Current Advocacy Campaigns
Foreign Assistance for the 21st Century
It has been nearly 50 years since the Foreign Assistance Act was passed and the architecture of U.S. foreign aid has become more cumbersome, antiquated and fragmented with each passing year. The doubling of U.S. foreign assistance funding over the past eight years, largely funneled or earmarked through new institutional structures, has not resulted in a doubling of impact. U.S. foreign assistance must be modernized and streamlined in order to truly fulfill its promise to reduce poverty, enhance development throughout the world, and contribute to the well-being of the vulnerable children that Save the Children serves.
Save the Children USA and UK are working together, with the support of a Hewlett Foundation grant, to enhance the effectiveness of U.S. Government aid at the country level by promoting Foreign Assistance reform at the national level. We also seek to elevate development within US Government policymaking to a role commensurate with diplomacy and defense.
Save the Children is part of a coalition of international development and foreign policy practitioners, advocates, and experts, concerned citizens, and private sector organizations working to bring about substantial reform. The Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network (MFAN), with Charlie MacCormack as a key principal, has identified four priority actions for serious reform.
New Day - New Way
U.S. Foreign Assistance for the 21st Century:
Attempts to overhaul the foreign aid infrastructure have been tried before with little success. However, recent bi-partisian efforsts have re-energized legislative efforts for meaningful foreign assistance reform in the coming Congress. A few notable developments: Congress has held a dozen Congressional hearings on the question of foreign aid; House Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) announced plans to rewrite the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961; President-elect Barack Obama declared that his administration will make Development a top priority. The recent rise in food and fuel prices, coupled with turmoil in the financial markets, make it all the more important that we maximize the impact of U.S. assistance funds in supporting vulnerable countries and communities.
Save the Children can make an important contribution to this effort by bringing our field experience to bear on the debates in Washington as the process unfolds into the new Administration and Congress. As part of the project, our researchers are traveling to select countries (Malawi in August, Ethiopia in November and Tajikistan in December with more to come) to examine the impact of U.S. foreign aid in the field with a view to bringing back analysis, anecdotes, and field facts to help move the aid reform agenda forward.
Click here to view MFAN's letter from influential leaders in development & foreign policy to President-Elect Obama's transition team along with specific transition recommendations
Click here to watch an engaging, clever one-minute video on foreign aid.
"The next president will have to dramatically overhaul the foreign aid establishment during his first year. The
Frequently Asked Questions
What is aid effectiveness?
Aid effectiveness describes how well development aid or assistance — in the case of the U.S., money appropriated by Congress to agencies like the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and organizations like the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), for example — is in achieving economic and human development. In other words, it describes the quality of implementation of foreign assistance.
What does it mean to modernize foreign assistance?
The current system under which foreign aid is allocated by USAID and other government-funded agencies and programs has its roots in the years following World War II. The Foreign Assistance Act, signed into law in 1961, established USAID and still guides U.S. foreign assistance programs, despite the Cold War framework under which it was enacted. The world has changed dramatically since 1961, though, and the needs and abilities of donor and recipient countries have evolved as well. Modernizing foreign assistance means creating a system allowing us to use our 21st-century capabilities to tackle the ever-greater needs in the developing world.
Why is it in the United States' national interest to change its system?
The Bush Administration raised rhetorically the importance of development to be on par with diplomacy and defense, together known as the "three Ds." Today’s world is a complex one in which the three Ds are significantly intertwined, and investing in development can be a cost-effective, long-term solution to a number of global problems affecting all three. By investing in development, we help to increase world stability, which in turn helps ensure U.S. security. As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has said, "in the campaign against terrorist networks and other extremists… we cannot kill or capture our way out of the problem." This is where development can lay the foundation for a stable future, provided the largely-disjointed U.S. aid effort is unified and strengthened.
What is the best way to modernize foreign aid and strengthen the U.S. aid effort?
Modernizing foreign assistance should take place through four different actions:
• Develop a national strategy for global development;
• Reach a “grand bargain” between the Executive Branch and Congress on management authorities; and plan, design, and enact a new Foreign Assistance Act;
• Streamline the organizational structure and improve organizational capacity by creating a Cabinet-level Department for Global Foreign Assistance Act; and increased funding for and accountability of foreign assistance. The Assistance Act, signed into law in 1961, established USAID and still guides U.S. foreign assistance programs, despite the Cold War framework under which it was enacted. Click here to read MFAN’s complete proposal and learn more about the network.
system allowing us to use our 21st-century capabilities to tackle the ever-greater needs in the developing world.
What can I do?
There are several ways in which you can get involved. Sign up for the MFAN newsletter, which will keep you abreast of developments in reaching our goal, as well as informing you when MFAN needs the help of individual citizens. You can also write to your congressman about the importance of modernizing foreign aid. Reform will require Congressional engagement, and the best way of ensuring this is by showing that constituents are interested.
If you have more questions, please contact Save the Children’s Public Policy and Advocacy Department at bwackenreuter@savechildren.org.
