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Archive for the ‘House’ Category

USGLC Report Finds Consensus on U.S. Development Policy

Wednesday, June 5th, 2013
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Partisanship in Washington seems to be at an all-time (and ever escalating) high these days. But when it comes to international development, there is a strong consensus across the ideological spectrum that it is something the U.S. must do and do well. Both Republican and Democratic administrations have taken important steps toward reforming U.S. development policy and practice. The establishment of the Millennium Challenge Corporation by President Bush, with strong bipartisan support from Congress, paved the way for other important reforms by the Obama Administration including the first-ever Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development and the USAID Forward agenda.

In 2011, MFAN released From Policy to Practice—a set of reform principles to help guide U.S. development policy. The principles include modernizing legislation, incorporating local priorities, and strengthening and empowering USAID. In the two years since the release of From Policy to Practice, we have seen the Obama Administration and Congress make strides and the development community rally behind the importance of reform. But there is still more work to be done, and at a time when budgets are shrinking, finding more effective and efficient approaches to solving development challenges is something everyone can get behind.

Today, the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition released their second Report on Reports, which analyzes over 30 reports, including MFAN’s From Policy to Practice, from across the political spectrum. Despite analyzing a diverse range of work from groups like the left-leaning Center for American Progress and the right-leaning Heritage Foundation, USGLC finds there’s more of a consensus on U.S. development policy than we might expect. The Report on Reports highlights six key areas of agreement, including ensuring results-driven development, improving coordination, and maintaining sufficient resources, that many groups in the development community are highlighting as priority areas for improving U.S. policy.

The elevation of development alongside diplomacy and defense, the continuing implementation of the USAID Forward agenda, the introduction of legislation like Rep. Gerry Connolly’s (D-VA) Global Partnerships Act and Rep. Ted Poe’s (R-TX) Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act, and President Obama’s proposal to reform U.S. food aid are all positive signs that the reform agenda is making headway. However, the Administration and Congress must work together to institutionalize these important reforms so that progress is not lost as political winds shift in Washington.

Click here to see USGLC’s helpful infographic on the road to a “smart power” approach to national security issues.

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MFAN Statement: Food Aid Reform Act Would Maximize Efficiencies and Save Lives

Thursday, May 16th, 2013
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May 16, 2013 (WASHINGTON) – This statement is delivered on behalf of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network (MFAN) by Co-Chairs David Beckmann, George Ingram and Jim Kolbe:

We strongly commend House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) and Africa Subcommittee Ranking Member Karen Bass (D-CA) for introducing the Food Aid Reform Act (H.R. 1983). The legislation includes common sense reforms that would improve the effectiveness and efficiency of U.S. food aid. If adopted, the reforms proposed in this legislation would more feed more people, more quickly while saving taxpayers $500 million over the next ten years.

Since its founding, MFAN has advocated for bold action on food aid, an area where better policies would maximize efficiencies and save additional lives. In 2011, MFAN committed itself to advocate for common sense reforms, including eliminating restrictions on the use of local and regional food procurement; repealing inefficient cargo preference provisions; and scaling down food aid monetization, which Government Accountability Office research has demonstrated is “inefficient and can cause adverse market impacts.” The wide-ranging reforms proposed by Chairman Royce and Ranking Member Bass would significantly advance these objectives. The Food Aid Reform Act eliminates superfluous costs by ending monetization, reducing U.S.-only procurement requirements, and exempting food aid assistance from cargo preference.

The bill is timely, coming shortly after the President’s FY2014 budget request’s bold proposal to improve the Food for Peace program that distributes emergency food assistance. MFAN joined much of the development community in support of the President’s plan to enhance the long standing commitment of the American people to respond to emergencies and reduce hunger and poverty around the world, by reducing inflated procurement and transportation costs, continuing shipping commodities from the U.S. while removing harmful restrictions on purchasing food locally and regionally, and funding more sustainable practices that encourage agricultural self-sufficiency and food security. The Food Aid Reform Act legislation acknowledges these reform priorities and would provide humanitarian organizations with additional flexibility to respond to food emergencies.

With improved coordination, U.S. development and agriculture policies have the potential to catalyze lasting change in countries that struggle with chronic food insecurity, ultimately terminating dependence on U.S. assistance in the long term. If adopted and implemented, this legislation would replace an antiquated system with a data-driven, evidence-based approach to sustainable food security while preserving the deeply valued connection between farming communities in the U.S. and the developing world.

MFAN applauds the introduction of this strong reform legislation by Chairman Royce and Rep. Bass and urges other members of Congress to work with them in passing needed changes to our food aid system. When budgets are under severe strain and global hunger afflicts so many, we cannot afford to delay these important reforms.

