The Foreign Service Journal, January 2010

24 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 0 enhanced USAID’s authority. The USAIDAdministrator became a top deputy in Foggy Bottom, with a say in all development work at both State and USAID. But the Obama administration’s decision to place USAID under the authority of Jacob J. Lew, theDeputy Secretary of State for management and resources, Nat- sios says, means that “the independ- ent voice of USAID is simply being systematically abolished.” Speaking last fall at a conference in Washington, Lew said he viewed the boundary between State and USAID as an artificial one. “We’re seeing a lot of the development- vs.-diplomacy line starting to disappear,” he said. “I think that’s ultimately going to be the path to success.” For his part, Adams of American University says there’s a distinction between bringing USAID and State closer on the strategic end and doing so on the operational side. The former, he argues, makes good sense; the latter, less so. “The trend is toward strategic integration, and the question then becomes: What does it mean on the operational side?” Congress to the Rescue? USAID has not often been able to turn to Congress for shelter. Lacking a domestic constituency, the agency has never garnered much sympathy on Capitol Hill. What remains of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act, ac- cording to Sheila Herrling, director of the Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance Program at the Center for Global De- velopment, aWashington nonprofit that supports increased foreign aid, is “outdated, messy, cumbersome and increas- ingly irrelevant.” That’s because during more than 40 years of congressional micromanagement, “hundreds of amend- ments have added multiple objectives and priorities that in C O V E R S T O R Y There has never been a golden age for USAID, when it had the full support of Congress and the White House.