It’s Time for Foreign Aid Reform
Reverend David Beckmann, President of Bread for the World and co-chair of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network
Huffington Post, August 27, 2009
When Congress reconvenes after Labor Day, they will find an increasingly vocal and diverse, bipartisan movement pushing to make the non-military U.S. foreign assistance system more efficient and effective. Of our aid dollars today, less than half of one percent is given to poverty-focused development assistance. A more modern foreign aid system will strengthen our efforts to alleviate poverty and hunger, fight disease, and create economic growth for struggling people in developing countries.
The movement cannot be ignored. Supporters from the Obama administration, members of Congress, pastors, and concerned citizens have come together with a simple message: given the big foreign policy and economic challenges we face, we cannot afford piecemeal or patchwork changes. Neither can the world’s most vulnerable people. We need fundamental and comprehensive reform now.
The problems that have to be addressed are well documented. Our current foreign assistance system is a fragmented, duplicitous, and non-transparent network of programs. It is overseen by 12 departments, 25 different agencies, and nearly 60 government offices.
The U.S. foreign assistance system traces its roots to the Marshall Plan, a U.S. support program that helped rebuild Europe from the devastation of World War II. Despite the success of the plan, public support had dwindled by the late 1950s. To remedy the situation, President John F. Kennedy pushed for the passage of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. The law decoupled civilian and military assistance, attempted to depoliticize development, and created, among other things, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
His rationale for the law has haunting similarities to the situation we now confront: “…the existing program [is] bureaucratically fragmented, awkward and slow, its administration…diffused over a haphazard and irrational structure covering at least four departments and several other agencies. Its weaknesses have begun to undermine confidence in our effort both here and abroad.”
When Congress reconvenes after Labor Day, they will find an increasingly vocal and diverse, bipartisan movement pushing to make the non-military U.S. foreign assistance system more efficient and effective. Of our aid dollars today, less than half of one percent is given to poverty-focused development assistance. A more modern foreign aid system will strengthen our efforts to alleviate poverty and hunger, fight disease, and create economic growth for struggling people in developing countries.
The movement cannot be ignored. Supporters from the Obama administration, members of Congress, pastors, and concerned citizens have come together with a simple message: given the big foreign policy and economic challenges we face, we cannot afford piecemeal or patchwork changes. Neither can the world’s most vulnerable people. We need fundamental and comprehensive reform now.
The problems that have to be addressed are well documented. Our current foreign assistance system is a fragmented, duplicitous, and non-transparent network of programs. It is overseen by 12 departments, 25 different agencies, and nearly 60 government offices.
The U.S. foreign assistance system traces its roots to the Marshall Plan, a U.S. support program that helped rebuild Europe from the devastation of World War II. Despite the success of the plan, public support had dwindled by the late 1950s. To remedy the situation, President John F. Kennedy pushed for the passage of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. The law decoupled civilian and military assistance, attempted to depoliticize development, and created, among other things, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
His rationale for the law has haunting similarities to the situation we now confront: “…the existing program [is] bureaucratically fragmented, awkward and slow, its administration…diffused over a haphazard and irrational structure covering at least four departments and several other agencies. Its weaknesses have begun to undermine confidence in our effort both here and abroad.”
