Sarah Jane Staats from the Center for Global Development wrote this piece about Tuesday big foreign aid hearing on the Hill.

A proposal calling for what amounts to a complete makeover of U.S. foreign assistance was launched Tuesday at a packed event on Capitol Hill featuring remarks from Congressman Howard Berman (D-CA), Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE), and Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D-NY). As Porter McConnell & Erin Erlenborn flagged in previous ONE blog posts, New Day, New Way: U.S. Foreign Assistance for the 21st Century Assistance for the 21st Century is an urgent call for reform from members of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network, a group of the prominent nonprofit leaders, think-tank experts, and academics co-chaired by CGD senior fellow Steve Radelet and Gayle Smith, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

New Day, New Way argues that foreign assistance is a key element of U.S. foreign policy and the national interest but needs a dramatic overhaul to meet today’s global challenges. It urges the next president, Congress, policymakers and the American people to take specific steps to bring U.S. foreign assistance up to date. All three legislators attending expressed similar views.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) said he was energized and “flabbergasted” at the large turnout for the event – more than 250 people packed into the Rayburn Building’s House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing room. “I will take a very serious review [of this report],” he said. “It is my firm belief that this won’t just be another process of stating how we want the world to be. It will be a pick-up-and-run-with-it report,” he added.

Sen. Hagel (R-NE), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said New Day, New Way covered “the most important issues that will face our country and world over the next 20 to 25 years” and that the reforms it advocates could help to reintroduce America to the world. “I have never believed that foreign assistance should be viewed as welfare,” he said. “It is an investment in America’s role in the world; an investment in stability in the world; an investment in a more peaceful world; and clearly in the interests of America to do this wisely.”

Rep. Nita Lowey, chairwoman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee for Foreign Operations, welcomed the report and the remarks of her congressional colleagues, saying that development issues are more critical than ever to U.S. foreign policy. “It is in the interest of the United States of America to pursue rigorous aid and development programs,” she said, adding that in order for this to happen “the diffusion of resources and responsibilities across agencies and departments must be examined.”

The launch was just the opening salvo; now comes the real work on hashing out the details of what a new foreign assistance act would look like, what would be part of a national security strategy, what would go into a cabinet-level agency for global development, and how to improve resource allocation and accountability. And perhaps more importantly, members of Congress and the presidential campaigns need to continue hearing from the American people that there is support and the political will to tackle these issues.

More info:

• New Day, New Way: U.S. Foreign Assistance for the 21st Century Proposal
• Proposal Signatories
• Politico Article
• Chronicle of Philanthropy Article

-Sarah Jane Staats, Center for Global Development