Oxfam
Monks head online in Phnom Penh. Photo courtesy of Flickr user Magalie L’Abbé under a Creative Commons license.
Have you checked out foreignassistance.gov yet? It’s kind of a big deal. It may seem like just another government data website to jaded Washington types, but it’s actually a big deal for poor people in aid-dependent countries. The new website is commonly referred to as the “Aid Dashboard.”
It’s the follow-through on a promise made in July when the Obama Administration unveiled its plan to meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. The Aid Dashboard aims to give the public a window into how and where US development dollars are spent. And it’s not just a mash of numbers; the Dashboard uses dynamic graphics to allow stakeholders to picture US foreign assistance investments easily by geography, sector or time period.
So, what gives it the potential to make it a big deal? The point is what it can do. You remember those NBC public service announcements, “The More You Know”? The more people in poor countries who know what donors are up to in their own backyards, the more they can hold their governments responsible for how they use the aid money that comes in. Citizen watchdog groups, journalists and local businesses can use this comprehensive information to blow the whistle on aid dollars that have disappeared or weren’t used to meet their needs. The more citizens know, the more they can fight corruption themselves.
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Oxfam America’s Porter McConnell shares some news on USAID Forward.
Remember when I told you about the sexy procurement reforms to our foreign assistance that put poor people and their governments in charge of fighting poverty?
The procurement reform just got some company. Recently, USAID formally announced USAID Forward, a bundle of reforms to make USAID more effective.
The reforms are a direct result of demands from US development professionals, citizens of countries where we provide assistance, and governments trying to do right by their people. When we visited Afghanistan, Cambodia, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, and southern Sudan, here’s what people told us:
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Oxfam America’s Porter McConnell shares a blog post with us about a “little-known process called IPR.” We hope you have as much fun reading it as we did!
What if I told you that a little-known bureaucratic process called “Implementation and Procurement Reform,” IPR for short, was one of the sexiest victories for poor people in years? Bear with me as I stick this through the wonk-speak translator:
Implementation /imp-le-men-ta-shun/ n., everything the US Agency for International Development (USAID) does to fight poverty.
Procurement /pro-kür-ment/ n., how USAID gets what it needs to fight poverty.
Reform /re-form/ n., changes to how aid is delivered so poor people get the help they need most.
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Oxfam America’s Porter McConnell with her take on President Obama’s speech today:
President Obama knocked it out of the park in his address to the UN MDG Summit this afternoon. We asked for a “barn burner of a speech”, and boy did we get one.
Some excerpts:
“So let’s put to rest the old myth that development is mere charity that does not serve our interests. And let’s reject the cynicism that says certain countries are condemned to perpetual poverty.
“We also recognize that the old ways will not suffice…After all, no country wants to be dependent on another. No proud leader in this room wants to ask for aid. And no family wants to be beholden to the assistance of others.
“Put simply, the United States is changing the way we do business.
“For too long, we’ve measured our efforts by the dollars we spent and the food and medicines we delivered. But aid alone is not development.
“Consider the millions of people who have relied on food assistance for decades. That’s not development, that’s dependence, and it’s a cycle we need to break. Instead of just managing poverty, we have to offer nations and peoples a path out of poverty.
“So we will seek partners who want to build their own capacity to provide for their people.
“Because the days when your development was dictated in foreign capitals must come to an end.
And this can be our plan—not simply for meeting our Millennium Development Goals, but for exceeding them, and then sustaining them for generations to come.”
Some concrete actions to match those words, from the policy released today:
- A new policy for how we spend our foreign aid dollars: “Today, the President signed a Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development, the first of its kind by a U.S. administration. The directive recognizes that development is vital to U.S. national security and is a strategic, economic, and moral imperative for the United States.”
- A way to make deliberate choices: “Formulate a U.S. Global Development Strategy for approval by the President every four years.”
- Country ownership: “Place greater emphasis on building sustainable capacity in the public sectors of our partners and at their national and community levels to provide basic services over the long-term.”
- Coordination among agencies, led by National Security Council: “Establish an Interagency Policy Committee on Global Development, led by the National Security Staff and reporting to the NSC Deputies and Principals, to set priorities, facilitate decision-making where agency positions diverge, and coordinate development policy across the executive branch, including the implementation of this PPD.”
- A new partnership with Congress: “In forging this new partnership, we will seek greater flexibilities, including a reduction in earmarks and the ability to reallocate funding from less to more effective programs, while committing departments and agencies to a much higher standard of accountability for results.”
- A seat for development at the table: “To ensure that development expertise is brought to bear in decision making, the Administrator of USAID will be included in meetings of the National Security Council, as appropriate.” [Next step will be to make this permanent.]
Tomorrow, we will hold the president accountable for delivering on his words today. But tonight, we’re joining our friends and colleagues around the world to celebrate.
-Porter McConnell, Aid Effectiveness Team, Oxfam America
Porter McConnell of Oxfam America previews President Obama’s speech tomorrow:
This week, world leaders are meeting in New York to plot a path to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. President Obama is giving a speech at the summit on Wednesday. The question is, will this be just another speech, or will this be the speech of a lifetime?
