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We’ve reached a point when it’s politically risky for a U.S. government agency to publicly prepare for the real risks of climate change.  Nonetheless, USAID has remained firm, recently releasing its agency-wide Climate Change and Development Strategy. This strategy identifies promoting low emissions growth and reducing climate change impacts as core development objectives, acknowledging the heavy reliance of USAID’s partners on economic activities that are vulnerable to climate change (ie. agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and tourism) and the critical mitigation opportunities in the developing world.  Without preparing for and integrating climate change throughout its work, USAID risks substantial backslides in development gains – in our view, a much larger political risk.

The newly released Strategy identifies three important strategic objectives:

• Accelerate transitions to low emission development through investments in clean energy and sustainable landscapes;
• Increase resilience of people, places, and livelihoods through investments in adaptation; and
• Strengthen development outcomes by integrating climate change in Agency programming, learning, policy dialogues and operations.

In addition, the Strategy upholds important foreign aid reform principles, including responding to partner country priorities, donor partnering and coordinating, building institutional and governance capacities of partner countries, strengthening civil society, and prioritizing monitoring and evaluation.  As with any strategy, its true value will be measured by its implementation, but having these clear objectives and an outline of available tools is an important starting point.

In the context of sustainable landscapes, also known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+), the Strategy reaffirms recent USAID interest in working on policy reform at multiple scales of governance.  For REDD+ this means increased attention to sub-national jurisdictions such as states and provinces in developing countries.  USAID will also look to invest in stronger technical understanding of forest carbon stocks and measurements of deforestation to encourage new incentives to stem deforestation.  All of this is done with an eye towards leveraging more private investment in REDD+ with partner agencies such as the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), Export-Import bank, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC).

The Strategy also recognizes climate change adaptation and community resilience as an important pillar.  It highlights the role of governance at all scales (recognizing decentralization has made sub-national institutions important in many countries).  The Strategy could improve its treatment of adaptation as a proactive step to reducing community vulnerability, highlight linkages between adaptation and mitigation (and their potential tradeoffs), emphasize the importance of ecosystem services in adaptation strategies, and say more about the value of community-led approaches to adaptation.

Finally, the Strategy talks about sector-specific and country-wide approaches to climate change vulnerability assessment. WWF believes vulnerability assessments should take a spatial and multi-sectoral approach that looks for relationships (including tradeoffs) across geographical, sectoral, and other types of boundaries. Otherwise, there is a significant risk of reductive, stove-piped thinking that may lead to inefficient and unsustainable outcomes, or even mal-adaptation.

Mainstreaming climate change is a critical challenge, and there’s lots of good language in the Strategy underlining the cross-cutting nature of climate change and the need for its integration across all USAID programs.  The Strategy emphasizes capacity building and training to support this process.

To keep USAID programming successful it will be important to see concrete progress in this commitment to climate change across all of the Agency’s work.  At the end of the day, USAID’s development goals will hinge on the Agency preparing for climate change.  The Strategy is an important step and WWF’s applauds its release.

Click here to read the full Climate Change and Development Strategy.

See below for a list of MFAN Partner events:

• Tuesday, 2/21, 10-11:30 am: Brookings – The Bank at Your Fingertips: The Challenges of Financial Inclusion in Latin America

• Tuesday, 2/21, 12 pm: Kaiser Family Foundation – The President’s Budget Request: What Does It Mean for U.S. Global Health Efforts?

• Tuesday, 2/21, 1:30-2:30 pm: InterAction – USAID Brown Bag Series: Implementation & Procurement Reform

• Tuesday, 2/21, 3:30-5:30 pm: WBCSD/ANDE  – Business Solutions to Enable Energy Access for All

President Obama’s FY13 budget request for international affairs manages to hits three critically important notes against a challenging geopolitical and economic backdrop:

