Washington Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran filed an interesting piece on June 19 documenting past failures of U.S. economic assistance in Afghanistan and how the new Administration is taking a different approach (Obama’s War: Starting Over on Development; U.S. Pursues a New Way to Rebuild in Afghanistan).

Chandrasekaran notes how President Obama’s new team in Afghanistan, led by Richard Holbrooke, is “shifting away from an approach employed during the Bush presidency that focused on generating discrete ‘success stories’ and creating long-term economic sustainability through free-market reform.” Agriculture will be the first sector addressed, with a strong emphasis placed on aiding farmers to increase production. Holbrooke aims “to fix what we inherited.”

All good and necessary. But the Obama Administration also needs to think globally. The foreign aid and development challenges in Afghanistan are present around the world where the United States will spend nearly $30 billion this year addressing poverty reduction, economic growth, reconstruction, and humanitarian crises. If the lessons of reform in Afghanistan are applied globally, the result will be a more modernized and coherent American development program that is better equipped to reduce poverty and disease around the world.

According to the article, the new plan in Afghanistan will use smaller contracts, align more closely with priorities of Afghan development organizations, and channel more funds through Afghan government systems. These measures will help to strengthen country ownership and build capacity, two fundamental principles of effective aid that should be integrated throughout U.S. aid programs.

Chandrasekaran notes that U.S. law obstructed efforts to help re-establish Afghanistan’s cotton production for fear it would compete against American growers. That law, enacted in 1979, is symptomatic of a foreign aid legislative morass based on a statute passed during the first year of the Kennedy Administration that has not been comprehensively reviewed or amended in decades. It is time to re-write the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and update related appropriation provisions to establish a rationale, flexible, and accountable legislative structure to guide U.S. foreign aid.

As the article points out, Holbrooke and his team have taken control of the reconstruction program from USAID and looked to other agencies to play a greater role in the effort. Some of these measures, at least in the short term, might be necessary to get quick results. But they also highlight the declining capacity that has been allowed to occur for years at USAID, where technical expertise and strategic planning have withered. Turning to the Department of Agriculture for more experts and utilizing National Guard personnel with farm experience may make sense right now. But it is a workaround that does not address the underlying problem of not having a strong, empowered, and adequately staffed development aid agency that can serve as the voice and direction for U.S. global foreign assistance efforts. Do we really want to utilize these highly trained and dedicated National Guardsmen to perform agricultural technical support? Is this the most efficient use of their talents?

Chandrasekaran maintains that during the Bush Administration, the White House and Defense Department favored quick impact, high profile projects in Afghanistan, like roads, schools and health centers. Absent were the long-term, sustainable, but less glamorous programs aimed at building Afghan capacity and addressing country priorities. This will change, according to the new U.S. plan in Afghanistan. But this change needs to happen throughout the entire scope of U.S. development, reconstruction, and humanitarian programs. A global development strategy, a new law, and a strengthened, capable development agency are key ingredients for the successful reform of our outdated foreign aid system. Afghanistan provides some new thinking and hopefully, some good lessons for the broader reform effort.

-Larry Nowels