The Foreign Service Journal, January 2010

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 0 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 21 rather than seeking to fold theMillenniumChallenge Cor- poration into USAID, as many development experts have urged, the president has sought to expand theMCC, push- ing for a 63-percent increase in its funding in FY 2010. Development at War As development has become recognized as a core ele- ment of foreign policy, some dispersion of resources was probably inevitable, says Worthington of InterAction. But that makes it all the more important, he says, for USAID to have an administrator with authority over development efforts writ large: “It’s important to recognize that the United States needs multiple development tools that may not fit neatly within one agency.” Giving the USAID Ad- ministrator authority to coordinate those efforts would be “an important step to align the operational side of devel- opment work with strategic policy planning.” Still, as the concept of development has shifted from infrastructure projects to nationbuilding activities, USAID’s efforts to regain its pre-eminent role in oversee- ing development have only encountered steeper resist- ance, particularly as it competes with the Department of Defense. On the one hand, USAID’s proponents argue that the agency should be the place for experts in creating and fostering democratic institutions. Those experts will have a credibility their military counterparts lack, these USAID backers say, because the agency is made up of civilians who pursue their aims with good will, not by mil- itary might. On the other hand, USAID officers in the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan have found it difficult to carry out their jobs precisely because those countries are not yet free of violence. To conduct development work in such places, USAID officers are often accompanied by soldiers, rais- ing questions in the minds of those they are trying to serve about just whom they represent. A December 2008 Congressional Research Service re- port concluded that when military personnel are directly involved in providing humanitarian assistance and other humanitarian acts, such aid can be viewed as jeopardizing C O V E R S T O R Y