Aid Effectiveness

U.S. engagement with the developing world can help to create a more prosperous and safer world where poverty is reduced, opportunities for growth are created, and human dignity becomes a reality.

However, to live-up to its most transformative potential, the current system for U.S. global development needs to be fundamentally reformed.  US development strategic objectives and engagement should:

• Be aimed at creating broad-based economic growth and reducing poverty which will require increasing the voice of development within Washington-based foreign policymaking processes and at field level. A key part of this is strengthening the mandate and resources of USAID.
• Be strategic and coherent which will require increased coordination between agencies and departments within the USG responsible for implementing or funding foreign assistance programs and with other donors and stakeholders.
• Be more responsive to local priorities — government and civil society — which will require increasing the responsibility and authority delegated to the USG, and especially USAID, in the field; decreasing the number of funding directives emanating from D.C.; and increasing the capacity and role of local institutions in directing and managing their own development.
• Be more accountable to US taxpayers and recipients which will require more transparency, an increased focus on development results rather inputs and numbers, accompanied by a decrease in burdensome bureaucratic reporting and regulatory requirements that reduce flexibility and unnecessarily burden development professionals.

Read a summary of Save the Children’s research findings and our recommendations to the Obama administration: Insights from the Field: Summarizing Save the Children’s Findings

Some progress has been made. The Obama administration has signalled a clear intention to put development at the centre of its foreign policy, alongside defense and diplomacy. Save the Children strongly supports President Obama’s recently announced Presidential Policy Directive on Development, including its recommendations to equip USAID with the resources and authority to be a true leader of the U.S. government’s development program, and its proposals for institutionalizing a quadrennial U.S. Global Development Strategy that will promote country-led development, a comprehensive whole-of-government approach to development, and better impact and evaluation of foreign assistance resources.

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Research

Save the Children has brought our field experience to aid reform discussions in Washington, DC. Since early 2008, we have carried out research in 11 countries, gathering evidence about the impact of U.S. foreign assistance where it matters the most — in the countries, communities and households of our partners in the developing world. We have consulted our field staff in offices around the world. We have talked to hundreds of the people across these countries — host government officials, donors, national and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and the end beneficiaries of assistance — who know best what U.S. aid looks like on the ground.

We have used these insights to inform an ongoing dialogue with the administration, Congress, NGOs and think-tanks, working in particularly close collaboration with the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network (MFAN), a coalition of international development and foreign policy practitioners, advocates, experts, concerned citizens, and private sector organizations working to bring about aid reform.

Planning for Locally Led Development: Save the Children examines ways critical development planning policies work in the field and how they might work better to support host country governments, civil society organizations and citizens’ leadership of their own sustainable development. The paper identifies ten critical steps for the U.S. government to take in order to more effectively implement locally led planning, such as supporting host country development priorities, which should emerge from participatory processes; partnering with in-country stakeholders, including local and international civil society organizations; and creating a U.S. Global Development Strategy in order to ensure U.S. development programs work together to achieve clear goals and objectives.

Planning for Locally Led Development: Reforming U.S. Development Planning Processes

 Supporting Local Ownership and Building National Capacity: This series of research has focused on the importance of our partner governments and their citizens having ownership of and the capacity to lead their own development. Many years of foreign assistance has taught us that development requires the active inclusion of many different groups in society — including government, civil society, the private sector — and that ideas imposed from the outside often fail to gain the same traction and longevity as policies that national governments and local people have had a stake in designing and implementing.

Our two briefs address these issues, exploring how the U.S. government can better support local NGOs and how a more flexible and country-based approach to aid mechanisms can build the accountability and capacity of host institutions. We’re pleased to see many of our recommendations reflected in USAID’s Implementation and Procurement Reforms.

Supporting Local Ownership & Building National Capacity: Working with Local Non-governmental Organizations
Supporting Local Ownership & Building National Capacity: Applying a flexible and country-based approach to aid instruments

Consultation and Participation for Local Ownership: What? Why? How? Save the Children’s brief makes suggestions for how the U.S. government can best strengthen its own models of engagement and consultation, while also providing support to national governments and civil societies to make their own processes more inclusive. For more, see our report:

Consultation & Participation for Local Ownership What? Why? How?

