See below for a list of additional MFAN partner events:

• Tuesday, 5/22, 10 – 12:30: Brookings – Crisis in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel: The Cost of Late Response to Early Warnings
• Tuesday, 5/22, 2 – 3:30: Brookings – The Development Effectiveness Agenda in Asia
• Wednesday, 5/22, 10 – 12:00: CSIS – Advancing Local Content: Harnessing Business Investment for High Impact Development
• Wednesday, 5/23, 3 – 4:30: Bread for the World – Appropriations, Sequestration, and FY2013 International Affairs Funding

“Few decisions will have as large a global impact as the ones policymakers will soon make about the fate of the international affairs budget and the programs it funds, like the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and Feed the Future, which have helped improve countless lives over the last decade. Increased transparency, particularly on the part of the Obama administration, will go a long way toward ensuring that we come out of this budget round with the resources and momentum it will take to capitalize on progress toward development outcomes and reform.”

To hold the Obama Administration accountable for critical development reforms, MFAN launched a microsite, Policy to Action, which tracks how transparently key development agencies are implementing the reforms in DC and in the field. Click here to read more about MFAN’s push for aid transparency.

On Wednesday, MFAN will be hosting a panel discussion on a new CGD-CAP report, Engagement Amid Austerity: A Bipartisan Approach to Reorienting the International Affairs Budget. To learn more and RSVP, click here.

See below for a list of additional MFAN partner events:

• Monday, 5/14, 9 – 1:00: Wilson Center – Is the Arab Awakening Marginalizing Women?
• Thursday, 5/17, 2 – 3:30: Brookings – Green Growth Innovation for Developing Countries
• Tuesday, 5/22, 10 – 12:30: Brookings – Crisis in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel: The Cost of Late Response to Early Warnings
• Wednesday, 5/23, 3 – 4:30: Bread for the World – Appropriations, Sequestration, and FY2013 International Affairs Funding

The Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network invites you to the launch of a new report from the Center for American Progress and the Center for Global Development:

Engagement Amid Austerity: A Bipartisan Approach to Reorienting the International Affairs Budget

Featuring report co-authors:

John Norris, Executive Director of the Sustainable Security and

Peacebuilding Initiative, Center for American Progress

Connie Veillette, Director of the Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance Program, Center for Global Development

And distinguished panelists:

Gordon Adams, Professor, School of International Service, American University, and Distinguished Fellow, The Stimson Center

Andrew Preston, Counsellor for Development, Foreign and Security Policy Group, British Embassy

Moderated by:

George Ingram, MFAN Co-Chair

Wednesday, May 16

10:30 am – 12:00 pm

The Glover Park Group – 1025 F St NW, 9^th Floor

USAID’s effort to reduce its reliance on contractors and invest more directly in local government and civil society is referred to as implementation and procurement reform (IPR) and it is part of the broader USAID Forward agenda. Specifically, the agency plans to spend 30 percent of its funds through local actors by 2015 (up from 11 percent in 2011). In Oxfam’s Progress Report on IPR, they note that “USAID will boost its funding through host country systems to reach 25 country governments directly; they will cut out the middleman by hiring 576 local nonprofits directly.”

In a recent blog post, Oxfam’s director of Aid Effectiveness, Greg Adams, argues that a key outcome of IPR is tackling corruption and promoting human rights. He writes, “the US government has often bypassed local organizations and governments rather than working with them, missing opportunities to help local watchdogs root out corruption and strengthen democratic institutions, reducing waste, fraud, and abuse for the long-term.”

Oxfam is encouraging its members to take action by sending a note to Members of Congress, urging them to “follow the money.”

IPR has become a hot topic over the past several months in the development community. To learn more about the issue, from a variety of perspectives, read the pieces below:

• Save the Poor Beltway Bandits (Bill Easterly)
• The fight over America giving itself foreign aid (Tom Paulson)
• USAID shifts away from large contracts and looks to build internal capacity — prompting advocacy from development contractors (Dave Algoso, Find What Works blog)
• Banditry in the US Congress? USAID v. Contractors (Edward Rees, Building Markets blog)
• Haiti: Where has all the money gone? (CGD Views From the Center blog)

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Most pundits and politicians, when they envision the purpose of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) office, are likely to think first of its role in opening foreign markets to U.S. goods and services.  Indeed, when President Obama made doubling U.S. exports in five years an economic and foreign policy goal, USTR took the driver’s seat in meeting the challenge.

But USTR has another mission—one of advancing U.S. soft foreign policy objectives through trade.  When one looks around at the tools available for development and sustained economic growth in the lesser developed countries of the world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, two stand out.  They are trade and foreign direct investment (FDI).  But neither tool can be used successfully without the commitment of the private sector—businesses deciding that consumers’ needs can be met and stockholders’ investments enhanced by buying and selling in other countries; and investors concluding that a reasonable return on investment can be found in making an investment abroad.

It is apparent from the USTR response to MFAN’s query to various federal agencies inquiring on agencies’ efforts to implement the Presidential Policy Directive (PPD) for its Policy to Action microsite, that USTR understands the importance of these tools.  They note that they lead the U.S. government in promoting a range of initiatives designed to boost trade, including Generalized System of Preferences and the African Growth and Opportunity Act; they push economic growth through regional integration; they seek to advance development through new bilateral trade and investment agreements; they participate in other trade initiatives, including the U.S. Feed the Future program.

These initiatives and commitment on the part of USTR are both substantial and vital.  But they leave unanswered two other vital questions:  does USTR—or any of the government development agencies—fully appreciate the dominant role that must be assigned to the private sector if trade and investment is to grow in the least developed countries?  And do they understand that policies of developing countries are very often the major impediment to such growth—regulatory, tax, tariff, procurement and the unsanctioned but often choking prevalence of corruption?

