MFAN member and Vice President of Policy & Advocacy at Oxfam America Paul O’Brien weighs in on Secretary Clinton’s visionary development speech last week, reminding us that “development is full of complexity, pain and gritty truths.” This is a useful message for foreign assistance reform advocates, as we look to build on 2009 progress in a challenging landscape. Tell us what you think of O’Brien’s piece in the comments section below.
Did Hillary just offer us the Red Pill?
In many decent movies, there is a moment which tells the larger story. For good movies, the moment becomes short-hand in pop culture for larger truths. In my favorite movie, the Matrix, it happened when Morpheus offered Neo a choice between the blue and red pill. Take the blue pill and he got the quiet comforts of living in a fantasy world. Try the red one, and he would start to see reality with all its pain, and gritty truth.
Did Hillary Clinton try to pull the development community out of the Matrix yesterday? Perhaps, and forgive the tortured metaphor, but we live in our own Matrix: On one axis are the different sectors in which we want to work–health care, education, food security and so on. On the other axis are the different types of countries in which we have to do development…from fragile states to fully functioning democracies.
For years now, reform efforts have gotten stuck in that Matrix. The F Bureau tried to solve the problem by drawing out the matrix and sticking everything we already did into one box or another. Perhaps because they were forced to manage their way out of a leadership problem, the matrix didn’t work—no one wanted to see all the existing accounts rearranged in a new table—they wanted a real vision for development.
And so now, we find ourselves with some people looking for reform through sector based initiatives—the Global Food Security Initiative, the Global Health Initiative and so on; while others want to divide the world up along different types of countries and give good performers to the MCC, bad performers to an empowered OFDA, and everything in between to USAID.
I’d like to think that what Hillary said yesterday is STOP! We have to do BOTH, and they may not always be in conflict. We need to listen to what different types of countries want, and understand that a truly democratic government is a better mirror of its people’s needs than the priorities of foreign donors. But at the end of the day, we also need to be able to fill short-term gaps in countries where governments are unwilling or unable to provide for their own. In the world of gritty reality, different countries require different approaches. And we have to be able to meet countries where they are, in order to help them get where they would like to be.
In other words, I think she was offering us a red pill. The legacy of this speech may not be her big lists of priorities, but her reminder to all of us that development is full of complexity, pain and gritty truths. Countries are poor for a reason and the solutions aren’t trite or easy. The question now is whether policy makers and their development partners are ready to grapple with reality. Taking Neo’s leap may mean that in countries that are doing right by their people, we have to surrender some control of our aid dollars in exchange for results that last. And in others, we support citizens to hold their governments to account, and help meet basic needs in the meantime. If Administrator Shah and Secretary Clinton can help us escape the old Matrix of employing either blank checks or crippling control, they will honor a good movie and they can truly call themselves “Neo”-reformists.
Tags: development, Food Security Initiative, foreign assistance reform, Millennium Challenge Corporation, poverty, QDDR, State Department, United States Agency for International Development, White House
Right on, Paul. I’d like to think that’s what the Secretary of State said, too. Only I’m still not sure. In this version of the matrix, too, the Trinity is key — defense, diplomacy and development. Where they connect and where they should stand alone or lead the others is still to be worked out. Presumably the QDDR and the PSD will give reform some shape (make it less aMorpheus?). Neo-reformists love talking about the 3D Trinity but the Architecture will soon offer some hard choices. Spoon-feeding emergency assistance certainly doesn’t solve the problem of building capacity, or as Hillary put it, having a whole village eat for life by teaching a woman to fish. But what happens when there is no spoon? The key is ensuring this generational opportunity for reform of development policy and operations is the one — and not some latter-day Merovingian attempt.
Paul & Noam, You are both on the right track, but still on tiptoes. Paul must recognize that the SecState offered us a purple pill, not a clear choice for the red pill we both know is what the doctor ordered. You’re right that assistance is no simple choice between blank checks and cripplng controls or sectoral earmarks vs country ownership. Noam, I applaud your reminding us that this is a generational opportunity for reform of assistance policy AND OPERATIONS. The controlling policy wonks don’t like to think much about nasty operational considerations. As a historian, I am puzzled by your use of Merovingian. Is the SecState king or mayor of the palace? I would urge both of you to be alert to the whiffs of WhitewaterII coming out of Foggy Bottom’s move to host country contracting in the AfPak region.