Save the Children’s Insights from the Field: Modernizing Foreign Assistance: Our research teams have travelled to a number of countries — Malawi, Ethiopia, Tajikistan, Haiti, Liberia and Bangladesh — gathering data, exploring best (and worst) practice examples of U.S. foreign assistance and development engagement in action, and examining the impact U.S. aid policies have on the governments and citizens of our partner countries in the developing world. See our reports:

Modernizing Foreign Assistance: Insights from Haiti
Modernizing Foreign Assistance: Insights from Liberia
Modernizing Foreign Assistance: Insights from Bangladesh
Modernizing Foreign Assistance: Insights from Malawi
Modernizing Foreign Assistance: Insights from Ethiopia
Modernizing Foreign Assistance: Insights from Tajikistan

Click here to look at a timeline of actions by the Obama Administration and Congress that laid the foundation for additional progress towards more effective, accountable US foreign assistance in 2010.

Events & Congressional Testimony

Save the Children brought together a distinguished panel to look into policy alternatives, including the UK model. Dec. 3, 2008.  Click here to view event photos.

October 14, 2010 — Save the Children and Women Thrive host a joint panel discussion on Country Ownership: Risks & Results. As part of our series on the importance of strengthening the sustainability of U.S. foreign assistance through increased country ownership of development resources, Save the Children and Women Thrive Worldwide held a panel discussion on Capitol Hill. The panel’s participants included Lisa Gomer (USAID General Counsel), Sheila Herrling (Vice President of the Millennium Challenge Corporation), Alice Burt (Researcher for Save the Children’s Aid Effectiveness Project) and Nora O’Connell (Vice President of Women Thrive Worldwide). Each speaker discussed the possible risks and results of bringing a country-led approach to development to scale within U.S. development programs, drawing on the perspectives of their organizations.

April 24, 2010 — Kathleen Campbell, Associate Director of the Aid Effectiveness Project, speaks at an World Bank Civil Society Forum event on Haiti hosted by the German Marshall Fund. At the event Strengthening Partnerships: Lessons from Haiti and the Way Forward, Kathleen Campbell acted as the respondent to comments made by a panel of high-profile speakers, including the Haitian Ambassador to the United States, Haiti’s Minister of Tourism and representatives of the World Bank, USAID, and the European Union Delegation to the United States. She stressed the role of NGOs in partnering with the Haitian government, and the challenges and benefits of the multi-donor trust fund approach to managing external resources for Haiti’s reconstruction. For a full write-up of the event, click here.

February 4, 2010 — Save the Children President, Charles MacCormack, gives testimony to a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on the reconstruction of Haiti after the earthquake. In his testimony, MacCormack stressed the need to take a long-term and holistic view of U.S. contributions to Haiti’s reconstruction. He urged efforts to strengthen the capacity of Haiti’s government, citizens and private sector through an integrated program of debt relief, aid, and trade, coordinated by USAID. For more details of Charlie’s testimony, click here.

November 7, 2009 — Save the Children launches its aid effectiveness research on Haiti, Liberia and Bangladesh. Save the Children’s final three country studies were launched on Capitol Hill to an audience of Congressional staff and development policymakers and practitioners. Polly Byers (Consultant) spoke about efforts to achieve the greatest developmental progress from U.S. assistance to Haiti, while Alice Burt (Researcher for Save the Children’s Aid Effectiveness Project) outlined findings from Liberia and Bangladesh.

May 18, 2009 — Save the Children launches its aid effectiveness research on Malawi, Ethiopia and Tajikistan. The first of Save the Children’s series of research reports into the impact of U.S. foreign assistance at country level were launched to an audience of Hill staff and development policymakers and practitioners. Alice Burt (Researcher for Save the Children’s Aid Effectiveness Project) outlined some of the policies and outcomes of U.S. aid to Ethiopia, while Fanwell Bokosi (Researcher for Save the Children’s Aid Effectiveness Project) and Carolyn Long (Consultant) did the same for Malawi and Tajikistan. A question and answer session followed. Click here to see photos of the event.