• Funding: It maintains and in some places provides new funding for development and diplomacy programs that are taking on increased importance in post-conflict areas and other hotspots (e.g. the post-Arab Spring Middle East, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan), while also providing the resources necessary to protect the last decade’s unprecedented gains against poverty and disease in developing countries.
• Reform: It focuses on the importance of making U.S. foreign assistance more effective and accountable by: Calling for continued support of reform-oriented Presidential initiatives (i.e. Feed the Future, Global Health Initiative); Highlighting programs like the Partnership for Growth, a unique and potentially powerful new effort to drive broad-based economic growth through better coordination of U.S. agencies in recipient countries; and, Ensuring the continuation of reform and innovation initiatives underway that will strengthen the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), including USAID FORWARD, with its focus on procurement reform, and Development Innovation Ventures (DIV), which provides incubation support for promising new approaches to development around the world. These reforms are maintained, in part, by providing funding for the agency’s critical operating expense (OE) account. The Administration also rightly calls for the establishment of a “Working Capital Fund,” which would be used to cover the costs of implementing cross-agency reforms.
• Prioritization: It reflects a strategic shifting of resources away from places (e.g. Europe, Asia) where assistance is no longer as critical, while also making very difficult choices to reduce money in accounts where increasing efficiencies and burden sharing with partners and recipient countries can bolster the impact of every dollar spent. We look forward to hearing more about how the Administration will maintain the effectiveness of these programs even with declining resources.

While no budget is perfect, we believe the President’s FY13 international affairs request is balanced and constructive. Most importantly, it seems to us to be a reaffirmation of the Administration’s focus on reforming U.S. foreign assistance. We remain committed to working with both the Administration and Congress to see that these reforms have lasting impact.

See below for a list of MFAN Partner events next week:

• Wednesday, 2/15, 3-4:30 pm: Bread for the World – International Affairs Funding in FY13
• Thursday, 2/16, 7:30-9 am: US Institute of Peace – A Year of Turmoil: Arab Uprisings and Challenges of Reconstruction
• Thursday, 2/16, 12:30 pm: American Security Project – Entrepreneurship and National Security Roundtable
• Thursday, 2/16, 4 pm: Rep. Sam Farr – The 3-Ds in Latin America Briefing
• Friday, 2/17, 12-2 pm: SID-Washington – The Arab Winter and the Effect on International Development

It would be a mistake to think that the budget crisis has passed for America’s foreign assistance programs and institutions. Although the 2012 international affairs budget dodged the proverbial bullet, and the president’s 2013 budget request will likely be reasonably robust, this is all something of a mirage. The administration appears eager to keep its powder dry in advance of what will eventually be a high stakes showdown over sequestration at the end of the year, after considerable election-year dust has settled. The administration does not want to put significant assistance cuts or USAID Mission closures on the table now and give up that advantage later.

It is a reasonable negotiating strategy, although it may prove to be a poor management decision. Looking at our relative fiscal health as a country, it seems almost inescapable that eventually there will be steep cuts in our foreign affairs spending as part of some grand bargain (however begrudging) that includes both spending cuts and revenue increases. We will likely see few signs of this in the President’s budget request, which will  read very much as a status quo request where we see shifts in emphasis, but no dramatic headlines. For those of us who care about effective assistance programs and the health of the U.S. economy, this amounts to whistling past the graveyard and hoping for the best.

For those who care about selectivity and focus in our aid programs, the budget will likely be something of a disappointment. Officials at USAID have argued, including in this blog post, that they are being more selective and catalytic in their approach to assistance. These are important but insufficient steps. USAID continues to be spread too thinly across too many countries and over-represented in places like Latin America and Eastern Europe that should be on a faster track for graduation. USAID can only take a share of the blame for the slowness in adapting to new realities. Both Congress and the State Department have been slow to assent to USAID pulling up stakes in Latin America, and no ambassador ever likes to lose a USAID Mission under his or her general command.

These arguments may have been fairly esoteric during periods when the U.S. assistance budget was flush in the post-9/11 period. But if the administration is not more aggressive about putting money into fewer places where development is more likely to succeed in the immediate term, it could be left to deal with some wrenching and very disruptive changes when a top-line budget agreement is finally brokered.

