Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance Blog

 

Posts Tagged: psd

 

Dear Clinton, Jones, and Summers: Five Step Improvement Plan for U.S. Development

July 15, 2010

Posted by in Aid Effectiveness, Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance Tags: , , ,

Nancy Birdsall

Six months after the Haiti quake, many people are frustrated that the U.S.-led relief and reconstruction effort has not made more rapid progress. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and USAID Administrator Raj Shah are headed for Pakistan, where the strategic stakes are larger, development challenges even more complicated, and U.S. policy muddled at best. Eighteen months into the administration, the federal government remains abysmally organized to address Haiti, Pakistan and other development challenges. When it comes to global development, I’d give President Obama and his top advisors an A for strategic vision and a big fat F for failure to get on with it.

Hillary Clinton gave a great speech about development way back in January, pegged to the appointment (finally) of a new head of USAID.   A draft presidential study directive leaked two months ago said all the right things (development is about trade, climate and migration policy not just aid and the U.S. government should eschew doing everything in favor of what it can do especially well).  But objections presumably from the State Department about the proposed “architecture” (who is in charge of what) are apparently stalling its release – to the point where the passage of time risks making it irrelevant.  The White House incorporated the good vision in the leaked PSD into a press release on “a new approach to advancing development” issued at the  G8 –  so between Secretary Clinton and the White House strategy: An A for vision. Read More…

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Help Wanted: Ideas to Inform White House Presidential Study Directive on U.S. Development Policy

October 2, 2009

Posted by in Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance Tags: , ,

One month and four interagency meetings into the Presidential Study Directive (PSD-7)  to review and provide strategic direction on U.S. global development policy, what do we know about what’s going on?

We know the exercise includes all agencies with a stake in the development policy arena (which is many!).  We know that it is not a study of foreign aid, but the entirety of U.S. development policies, programs and tools.  We know the NSC is trying hard to base the deliberations less on opinion and more on analytics, data and experience from the field on what works. Read More…

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