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International aid groups support food aid reforms proposed by Chairman Ed Royce and Ranking Member Karen Bass

Thursday, May 16th, 2013
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Food aid reform statement

May 16, 2013 (Washington, DC)- This statement is delivered on behalf of the following endorsing organizations: American Jewish World Service, Bread for the World, CARE, Church World Service, The Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network, Oxfam America and Partners in Health.

The endorsing organizations listed above applaud bi-partisan legislation introduced yesterday by House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) and Ranking Member Karen Bass (D-CA). The Food Aid Reform Act (HR 1983) offers long overdue reforms to the U.S. food assistance program, similar to what was included in the Administration’s FY2014 budget submission to Congress. These reforms—if enacted—mean the U.S. would be able to deliver lifesaving food assistance more quickly, more efficiently and to millions of more hungry people every year with the same taxpayer resources.

More than 870 million people suffer from chronic hunger. With such considerable global needs, and our federal budget under significant pressure, our efforts to provide sustenance and nutrition to the poor must be designed to ensure the greatest impact using limited available resources. In the sixty years that the U.S. has provided food aid to the world’s most vulnerable populations, humanitarian organizations have identified best practices that can significantly enhance these programs’ efficiency and cost-effectiveness. While dozens of studies have identified reforms that would increase the reach of our aid, outdated statutes limit flexibility and impede progress toward this goal. In the words of U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Rajiv Shah, “…we’ve learned that the current approach to food aid can become—at times—an impediment to its very own mission.”

Both the President’s proposal and this legislation address many long-standing concerns that have been raised about food aid. The Royce-Bass bill would end the wasteful practice of monetization. Additionally, it would remove restrictions on the shipping of food aid that slow its delivery and inflate the cost to U.S. taxpayers. “Cargo preference” was originally intended to maintain certain maritime capabilities necessary during the Cold War. Today, foreign-owned shipping companies exploit this “Buy America” loophole by operating U.S. flagged carriers and charging premium rates to the federal government. The practice restricts competition, increasing expenditures for ocean freight and costing U.S. taxpayers approximately $140 million each year. The U.S. Agency for International Development estimates that up to half of its spending on food aid can be attributed to ocean transportation costs.

This bi-partisan bill provides the government with additional flexibility to respond to food emergencies: it maintains the ability to purchase and ship US commodities when it is the most appropriate tool, and allows for local purchase of food when such purchases ensure that food reaches hungry people in need faster and at a lower cost. We believe this bill could be strengthened by explicitly maintaining the structure for non-emergency food aid that has helped millions of chronically hungry families around the world.  We urge that as the bill moves through the legislative process that these important authorities are included.

These evidence-based reforms will significantly enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of our food aid program.  Chairman Royce and Representative Bass’s plan is a balanced approach to delivering food assistance and maximizing efficiencies. We urge the House Foreign Affairs Committee to swiftly approve the proposal. Our organizations thank Chairman Royce and Representative Bass for their leadership and stand ready to work with members on both side of the aisle to ensure that taxpayers’ dollars are used more efficiently and feed the greatest number of hungry people possible.

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MFAN Statement: MFAN Welcomes Introduction of the Global Partnerships Act by Congressman Gerry Connolly

Thursday, May 2nd, 2013
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May 2, 2013 (WASHINGTON) – This statement is delivered on behalf of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network (MFAN) by Co-Chairs David Beckmann, George Ingram, and Jim Kolbe:

We commend Congressman Gerry Connolly for introducing the Global Partnerships Act of 2013 (H.R. 1793), which would overhaul the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) of 1961 and make U.S. foreign assistance more efficient and effective. Importantly, this bill—whose original co-sponsors include Reps. Karen Bass and Earl Blumenauer—builds on strong leadership from former Congressman Howard Berman, who dedicated his time as Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to producing a new, rational legislative approach to U.S. global efforts to alleviate poverty, spur economic growth, combat disease, and respond to humanitarian crises.

Modernizing the FAA is a founding principle of our coalition, and we continue to believe this legislation will make our foreign assistance programs more responsive to current and future challenges and help to ensure that the important steps the Obama Administration has taken to implement these reforms are protected. We are particularly pleased that H.R. 1793 prioritizes the following reform principles:

  • Promote local ownership and partner with governments and citizens to set priorities;
  • Strengthen accountability and transparency through rigorous monitoring and evaluation to better inform budget planning;
  • Ensure program decisions are evidence-based;
  • Adopt a more integrated, coordinated, outcome-based approach to development that is flexible within and across sectors and agencies; and
  • Elevate USAID as the U.S. Government’s lead development agency.

