The Foreign Service Journal, January-February 2017

30 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2017 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL ing at other agencies—and make coordination easier. There are some exceptions such as military assistance programs, since the Department of Defense has robust capacity to imple- ment these in coordination with State’s Bureau of Political- Military Affairs. The U.S. military should also continue to deliver a narrow set of emergency humanitarian and relief operations. But its recent uneven efforts to directly administer other types of foreign aid and its discomfort in so doing are another argument for a more robust USAID. This will require greater coordination between the two agencies, which has already begun. Exactly how the MCC, the Trade and Development Agency, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the func- tions of several State bureaus should be rejoined with USAID needs careful analysis, but the trend must be toward har- monization rather than fragmentation. The next administra- tion, moreover, should examine whether Treasury’s carefully guarded management of the U.S. government’s relationship with international financial institutions should not more appropriately be managed through USAID, as well. 4. Integrate foreign assistance and foreign policy. Those involved in defining policy at State and USAID need to be better integrated at all levels. Ideally, State and USAID desk officers would be located near each other and jointly par- ticipate in planning with DOD and other counterparts. And the respective State and USAID policy shops need to work to ensure that their approaches are mutually reinforcing. State officers need to better understand how foreign assistance really works; and USAID’s officers need to be kept abreast of our changing political and economic goals by country and region. This needs to be done both in Washington and abroad. Exchanges of officers would be useful in this regard, but State officers have been reluctant to go on detail to USAID for fear that such service would not be career-enhancing. One way to accelerate such details would be to take a page from the Gold- water-Nichols Act on DOD’s joint assignment requirements and require interagency experience, including at the National Security Council, for promotions to FS-1 and GS-15 and above for career officers in State, USAID and DOD. When smart, knowledgeable people put their heads together, good policy is made, but this takes a lot of time and effort to achieve. More training designed to foster this type of coordination is needed. How will the budgeting and alloca- tion of funds be handled with this type of coordination? There are many ways and models, but this should be left up to the Secretary of State to ultimately decide, in consultation with Congress. Above all, however, senior foreign policy officials need to make sure that the views of assistance professionals are taken into consideration. 5. Get USAID a regular seat at the National Security Council. As a non-Cabinet agency, USAID often struggles to get its development perspective heard at the most senior poli- cymaking bodies. While a full-fledged seat for USAID at the NSC might not be in the cards, we at least need to eliminate Feed the Future, the U.S. government’s world food security initiative that is led by USAID, helps empower women in Guatemala to increase agricultural production and earn more for their families. USAID/AGEXPORT