As Connie noted in this recent post, U.S. economic assistance, including the major health, development, and humanitarian response accounts, goes to 102 countries.  One country – Afghanistan – accounts for about 10% of the total.  The top 15 recipients account for 40% of the total, leaving about $12 billion to be distributed to 88 countries. Very small sums are allocated for countries like Belize ($20,000) and Micronesia ($490,000), which begs the question of whether it costs more to administer the funds than the value of aid provided. Ambassadors argue that such aid buys political influence, but one is only left to wonder what exactly we as a country get from Micronesia on the political front that would not lead to the conclusion that this money is better spent on development programs that have a chance of securing real and lasting development progress in a higher priority country.

From all indications, we will see a real push in the budget to provide more support for the Arab Springcountries. How exactly this effort will be affected by the Egyptian government’s hidebound determination to shoot itself in the foot and prosecute American democracy activists remains to be seen. But if we are to glean any lessons from the disastrous assistance programs in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan over the last decade, it is that money should follow reform, not the other way around.

This is the year in which, more than any in recent memory, the wisdom behind our assistance will be judged most harshly.  The President’s budget should reflect an understanding that Congress will be scrutinizing aid partners, goals, and effectiveness, and that anything that doesn’t pass muster could drag the best of these programs down.

In his keynote speech, Shah emphasized the Administration’s commitment to transparency in foreign assistance programs, but pointed to a few areas for improvement. Emphasizing the importance of sharing new insights on aid with the rest of the word, Shah ultimately believes that all information on aid should be utilized by the broadest community possible. As a global leader, he asserted, the U.S. will go beyond the standards on aid transparency already in place. He said:

“In Paris and Accra, I think the United States was widely seen as, if we’re being honest, dragging our feet on transparency. Our goal going in to Busan was to lead, and of course when you get to a certain place after decades of continual process, you can’t flip the switch right away. But the commitments the President, the secretary, myself and others in the development landscape in our government have made is unwavering, and we will not only meet these international standards but we will, over time, put forth some of these new tools like the geospatial mapping that will really empower people in a fundamentally different way to play with data, connect with development challenges, meet and be introduced to institutions that are conducting projects and programs on the ground, and see the impact of that work.”

Shah added that USAID Forward—the agency’s effort to reform the way USAID does business by building new partnerships, with an “emphasis on innovation and a relentless focus on results”—will play a big role in implementing the Administration’s transparency agenda. Shah concluded his speech explaining that we should invest in local institutions and build local capacity in countries—setting in place tools to measure and track what people are doing with our investments—to help achieve the overall goal of our foreign assistance: self-sufficiency.

Christiansen was the first panelist to speak, giving a brief overview of Publish What You Fund’s first-ever aid transparency index and how the U.S. ranked across its various agencies; the index measured transparency across 58 international donors and organizations. She then described the process that PWYF followed—a set of 37 indicators—to measure the transparency of each agency, noting three major findings. The first is that, across the board, most information is not systematically published. Second, while information is being produced, it is not accessible or readily made available. Christiansen noted that basic information like project timelines are often not released and, even more frequently, information is scattered across websites that make it difficult to gather and analyze. The last major finding dealt with overall performance—some big donors performed well and others performed badly. Christiansen remarked that an agency’s ranking in the index was not necessarily tied to how long that agency has existed; she cited Estonia as an example of a small state that performed well on the index. On a related note, they also found significant variation among how agencies performed within the U.S.

The second panelist, Ingram, shared a broader view on U.S. development policy. He spoke to the policymaking process and the importance of transparency in that process. He also laid out the key elements to good government that transparency is responsible for, including accountability, ownership, good policies, and protection against corruption. He reinforced that these elements are not easily achievable and that they are accompanied by hurdles which include culture of control, time, public disclosure and indecision. Ingram then pointed to the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) as a great example of transparency in government. He said, “The MCC started with a mandate of transparency that was built into its DNA. What is the result? For me, the important result is that transparency has been an antidote for the MCC.”

Lastly, Kauffmann identified elements the U.S. government can focus on to support transparency and encourage development. He identified four key points to support his message. First, aid transparency matters and is imperative, particularly from a beneficiary standpoint. Second, the index matters—it must be taken seriously because eventually transparency will be ingrained in policies. Third, countries abroad rely on U.S. leadership on transparency. He elaborated on this point, saying “So the question of leadership and credibility abroad is crucial, particularly on the issues of foreign aid and we think that the issue of transparency, obviously, is clear.” Last, Kauffmann argued that the U.S. must follow through on adopting the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) because we cannot continue to preach good governance and transparency to countries unless we ourselves are credible on the issue of transparency.

