The Foreign Service Journal, December 2006

O ne of my favorite sayings goes like this: If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. This is a good analogy for the situation fac- ing us at USAID. Are we beingmergedwith State or not? Some of us can remember the days when Senator JesseHelms, R-N.C., was intent on forcing a shotgun marriage between the State Department and our agency. Congress did not go along, and we seemed to have dodged that bullet. We were fairly sure that the issue had been put to rest, and became complacent. But today, we see signs all around us that the camel’s nose is again sneaking back into our tent. While we have heard official protestations from the likes of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, USAID Administrator Randall Tobias and others that “No, we are not merging,” the duck keeps waddling back. Is it a matter of semantics or am I just para- noid? How does one explain these facts: the USAID administrator now has an addition- al title—director of foreign assistance—and occupies a very high-level position at the State Department, where he is spend- ing most of his time. A large contingency of our Policy and ProgramCoordination staff has physically established residen- cy at Main State. There are close to 50 Statemanagement offi- cer positions listed for USAID executive officers to bid on in our latest Assignment Cycle Major Listing? Let’s look at each of these developments. The USAID administrator’s office has, in the organization- al charts as well as physically, been merged into the State Department structure under something called the “F” office. Ambassador Tobias reports directly to the Secretary of State, and the USAID program implements her transformational diplomacy initiative. USAID’s budget and planning function now falls under the direct control of State. The result is that development programs, which are nowunder increasingly cen- tralized control, have been redefined and in some cases cut to accommodate political imperatives of State Department staff over the advice of USAID technical experts and even mission directors. As I indicated above, the Policy and ProgramCoordination staff, about 40 of them, have already relocated in offices atMain State. Since PPC is the heart and brains of our organization, this is more than a symbolic act. It is major surgery. Another telling sign that a merger has been in progress was the creation of country core teams inwhich hun- dreds of USAID staff were combined into planning teamswith State experts. The first big meeting at the Loy Henderson Auditorium created some awkward, even comical situations. When amass of about 500USAID employees showed up at the appointed time at the diplomatic entrance, the guards became so annoyed at the large, unruly crowd, most of whom did not have State badges, that there was actually chaos, mass confusion and lots of head-shaking. Eventually every- one got through the gates, but the meeting startedmore than30minutes late. Not a very good start to our partnership. Now there has been talkaboutwhether there is aneed tohave duplicate countrydeskofficers at bothUSAID and State. The latest signof themergerwas the inclu- sion of over 50 State positions (primarily management officer jobs, those people who run our embassies overseas) in the USAID 2007 Foreign Service Assignment Cycle Major Listing. This is called the “CAP” (Crossover Assignment Program), a program in which State and USAID employees can bid on each other’s jobs. A lot fewer positions are avail- able to State officers, however, whowish to bid onUSAID jobs. The interesting thing here is that it seems that State is willing to allow USAID executive officers to manage embassies and USAIDmissions overseas, butmost of the positions are inAfrica and predominantly at hardship posts. As far as I know, none are in Paris or London. It makes sense to do this for many rea- sons, but does anyone doubt this is also a merger? Or did I miss something? You might think that I am against such a merger. Maybe yes, maybe no. There probably are many excellent reasons to merge, such as increased efficiency, cost savings, alignment of programstrategies and so on. There are alsomany reasons not to do so, such as weakening long-term development achieve- ment for short-termpolitical gains, losing the good faith of the international community concerning our true goals, and reduc- ing our technical edge. This is a political decision that the president and Congress have a right to make, for us to implement. I am concerned, however, by this death by a thousand little cuts. Let’s just admit to what is happening and stop trying to keep themerger under the radar. It’s quacking, so it must be a duck. V.P. VOICE: USAID BY FRANCISCO ZAMORA If It Quacks Like a Duck ... A F S A N E W S DE C EMB E R 2 0 0 6 / F OR E I GN S E R V I C E J OU R N A L 63 “We see signs all around us that the camel’s nose is again sneaking back into our tent.”