On June 5, MFAN hosted its third Hill staff briefing this year in conjunction with the bipartisan Congressional Caucus for Effective Foreign Assistance chaired by Representatives Young Kim (R-CA) and Adam Smith (D-WA). The focus of the briefing was the waste and inefficiencies of foreign aid disruptions over the past five months and what is needed to build a high-performing foreign aid structure at the State Department and other agencies going forward.
The briefing, “Building an Efficient and High Performing U.S. Foreign Assistance System for the Future,” brought together foreign aid experts previously serving at USAID, the State Department, MCC, and other agencies and think tanks. at this moment when the intervention of Congress is sorely needed to counter the White House’s proposed budget, rescissions package, and re-organization plan that all point to a hugely diminished U.S. role in development and humanitarian response. Panelists explored whether programs can rebound and highlighted opportunities for building strong foreign aid structures at the State Department. All panelists gave somber assessments about the impacts of the actions of the Administration over the past five months. Decades of institutional knowledge and longstanding partnerships in countries and regions are being decimated. As recent reports from Inspector Generals have also affirmed, the impacts will likely include tremendous waste and cost to U.S. taxpayers as the U.S. government is forced to hastily abandon overseas posts and employees with little transition planning.
Moderator Eric Johnson, Senior Director for Technical Strategy and Solution at MFAN member RTI International, framed these impacts with “Three Ps” - Programs, Personnel and Partnerships – all of which took years to develop, and by stopping so abruptly, will largely be lost. Hally Mahler, Vice President of Global Programs for MFAN member FHI 360, spoke about the impacts of the Stop Work Order on their 400 local partners, many of which had insufficient reserves to pay rent and other expenses. Amanda Catanzano, former Vice President of Global Policy at the International Rescue Committee, talked about shutting down therapeutic feeding centers for severely malnourished children virtually overnight in South Sudan and the real costs to human lives, human dignity, and the U.S. role in the world, for negligible money saved. Keri Lowry, previously Chief of Staff at the MCC, raised questions about how to restart the $6 billion of MCC programs currently on pause, which have taken years to start after careful selection by the Board with eligibility standards and country management set up. By July, the MCC will need to shut down these programs in dozens of countries, some with major infrastructure projects half completed.
Pivoting to the future of foreign assistance programming at the State Department, panelists agreed that the State Department has significant gaps in their capacity with a fraction of total staff positions remaining (300 of 14,000) with largely inadequate background and skills to run development and humanitarian programs. In many cases full USAID missions in individual countries will be reduced to 15 people in regional bureaus. Conor Savoy, Non-Resident Fellow, Center for Global Development and former Senior Policy Advisor, USAID, said the USAID funds designed to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative are gone, opening the space for China to build large scale infrastructure and replacing the United States’ partnerships and investments.
For the way forward, panelists discussed several actions by Congress that can make a difference, including:
To conclude, MFAN Executive Director Tod Preston called on all participants to stay engaged in these debates and encouraged strong Congress involvement to reject proposals that will further decimate development and humanitarian assistance as a key instrument for the United States’ influence, strength and values.
