Hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee - Foreign Assistance Reform in the Next Administration: Challenges and Solutions

Hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee - Foreign Assistance Reform in the Next Administration: Challenges and Solutions

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REP. ADAM SMITH (D-WA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for this hearing and for the tremendous panel that we have on this issue.

I do think that the organization at least the starting point is the key to improving the situation. We talked a lot about the different strategies out there and I'm sure if we picked, you know, all four of your and said go off, you write the strategy, it would be a little bit different for all four of you. But I think there is a growing consensus and an understanding, just because there's so much effort by our government, by NGOs on healthcare and education, on a bunch of different pieces, I think there's a lot of knowledge out there on what works and what doesn't work in terms of development and assistance. The problem is that chart that you have not just for but several hundred if not more of people devising strategy and working it across purposes.

So what I really want to delve into is exactly how that organization would come together and I guess when I've heard the idea of creating the cabinet level position for a secretary of development if you will. You know, my concern is the size of that list to get there. I think we'll probably have to work with an existing organization. And if not, just a matter of foreign aid, as Representative Kolbe has pointed out in trade, economic develop are critical issues. If you're looking at a development strategy, foreign aid is a piece of it and there are other elements.

So I'm really interested in sort of drilling down and look at the various agencies, USAID, Department of Defense, as we've noted is very involved in this, I'm on the Armed Services Committee as well and do a lot of work with the special operations command who's spending a lot of time doing development.

The question is how do you pull all of those pieces together? And just as a model would be a little bit on the counterterrorism side and what we did in terms of specifically targeting terrorists that threaten us. Prior to 9/11, you had a chart for that job that didn't look too much different from this chart. And by my reading, having worked on it, have actually done a fairly good job, now they've created a couple of new subagencies, of course the Department of Homeland Defense on that level. They've created some new agencies but more than anything, they've figured out how to cooperate together. You brought the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, SOCOM, all these different pieces now are coordinating better and they do have some people who are in charge.

So as we put together this organizational chart, I think looking at how they did that might be a pretty decent model.

But getting down to the specifics, what does it look like? Who is in charge of organizing this? And keeping in mind that having some control over the money is at least a critical piece of this. If USAID is sort of elevated back up as a subdepartment level not a, you know, separate department -- (inaudible) -- okay, you're in charge of the strategy, how do they then gather in all the other people on that chart and make sure that they're coordinating well and spending the money wisely? What is sort your individual visions on that?

MS. BRAINARD: Well, I don't think that USAID could conceivably do it under any current circumstances. It is really something that would have to emanate from a joint commitment on the part of the president and key members of Congress, this committee would have to be part of that.

It is doable if you look at the DFID example and we've spent a lot of time looking at that example because I think it is the one outside of the U.S. that provides the most relevant learning, I think you're right that within the U.S. there's also a host of examples that are useful. What was critical there again was just that agreement, both within the incoming administration that this was a high priority and that support from parliament.

Now in the case here, the questions I think would arise do you have legislation, authorizing legislation which would enable you to build around a single entity whether it's building around USAID, whether it's merging MCC and USAID, whether you're staring afresh and bringing those functions in, but that would be of course the great benefit of actually having legislation.

Executive branch can do something short of that, they can presumably elevate the head of AID to a cabinet level on a kind of executive basis for that length of time, but I don't think ultimately at the end of the day that you will get the institutional coherence that we are all seeking by doing a stop gap measure.

Now, you also asked about other functions that will never, should never reside in a development agency, even if it were to exist. Trade is going to stay outside, the Department of Defense is always going to have functions, particularly non-permissive environments or semi- permissive environments that it's uniquely capable of doing. The State Department will always have a foreign assistance function that is focused on political objectives. And so the answer of having an organization that is competent and operationally capable as a part of the answer, you need interagency coordination at the highest levels coming from the White House and we've never had that on this set of issues with the force and focus that we need.

REP. SMITH: Over time, and I just want to quickly point out, I think the National Counterterrorism Center that was set up was a pretty decent model for how you bring in different pieces because what they have there is they have people from the FBI, from the CIA, and they get to sort of work together in a close environment and build a working relationship. They don't get divided out in all these other places as was on that chart.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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