Yesterday Johnnie Carson, Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of African Affairs, testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health to discuss U.S. government policy for sub-Saharan Africa. He emphasized the priority of the continent to the administration – as evident by President Obama’s trip to Ghana in July 2009 and Secretary Clinton’s 11-day, seven-country tour, among others – and the commitment to view Africa as a partner to the U.S. and the international community. His testimony outlined eight guiding principles for U.S. policy to Africa:
Posts Tagged ‘agriculture’
CAP Hosts Chairman Berman, MFAN Principal McPherson for Development Discussion
Monday, March 22nd, 2010
Last Thursday, the Center for American Progress (CAP) hosted House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) and a group of experts as part of the Center’s Sustainable Security series. Berman headlined the event titled, “U.S. Global Development Policy in the 21st Century: Implications for Reform.” Just last year, Berman was leading the reform charge on the Hill by introducing the Initiating Foreign Assistance Reform Act (H.R.2139) alongside Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL). The bill, which calls for a National Strategy for Global Development, now has 125 bipartisan cosponsors. Since then, Berman has begun the process of rewriting the outdated Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 – set to be released in the coming months. MFAN Principal Peter McPherson, former Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), sat on a panel alongside: John Norris, Executive Director, Enough; Eli Adashi, Former Dean of Medicine and Biological Sciences and the Frank L. Day Professor of Biology, Brown University; and Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin, President, Middle East Institute. See excerpts from Berman’s keynote speech and Peter McPherson’s remarks after the jump:
QDDR Blog Series: Women Thrive Worldwide on Gender Integration
Friday, March 19th, 2010
The fourth installment in MFAN’s QDDR blog series comes from MFAN Principal Ritu Sharma, president and co-founder, and MFAN member Nora O’Connell, vice president — both of the leading women and gender advocacy organization Women Thrive Worldwide. To see other posts in the series, click on the following names - George Ingram, Noam Unger, David Beckmann.
Gender and effective development: Not “separate, but equal”; it’s “together, but different.”
By Ritu Sharma & Nora O’Connell
Each year, the U.S. spends billions on global development – and that money does a lot of good supporting programs that provide vaccines, help kids go to school, and help mothers feed their families.
The problem is that while these programs may look good on their own, when you put them all together, the system is outdated, fragmented, and uncoordinated. Think of it like a computer you bought back in 2000 and are still trying to use today. You can get new add-ons – a new mouse, a faster modem, or a web cam – but the components don’t really work that well together and it’s a lot less efficient than you need it to be.
QDDR Blog Series: MFAN Principal Noam Unger on the Relation to the PSD
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
MFAN has launched a blog series on the State Department’s Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), the initial findings of which are set to be released any day. The QDDR will provide a piece of the blueprint for making U.S. foreign assistance programs more effective and accountable, supplementing other key actions including the Presidential Study Directive on Global Development Policy and bipartisan reform efforts in the House, where Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) is working on a rewrite of the Foreign Assistance Act, and the Senate, where Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-MA) and Ranking Minority Member Dick Lugar (R-IL) have championed empowering USAID and bolstering foreign assistance accountability.
A Note on Process – the QDDR and the PSD
By Noam Unger
The State Department and USAID will soon unveil the interim findings of their inaugural Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR). While the anticipated release is far from the endgame, it represents yet another salvo in an ongoing policy debate. Given the prominence of global development within the overall focus for the QDDR, it is expected that the actual report – due in the fall of 2010 – will have plenty to say on how to bolster State, USAID and the MCC to engage more effectively in poor and fragile states. As someone focused on foreign assistance reform, I will be reading the forthcoming QDDR interim report to gauge the extent to which this ongoing review may contribute to a coherent and effective approach to both stabilization and broader development efforts.
MFAN Principal: Without Leader at USAID, Development Work Being Farmed Out to Other Agencies
Monday, October 12th, 2009
In a recent piece on the Center for Global Development’s “Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance” blog, CGD Senior Policy Analyst and MFAN Principal Sheila Herrling comments on the growing trend of work-arounds of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as the agency lingers in its ninth month without an Administrator appointed by President Obama. Herrling points to a host of other actors currently taking a bite out of USAID’s development portfolio.
On the State Department: “Of course we can technically say the global development perspective has a leader in the Secretary of State, as she has responsibility for bringing the diplomatic and development voices, policies and programs to bear on meeting U.S. foreign policy objectives… But there are important development policies and programs outside of her jurisdiction – trade, investment, the multilateral development banks, etc.”
On the Defense Department: “In many respects, the Defense Department has become a leader on the development agenda… Attention, funding and human resources (military, diplomatic and development alike) are heavily focused on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and stability operations in Pakistan, under the control of military commanders and senior diplomatic envoys… In the need to respond to immediate threats, investments in long-term growth and institution building will be trumped by short-term imperatives.”
On the Agriculture Department: “Its point of entrée is Afghanistan, where Secretary Vilsack, apparently at the urging of envoy Holbrooke, has asked Secretary Clinton to transfer $170 million to USDA to play a more significant role in agricultural and economic development. Note that it (just as USAID is doing) would have to hire the expertise to both send to Afghanistan and manage the program here in DC to be able to meet the terms of that request.”
In conclusion, Herrling writes, “…what I fear we are witnessing is a decapitation and slow amputation of every limb of what once was a powerful, respected, mission-focused agency… Why, in the midst of two important development policy and structural reviews – the State Department Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review and the White House Presidential Study Directive, would further fragmentation and confusion be the way to go? Why, when today’s challenges are increasingly global in dimension and increasingly linked to global economic stability and development would the U.S. not be prioritizing an elevated, unified development-focused voice with the policy and budgetary means to credibly represent U.S. global development interests in the world?”