December 3, 2008 — Save the Children convenes a panel of experts to DFID to reflect on characteristics of the U.K.’s Department for International Development (DFID). Save the Children brought together a distinguished group of experts to discuss the characteristics of DFID that might be considered during aid reform debates in the United States. The experts were Richard Manning (Former Chairman of the OECD, currently Chair of the Institute of Development Studies), Caroline Sergeant (former DFID Tanzania Country Manager) and Bill Anderson (USAID Former Mission Director). They shared their insights with a small private roundtable with Senate Foreign Relations staffers and at a larger public panel discussion on the House side. Read our accompanying paper, Modernizing Foreign Assistance: Insights from the United Kingdom and click here to see more photos of the event.

Press & Blogs

December 16, 2010 — New U.S. Policy Review Will Elevate Civilian Power Abroad, Benefit Children in Need, Says Save the Children. Save the Children congratulates the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for their release of the first annual Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR). “With the leadership of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the QDDR reflects a serious effort to elevate the role of ‘civilian power’ in U.S. foreign policy. That’s critical for the wellbeing of children in need worldwide,” said Charles MacCormack, president and CEO of Save the Children. Save the Children is encouraged that both the Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development and the QDDR recognize development as a core pillar of U.S. foreign policy. What remains less clear — and what Save the Children looks forward to discussing further with the administration — is how these new arrangements will ensure that short-term political and security exigencies do not undermine longer-term development goals. Read the press release.

May 12, 2010 — Save the Children welcomes USAID and Obama Administration efforts to make development more effective. Save the Children welcomes the ambitious reform agenda for USAID announced by USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah in a May 5 speech. “We are very pleased to hear that important reforms are on the horizon at USAID. These will make the agency more agile and effective,” said Michael Klosson, Save the Children's Vice President for Policy and Humanitarian Response. For more of Michael’s thoughts and the full press release, click here.

March 30, 2010 — Save the Children’s Michael Klosson and Kathleen Campbell explore the principles of good foreign assistance on the MFAN blog. Michael Klosson (Vice President of Policy and Humanitarian Response) and Kathleen Campbell (Associate Director of the Aid Effectiveness Project) argue that as a matter of urgency the U.S. government should apply the principles of effective foreign assistance to Haiti’s post-earthquake recovery. Their recommendations include: restoring USAID’s policy and budgetary capacities; increasing the role of in-country U.S. government personnel in strategic planning; ensuring that USAID has a voice at the table when all development issues are discussed; and creating innovative ways to work with a range of American stakeholders. Read the blog post.

February 2, 2010 — Save the Children praises Obama administration's budget request for Foreign Assistance. Save the Children commends President Obama on his proposed fiscal year 2011 budget submission that significantly increases the U.S. government’s investment in maternal, newborn and child health, and nutrition. “The President's budget request, coupled with release of his Global Health Initiative consultation document, marks a very good day for everyone working to prevent the needless deaths of millions of women and children in the developing world,” said Charles MacCormack, president and CEO of Save the Children. Read the press release

January 29, 2010 — Charlie MacCormack, President of Save the Children, writes in The Huffington Post about the U.S. Government response to the Haiti earthquake. MacCormack explores the short-term needs of the emergency response to the disaster in Haiti, drawing on Save the Children’s report, Modernizing Foreign Assistance: Insights from Haiti, to make recommendations on key reforms to rebuild Haiti in the longer-term. Read the full article

November 12, 2009 — Save the Children commends President Obama for nominating Dr Rajiv Shah to serve as Administrator of USAID. “Save the Children is very encouraged by the nomination of Rajiv Shah," said Charles MacCormack, President and CEO of Save the Children. "Dr. Shah’s expertise and accomplishments in global health, agriculture and science will enable him to provide a strong and unique voice for development at our nation’s foreign policy table.” Dr. Shah's nomination comes at a moment of great opportunity to modernize the nation’s fragmented global development policy. Read the press release

Get Involved

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 our CEO Charlie MacCormack as a key principal, has urged the Obama Administration and Congress to take critical steps necessary to make U.S. development efforts more effective and appropriate to the global challenges facing us today.

Sign on to MFAN’s Open Letter to President Obama on the U.S. Commitment to Global Development to urge the president to create the first ever Global Development Strategy and to partner with Congress to rewrite the existing Foreign Assistance Act.

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Last Updated September 2011