here.