The Administration first released its plan for the US role in meeting the MDGs in July. This plan is a step in the right direction, but one billion poor people are counting on us to turn those words into action. The President will need to confront some tough choices. It’s time for the American people to hold him accountable for concrete actions to help people around the world beat poverty once and for all.
Thankfully, the US isn’t in this alone: President Obama needs to call on other world leaders to make their own robust plans, and their citizens need to hold them to it. But after world leaders have all packed their bags and returned home, the real work begins. The only way to turn the corner on the MDGs is for the Administration to undertake tough reforms to make our aid work for poor people.
The Administration has made a start: country ownership is at the heart of the Global Health Initiative, Feed the Future, and USAID’s Implementation & Procurement Reform. But to take country ownership from lip service to reality, the Administration and Congress must fix the tangled web of competing agendas that undermine ownership at every turn. That means an overhaul of our Cold-War era foreign assistance legislation, and a seat for USAID on the National Security Council, so our efforts to fight global poverty aren’t diverted to serve narrow diplomatic and security ends. As Ethiopian Minister of Health and Global Fund Chair Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus remarked to policymakers this summer, “People say country ownership is confusing. It’s not confusing, it’s actually really clear. What’s missing is the commitment to implement it.”
We must send the message to President Obama that now is not a moment for a symbolic speech, now is the time for urgent action. If the global economic crisis has taught us anything, it’s that global poverty is a fundamental threat to our shared efforts to build a secure, prosperous and just world. Together we must beat global poverty, and the only way we do that is by recognizing that poor people themselves are critical to the solution.
-Porter McConnell, Aid Effectiveness Team, Oxfam America
Oxfam America’s Porter McConnell shares a new report on U.S. foreign aid.
A new Oxfam America report released today suggests that U.S. foreign aid hasn’t always done the best job of supporting capacity building in poor countries. When we rely on U.S. personnel and systems instead of relying on a country’s own people and systems, we forget that fighting poverty starts with helping people in poor countries invest in their own human capital, organizations and institutions. And we forget that donors don’t do development, people develop themselves.
The report outlines where U.S. foreign aid needs improvement, and concrete steps to make those improvements.
Here’s what happens when US foreign aid doesn’t build country capacity:
It costs more. In Liberia, a U.S. consultant costs the government anywhere from nearly twice as much as the competition. In Ethiopia, 30 to 40 percent of aid for capacity building on HIV/AIDS stays with U.S. organizations.
It’s unsustainable. In Kenya, the U.S. uses its own organizations to manage an indoor residual spraying program for malaria, instead of working with the government. Says a health official, “You make it harder for [Kenyans] to do it for [ourselves] the next time. And with malaria control, annual spraying isn’t the only thing you do—[fighting malaria is] about monitoring as well.”
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China, South Africa Sign Deals To Deepen Ties In Resources, Energy — China and South Africa on Tuesday signed a raft of commercial deals in mining, finance, nuclear energy and other sectors. The deals were made during a visit to China by South African President Jacob Zuma. China is South Africa’s top trading partner, and South Africa’s economy–more developed than many others in the region–has been a focal point of a broader Chinese push into the continent aimed at securing resources and expanding China’s international clout. (Wall Street Journal)
At Least 33 People Killed in Attack on Somali Hotel — Somali insurgents disguised as police officers stormed a Mogadishu hotel on Tuesday morning and opened fire, killing at least 33 people, including 6 lawmakers, in one of the deadliest attacks in months, Somali officials said. The hotel attack seems to be part of a bigger offensive that insurgents opened on Monday against government forces and shows that the insurgents have figured out how to infiltrate nearly every inch of Mogadishu, even within the parts of the city that the government claims it firmly controls. (New York Times)
Transparency on extractive industries will help beat corruption — Frank Vogl of Transparency International writes that the requirement of oil, gas and mining companies to report their financial dealings with African governments, a new provision included in the recently passed U.S. financial legislation, may now lead to a quantum leap in fighting corruption and bringing needed transparency to such industries. (Financial Times, letter by Frank Vogl)
Billions of aid dollars buy U.S. little goodwill in Pakistan — The U.S. government has provided about $18 billion in civilian and military aid to Pakistan since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Yet according to a Pew Research Center survey released last month, half of Pakistanis believe the United States gives little to no assistance here. For Obama administration officials, that’s a source of deep anxiety — and frustration. U.S. officials say aid money is making a positive impact, if not always a widely noticed one. (Washington Post)
Aid agency warns of ‘double disaster’ for Niger — Niger has been hit by a double disaster as recent floods compound an existing food crisis, the UK aid agency Oxfam said this week. Aid workers are struggling to help thousands of people affected by the floods which have hit many areas of West and Central Africa. Oxfam says the situation is stretching resources to the limit as it also tries to respond to the food shortages. Nearly eight million people, or half the population, are already facing hunger because of failed harvests. (BBC News)
Rwandan Rebels Raped at Least 179 Women in Congo, Humanitarian Officials Say — A mob of Rwandan rebels raped at least 179 women last month during a weekend raid on a community of villages in eastern Congo, the United Nations said Monday. The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or F.D.L.R., was blamed for the attack. The F.D.L.R. is an ethnic Hutu rebel group that has been terrorizing the hills of eastern Congo for years, preying on villages in a quest for the natural resources beneath them. (New York Times)
