The Foreign Service Journal, November 2009

been outside USAID. In addition to all this proliferation, and the resulting inefficiency, USAID itself is now in a sort of limbo: partly in- side State and partly outside, “neither fish nor fowl.” Its core office responsi- ble for policy, programming and the budget, the former Bureau for Pro- gram and Policy Coordination, was merged into State several years ago, and the USAID Administrator and some staff are now physically located in the department. Yet most other USAIDunits, including the geographic bureaus, field missions and the person- nel system offices, remain outside. Fixing the Problem There are those inWashington who advocate leaving this mess alone. After all, in its staggered and ineffectual manner the current system still “works.” At most, they favor tinkering at the margins, promoting the peren- nial panacea of “more and better co- ordination” among the various spigots. But a wiser, more responsible course is to try to improve the existing situation. One way is to merge the var- ious entities into a large, revamped and reinvigorated USAID, possibly with another name. In other words, we could recreate the powerful foreign as- sistance agency that existed from 1961 into the 1980s — the one that was al- most on a par with State and DOD, re- ported to the White House, was led by prominent Americans, continually at- tracted top talent, and played an es- sential role in winning the Cold War. This time it might even be made a Cabinet department equal to State and Defense, as is the case in the United Kingdom and some other countries. For me, as for countless experts and groups who have studied the problem over the years, this would be the prefer- able course. But politically, it is a non- starter. The Obama administration would face the usual resistance to change from interested parties and groups that profit from the existing in- efficiencies. So it would have to expend massive political capital and time to ef- fect significant changes, and do so in the midst of battles concerning the more gripping national priorities on its plate. Further, and possibly even more important, State not only controls most development assistance programs, but treats aid as a foreign policy matter. It addresses problems with money, and money is power. Now that State con- trols key portions of it, it is unlikely ever to willingly give them up. So if anything significant is to be done to make the administration of foreign aid more rational and efficient, we must go to the next best option: in- corporating the rest of USAID, and as many of the other agencies and entities mentioned above as possible, into State. This would entail the following steps: • Abolish the position of USAID Administrator and its staff; • Merge the geographic bureaus with their State equivalents; • Merge USAID country missions into the embassies; • Make development assistance a separate State bureau and specialty, taking advantage of the fact that State already controls several aid spigots; and • Lobby for legislation to incorpo- rate the MillenniumChallenge Corpo- ration and OPIC into the new bureau as separate operating units. (The small TDA should be absorbed into OPIC, as well.) At the same time, we should not try to eliminate the aid spigots of other de- partments of government, which are very important resources. Instead, let us pass clear, strong legislation that puts all U.S. assistance activities in de- veloping countries under the control and oversight of State. This approach may sound unwieldy, but I can attest to the fact that it works. When I served in Pakistan, the USAID mission wanted to assist the Pakistanis in improving the safety of their coal mines around Quetta. We contracted with the U.S. Bureau of Mines to pro- vide an expert team for several years to carry this out. This initiative suc- ceeded, in large part because one of my project officers worked with the team, while the team director reported to me as well as to his superiors in Washington. State should also make efforts to take control of U.S. relations with the multilateral financial institutions from Treasury, although such attempts prob- ably will not succeed. But at least the department can thereby step up its in- fluence over Treasury’s activities in this area, as well as those related to debt re- lief considerations. As for the Peace Corps, it should remain outside State, if for no other reason than to avoid the appearance of being tied to short-term political considerations. Development Objectives Remain Important These recommendations will disap- point some and be strongly opposed by others — in particular, those devel- opment professionals, sometimes la- beled “purists,” who believe that foreign assistance should be used only for development purposes, not short- term political ends. Of course, many of them are convinced that foreign as- sistance is already controlled by State. Theirs is a longstanding argument. Though well intended, it is neither re- S P E A K I N G O U T 12 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 9