Watch a video of Shah’s speech below.

See below for a list of MFAN Partner events next week:

• Monday, 2/6, 10-11:30 am: MCC – Indonesia: Investing in Innovation for Sustainable Economic Growth
• Wednesday, 2/8, 3:30-5 pm: Women Thrive Worldwide – Access Denied: Bridging the Gender Technology Gap
• Thursday, 2/9, 2:30-4:30 pm: CSIS – North Korea in 2012: Outlook for Food Security
• Friday, 2/10, 10-11:30 am: SID-Washington – Innovative Financing for Stronger Health Systems: Promise versus Reality

See below for a list of MFAN Partner events during the week of January 30, 2012:

• Monday, 1/30, 9:30-11 am: AEI – Rebuilding Lives, Systems and Confidence after the Arab Spring
• Monday, 1/30, 12-1: CAP – A Discussion on the Obama Administration’s National Security Policy
• Monday, 1/30, 12-1 pm: CGD – How Does Community Monitoring Improve School Accountability? Evidence from Uganda
• Monday, 1/30, 2-4 pm: PSI/GHC/MSH/UNFPA/Americans for UNFPA/Wilson Ctr – Addressing the Evolving Needs of Haiti’s Women and Children Two Years after the Earthquake
• Wednesday, 2/1, 10-11:30 am: CSIS – Peace Corps 50^th Anniversary
• Thursday, 2/2, 9-10:00 am: CSIS – The Role of Public-Private Partnerships in Development
• Thursday, 2/2, 4:30 pm: Rep. Farr (CA-17) – Foreign Aid & Hemispheric Stability Briefing
• Thursday, 2/2, 7-8:30 pm: Truman Project/Make US Strong – Let There Be Light Book Launch

The past year was undoubtedly a challenging one for supporters of global development and foreign assistance reform. Abroad, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the famine that continues to devastate the Horn of Africa, and democratic revolutions throughout the Middle East put new pressures on people, policymakers, and practitioners alike. On the home front, the foreign assistance budget faced the most severe budget cuts proposed since the end of the Cold War, putting in peril not just our programs but the momentum that has been created for strengthening those programs over the last few years.

Thankfully, Members of Congress made the right decision to protect the International Affairs budget and our foreign assistance programs. In the process, they have also begun to embrace some important reform concepts and initiatives. There are opportunities on the horizon for additional progress, but the landscape for budgets and reform will likely continue to be challenging.

Before offering our annual year in review on foreign assistance reform and some detail on MFAN’s priorities for 2012, we wanted to thank you, our partners, for your hard work, without which last year’s accomplishments would not have been possible. We ask for your continued and enthusiastic support in driving the foreign assistance reform agenda forward this year.

2011 in Review

Arguably the most significant progress toward reform came in the fall, as key Members of Congress – House Foreign Affairs Committee members Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) and Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) – introduced legislative language that would enshrine elements of the reform agenda in law. Rep. Poe’s bipartisan Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act (H.R. 3159), which currently has 47 cosponsors, calls for stronger monitoring and evaluation guidelines across all U.S. agencies that work on foreign assistance and greater transparency of those programs. Rep. Berman’s comprehensive draft bill, The Global Partnerships Act, overhauls the outdated Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and reconfigures the U.S. foreign assistance system to not only meet modern challenges but ensure that every taxpayer dollar is spent wisely and effectively to deliver maximum results.

To recognize this progress, MFAN created an infographic that helps make the case for why modern legislation is so important to more effective and accountable foreign assistance. We hope it will be a useful tool for all of MFAN’s partners’ educational and advocacy efforts this year.