On this score the answer is not quite so clear.  Clearly, USTR has initiatives to deal with these issues.  But do they get the priority attention they deserve?  Will the President and his representatives raise them repeatedly in G-20, World Bank, WTO and other international forums?  Will USTR expend its energy to convince Congress of the centrality of these questions?

The development community would do well to acknowledge the significant contributions of USTR to promoting trade and investment as tools of development.  But at the same time the community cannot be complacent.  It must hold USTR accountable.  It must insist that USTR understand that public-private partnerships are not about some grant or joint venture to achieve a public good, but about giving the private sector primary responsibility for increasing trade and investment for sustainable economic development.

See below for a list of MFAN Partner events:

• Monday, 5/7, 11-12: CSIS – Statesmen’s Forum: His Excellency Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations
• Tuesday, 5/8, 10:30-11:30: Brookings – Increasing American Jobs Through Greater Exports to Africa
• Wednesday, 5/9, 2:30-4: 3P Human Security – Afghanistan’s National Solidarity Program: Lessons Learned on NGO-government Partnerships Supporting Development and Governance

The U.S. is the largest global donor of foreign aid, yet several U.S. government agencies—with the exception of the Millennium Challenge Corporation—rank poorly among international donors according to MFAN partner Publish What You Fund’s first annual Aid Transparency Index 2011.

To get a better sense of how the Obama Administration is implementing measures to be more transparent, MFAN sent questions to a range of U.S. government agencies working on development issues; some of their responses were recently released on our Policy to Action microsite. As we asserted in our statement, “We now have initial evidence that reform is beginning to make our development assistance more strategic and effective. We urge Members of Congress to take note of this progress, particularly with budget negotiations underway.”

This week we’re kicking off a new blog series—the first connected to information on our microsite—that takes a critical eye to the specific agency efforts designed to make our foreign assistance more transparent and effective and attempts to assess the pace of progress in key areas of reform.

The first part of the blog series will include a piece by MFAN’s co-chair and former Congressman Jim Kolbe exploring the role of the U.S. Trade Representative in promoting economic growth in developing countries, and a piece from former USAID Acting Deputy Administrator Jim Kunder on USAID’s leadership role in the reform agenda. We have also invited several more of our Principals to respond more broadly to how the Obama Administration’s foreign assistance reform agenda is or is not bearing fruit.

And be on the lookout for MFAN’s upcoming transparency contest on Twitter—follow along @ModernizeAid—for the chance to win some swag!

In his opening remarks, Daniel Yohannes, CEO of MCC, presented the case for the MCC’s development model, explaining that since it began in 2004, the MCC has been on the cutting edge of development reform insofar as it has always held partner countries to high standards and demanded that its investments show a positive return. Frank Sesno, the moderator of the event and CNN Correspondent, reiterated Yohannes sentiments, claiming that while much of the day’s news is “dominated by backsliding and conflict, the MCC’s efforts represent what’s right about the world.” He emphasized the role of social media and technology, pointing out that the younger generation is capable of informing and mobilizing large groups of people through platforms like Facebook and Twitter. He said that the success of development efforts often hinges on what he called “the power of story,” the use of narrative to inspire people to action.

Rep. David Drier (R-CA) spoke on the successes of the House Democracy Partnership, which he has spearheaded since its inception in 2005.  The House Democracy Partnership collaborates with sixteen developing countries to help strengthen democratic institutions.  The Congressman praised the MCC for not being as wasteful as past U.S. foreign aid programs, and said that “international development is one of the most exciting areas of U.S. foreign policy.”  He also mentioned that the Arab Spring could represent a great opportunity for MCC to do more extensive work in the Middle East and North Africa.

Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Neal Wollin presented the MCC’s Corporate Award to Visa Inc. and spoke briefly on the potential of e-banking to drive economic growth in the developing world. Accepting the award, Visa’s Global Head of Corporate Relations, Doug Michelman, styled himself as the “unapologetic capitalist” of the event and explained that Visa’s interest in improving access to financial services in the developing world is both philanthropic and business-minded in nature.  He said that “people have a right to high quality financial tools,” and that Visa is doing its best to extend its services to everyone on the planet, noting that an important aspect of Visa’s development strategy is recognizing that needs and solutions to problems are often local in nature.   

Ritu Sharma, co-founder and President of Women Thrive Worldwide and an MFAN Principal, presented the MCC’s Country Commitment Award to representatives of Mongolia. She praised MCC’s focus on gender integration and development, saying that it has already led many nations to focus on promoting gender equality.

Lastly, MCC’s Next Generation Award was presented to Johnny Dorsey, founder of FACE AIDS and the Global Health Corps, by actress Minka Kelly with remarks from Michael Elliott, President and CEO of ONE. Elliot praised Dorsey, saying that his generation is “both terrifying and inspiring.”  He concluded by saying he has tremendous hope in young people to solve issues related to global poverty. Dorsey spoke of the importance of mobilizing today’s youth in order to solve the problems of poverty and disease.  He said that not only are young people doing good work today, but the fact that they are inspired to solve these problems means that as they gradually become the next generation’s leaders, they will remain committed to alleviating poverty and improving health worldwide. He closed by saying that in today’s world it should be considered unacceptable for so many people to die prematurely because of a lack of access to basic medical services.

See below for a list of MFAN Partner events:

• Tuesday, 5/1: InterAction Forum 2012
• Wednesday, 5/2, 12:30 – 2: SAIS International Development Program – Health system readiness for Universal Health Coverage: What does it take?
• Wednesday, 5/2, 2 – 3:30: Brookings – What Should Sustainable Development Goals Look Like?
• Thursday, 5/3, 3:30 – 5: Women Thrive Worldwide – May Gender Roundtable, All Development Is Local: Making US Assistance Work for Women