The Foreign Service Journal, June 2008

A FSA draws readers’ attention to the following important policy state- ment on the future of foreign assis- tance made by Representative Howard Berman, D-Calif., who recently assumed the chairmanship of the powerfulHouse Foreign AffairsCommittee. In it, ChairmanBerman sets forth his intention to rewrite the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, the legislative frame- work for our nation’s official development assistance. The following excerpt is fromhis opening remarks at the April 23 committee hearing, “Foreign Assistance Reform in the New Administration: Challenges and Solutions.” It is painfullyobvious toCongress, the admin- istration, foreign aid experts andNGOs alike, that our foreign assis- tance program is frag- mented andbroken and in critical need of over- haul. I strongly believe that America’s foreign assistanceprogramis not in need of some minor changesbut, rather, itneeds tobe reinvented and retooled inorder to respond to the sig- nificant challenges our country and the world face in the 21st century. This year, our committeewill reviewour foreign assistance programto look at what actions areneeded toachieve coherencyand effectiveness in the U.S. foreign assistance framework. We will hold a series of hear- ings onvarious aspects of foreignassistance reform such as rebuilding U.S. civilian diplomatic and development agencies, the role of the military in delivering and shaping foreign assistance, and improving America’s image around the world. These effortswill help informthis com- mittee on the direction that Congress and the next administration should take in reforming U.S. foreign assistance. Many experts are calling for a part- nership between Congress and the next administration to come together and work on improving our foreign assistance programs. I’m committed to this partner- ship andwill do everything I can to ensure that it yields results. Next year, our committee intends toreformandrewrite the ForeignAssistanceAct of 1961. That bill has not been reauthorized since 1985. This anti- quated and desperately overburdened legislation — over 500 pages long — doesn’t adequately provide the flexibility andnecessary authorities for our civilian agencies to tackle global extrem- ism, poverty, corruption and other threats to our long-termnational secu- rity goals. As Congress and the next administra- tion come together on rewriting this leg- islation, we must give greater attention to core development programs, particularly basic education, child survival, maternal health, cultural exchanges and agricultur- al development programs. Recently, there have been a few stark examples of poorly performing programs which have resulted in waste, fraud and abuse, such as theU.S. reconstructionpro- grams in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our for- eign assistance programs have also been crippled by a lack of resources and coor- dination, and a lack of critical capacity and authorities necessary to support such programs. As a result, there has been an ad hoc effort to reformour foreign assistance pro- grams through new pro- grams, such as the Millen- nium Challenge Account, new mandates and more congressional and adminis- trationdirectives. Iwelcome the effort to better coordi- nate our foreign assistance programs and tomake those programsmore accountable by providing merit-based assistance towell-perform- ing countries through the Millennium Challenge Account. How- ever, I am concerned that these efforts merely provide a stopgap to the problems which require broad-reaching and long- term solutions. With over 10 Cabinet departments andover 15 sub-Cabinet posi- tions and independent agencies involved in implementing foreignassistance, our sys- tem has become plagued with poor over- sight and accountability, and a lack of meaningful coordination and coherency. I’malso concernedby theDepartment ofDefense’s rapid encroachment into for- eign assistance. Astonishingly, the pro- portion of DOD foreign assistance has increased from 7 percent of bilateral offi- cial development assistance in 2001 to an estimated 20 percent in2006. DODactiv- ities have expanded to include the provi- sionof humanitarian assistance and train- ing in disaster response, counternarcotics activities and capacity-building of foreign militaries. These activities shouldbe carriedout by theDepartment of State andUSAID. The military is overburdenedandoverstretched and theymust focus on the security threats facing our nation. While the civilian agen- cies should coordinate their activities with the military to ensure coherency of effort, we should no longer rely on the military tobe the diplomatic anddevelopment face of America around the world. o A F S A N E W S J UN E 2 0 0 8 / F OR E I GN S E R V I C E J OU R N A L 61 AFSA Issue Brief Foreign Assistance Reform Chairman Howard Berman, House Foreign Affairs Committee Astonishingly, the proportion of DOD foreign assistance has increased from 7 percent of bilateral official develop- ment assistance in 2001 to an estimated 20 percent in 2006.