The President’s latest budget request reaffirms his commitment to a more evidence-based, selective approach to foreign assistance while maintaining leadership on global health issues like HIV/AIDS and exercising new leadership with a strong proposal to reform the way the U.S. delivers food aid. MFAN hopes that other Members of Congress and Obama Administration officials will join Rep. Connolly and his co-sponsors to make permanent the reforms outlined in this legislation. We look forward to playing a constructive role in this effort to make our foreign assistance more effective and accountable.

 

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Why Congress Should Care About the International Aid Transparency Initiative

Thursday, April 18th, 2013
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See below for a guest post from MFAN co-chair and Brookings senior fellow George Ingram on how the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) and the Foreign Assistance Dashboard are the tools Congress has been looking for to prove the value of U.S. foreign assistance programs. This post originally appeared on the Brookings blog. 

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As the long-dreaded sequestration process begins to set in, U.S. government programs that have already been feeling the heat of budget pressures are now starting to feel the pinch. Across all agencies and departments, there has never been such heightened vigilance to determine the quality, value, and effectiveness of taxpayer-funded programs in order to save them from landing on the proverbial chopping block. U.S. foreign assistance is no exception, and in fact, is likely to be a popular target despite notable progress over the past decade in how aid is delivered.

One basic tool to help circumvent arbitrary and needless cuts is to make information related to foreign assistance transparent, accessible and comparable with the activities of other international donors. Congress has the important responsibility of choosing how much to allocate for activities that seek to lift millions out of extreme poverty, fight disease, spur growth and restore human dignity. In this challenging budget environment, that responsibility is of even higher consequence, with the potential to affect lives all around the world, either for the better or worse. But to make informed decisions, Congress needs to have at its disposal comprehensive, reliable data that is timely and up-to-date.

The Foreign Assistance Dashboard— a public website launched a little over two years ago by the Obama administration to examine this data— demonstrates a strong commitment to aid transparency. However, compliance from agencies involved in U.S. foreign assistance has been slow; the site still only has partial information (budget plans, obligations and expenditures) for a couple of agencies (USAID and Millennium Challenge Corporation) and just planning data for the State Department, leaving out more than a dozen others as well as critical program and project data that lie beneath the aid-flow surface.

The U.S. made another major commitment to the transparency agenda at the 2011 High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, South Korea, by joining the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). Meeting the IATI commitments, particularly the publication of comprehensive and timely foreign assistance information, is incomplete and moving slowly.

Congress needs to understand that the dashboard and IATI are the tools it has been searching for. Members continuously complain about the opaqueness of foreign assistance – how much assistance is the U.S. providing, to what countries, for what purposes, in cooperation with whom, to what effect? Where is the information to explain to constituents how their tax dollars are being spent? Together the dashboard and IATI will provide this information.

Even more importantly, while there are varying opinions over the best uses and purposes for foreign assistance, members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, are united in caring that foreign assistance dollars are used well – that tax dollars are not wasted and that the assistance does help lift individuals and countries from poverty and promote U.S. foreign policy interests.

IATI is a critical tool in contributing to the effective use of foreign assistance funds – and not just government provided assistance, but also that which is provided by private entities such as NGOs, foundations and corporations. It is currently the only place for comparable aid information. While the dashboard is a valuable domestic resource, IATI allows a wide range of stakeholders to know what the U.S. government is doing alongside what others are doing. This is the full aid picture and what recipients want to know on the ground.

As of April 2013, 39 government and multilateral donors, and over 100 private organizations, have committed to IATI. When fully operative and with timely and comprehensive data from all donors, we will have the ability through one website to find all donor activity in a particular sector and a particular locale in a country – a virtual one-stop-data-shop for foreign assistance. So how will this improve aid effectiveness?

Let’s say you are: (1) USAID contemplating investing scarce assistance funds in education in region X of country Y; (2) a congressional staffer whose boss has asked whether donors are helping to expand education opportunities in that region; (3) an NGO contemplating working in that region; (4) a finance ministry budget expert in country Y trying to figure out which school districts are in the greatest need of resources in the next fiscal year. IATI will provide the data to help answer these questions.

Through IATI, USAID will know which other donors are engaged in the region, at what level of funding, with what specific focus, and with whom it might coordinate. The congressional staffer can tell his member what donors and at what level education is being assisted. The NGO can tell if this region is overrun by its sister organizations or ignored and with whom it might partner. The ministry budget expert can better allocate scarce resources and query the education ministry staff as to whether it is integrating donor activity into national education plans.

The administration is to be commended for taking the leading in bringing U.S. assistance into the age of data transparency. It is now time for Congress to become involved, by supporting the administration but also by pushing for more robust implementation. Congressman Ted Poe does this in his bill, the “Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act”, which passed the House in the waning days of the last Congress but was held up in the Senate. It is expected that he will soon reintroduce the bill. Congress should act swiftly to enact it into law and recommend that IATI be the standard by which all agencies in the aid space publish their data.

 

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