Here is a list of some other notable milestones in foreign assistance reform over the past year, which we will look to continue to build upon in 2012:

• MFAN released a refreshed agenda – From Policy to Practice (FPTP) – that focused on implementing key principles of both the Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development (PPD) and the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR). FPTP prioritizes reform principles for which MFAN has advocated over the past several years, including: transparency and accountability, local ownership of development programs, a strong and empowered 21st century development agency, and modern legislation.
• MFAN published a set of eight Legislative Standards for Global Development to guide policymakers.
• The unveiling of a new framework for cross-agency engagement—the Partnership for Growth.
• Continued implementation of the Feed the Future initiative as outlined in USAID’s new evaluation policy, including a pledge to double the number of agricultural officers. (To learn more, see Bread for the World’s 2011 Hunger Report.)
• The formal launch of the Foreign Assistance Dashboard, which includes unprecedented data on U.S. foreign assistance programs overseen by USAID, the State Department, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), with other agencies involved in foreign assistance to come.
• Congressmen Ander Crenshaw (R-FL) and Adam Smith (D-WA) launched the bipartisan Congressional Caucus for Effective Foreign Assistance in May, which now has 19 members, at an event alongside USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah.
• Several provisions in the FY2012 Omnibus Appropriations bill, which passed in December, signal that Members of Congress are considering the structure and leadership of U.S. foreign assistance efforts and looking for ways to make them better.
• The establishment of the Consensus for Development Reform (CDR), which brings leading conservative and private-sector voices more formally into the reform debate.
• MFAN’s aggressive advocacy to protest debilitating cuts to USAID’s operating budget, which would have undermined internal reforms at the agency. (Read our statement and watch our PSA, “Don’t Cut off Your Nose to Spite Your Face” to learn more.)
• Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) became outspoken supporters of the importance of foreign assistance to U.S. national security.

Looking Ahead to 2012

In spite of the challenging and crowded landscape with the upcoming Presidential election and a somber out-year funding picture for development, we have strong opportunities to move the reform agenda forward. As the Administration continues to implement pieces of its groundbreaking global development policy, other reform-minded legislation could surface on Capitol Hill to ensure these reforms are institutionalized. Looking back on the accomplishments of the past year and keeping in mind the interests of our ever-expanding network of support, MFAN will focus on the following priorities:

• Passage of Congressman Poe’s bill. We have generated tremendous momentum for this accountability and transparency bill and will look to introduce a Senate companion.
• Implementation of the PPD and QDDR. Efforts to strengthen USAID by maintaining operational funding and monitoring the proposal to shift leadership of GHI to USAID will be critically important to this end.
• Country Ownership in Practice. MFAN will work to support community consensus around country ownership and, through our partners who work in some of the most difficult conditions around the world, strive to make sure this principle is connected to work in the field.

Our partners will undoubtedly contribute to this work while focusing on priorities of their own, including:

• The Center for American Progress will focus on how to make better foreign assistance decisions in an era of declining resources, the role of the Defense Department in foreign assistance, the future of aid reform in the next administration, and the integration of PPD-10 and the QDDR into policy priorities for FY13.
• The Center for Global Development will aim to identify effective foreign assistance objectives and programs within the context of an austere budget, as well as offer timely analysis on the development impact of major Presidential initiatives.
• InterAction will continue to advocate for effective foreign assistance reform in 2012. Key priorities will include procurement reform and country ownership.
• Oxfam America will continue to promote country ownership in U.S. development investments and policies. In 2012, they will be adding an emphasis on how economic growth can best fight inequality, by being inclusive, sustainable, and resilient.
• Save the Children will concentrate on local capacity building and civil society engagement and work with the administration to advance these goals in 2012.
• Women Thrive Worldwide will focus on country ownership, participation of local civil society, transparency and accountability, and the integration of gender and social analysis in State and USAID’s programs and policies.

We look forward to our continued work together during this critical time and remaining steadfast in our will to make U.S. foreign assistance in support of global development even more effective.

See below for a list of MFAN Partner events during the week of January 23, 2012:

• Monday, 1/23, 5-6:30 pm: CGD – Lessons for a Bi-Partisan Immigration Compromise
• Tuesday, 1/24, 8-10 pm: CGD – State of the Union Bingo at Commissary
• Thursday, 1/26, 2-3:30 pm: Brookings – Negotiating Humanitarian Access: How Far to Compromise to Deliver Aid