USAID

USAID has launched a new site that allows users to contribute to the global conversation on finding “innovative solutions to social issues facing the global community within the fields of science and technology, entrepreneurship, and human development”.

The website itself is organized around a 3-day event called Global Pulse 2010 (held on March 29-31) in which participants will take part in a series of online forums structured around addressing some of the key problems confronting the international community. Topics range from “Empowering Women and Girls” to “Promoting Global Health” to “Advancing Entrepreneurship, Trade & Economic Opportunity”.

You can register and learn more about Global Pulse 2010 here.

On the Today Show this morning, newly confirmed USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah discussed the US’s response to the disastrous earthquake in Haiti and what the public can do to help. You can read more about USAID’s efforts here.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Today Dr. Rajiv Shah, the newly confirmed 16th Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) will be sworn in. USAID.gov will stream the ceremony live beginning at approximately 1:30 PM EST, which you can watch here.

You can read some background on Dr. Shah here and here.

We’ll be at the ceremony and will report back to you shortly after it’s concluded. Stay tuned!

While we were out, the US Senate confirmed Rajiv Shah to be the next USAID Director.

You can read ONE’s analysis of this pick here and here.

In today’s Roll Call, former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) urges the Senate to confirm Dr. Rajiv Shah as the new USAID administrator without delay for three key reasons.

The first half of his op-ed is below. You can read the full piece on the Roll Call site.

In most years, Senate deliberations over a nomination for administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, which leads American efforts to fight poverty and disease in the developing world, would pass without note.

Bill Frist, Special to Roll Call This year is different. American efforts to improve the lives of the world’s poorest people have never been so important. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted last week to refer the nomination of Dr. Rajiv Shah for USAID administrator to the floor for a full vote, which is expected soon. Dr. Shah should be confirmed without delay for three key reasons.

First, successful outcomes to our most pressing national security challenges, including the war in Afghanistan and instability in Pakistan, depend just as much on our ability to provide health services and economic opportunity to struggling people as on our combat operations or diplomatic efforts. Both President Barack Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy and the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Pakistan aid package make substantial new commitments based on this idea.

Second, the global fights against HIV/AIDS and other deadly diseases have reached a turning point. U.S.-led programs such as former President George W. Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, have helped poor families and communities move from a moment of crisis toward a moment of opportunity. We need to work twice as hard to maintain and build on this progress.

Third, the Obama administration and bipartisan Congressional leaders are in the midst of a transformative debate about how to make U.S. foreign assistance more effective and accountable. The unprecedented momentum in this debate is on the side of those who believe we need a new development strategy and a more efficient foreign assistance system that produces greater returns for recipients and taxpayers alike.

Read former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s full op-ed here.

In other big news from the Hill, yesterday the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously approved (by voice vote) Dr. Rajiv Shah to be USAID Administrator. During Dr. Shah’s testimony before the Committee last week, Committee Chairman Senator John Kerry (D-MA) noted the importance of the nomination:

Today, USAID may be our last major foreign policy agency to have its leadership named, but its mission—poverty reduction and sustainable development—belongs near the top of our list of priorities. In Rajiv Shah, the Administration has chosen a nominee who values new thinking, believes in ensuring accountability, and brings an impressive record to this new challenge.

Committee Ranking Member Richard Lugar (R-IN) agreed with his Senate colleague:

I have met with Dr. Shah and appreciate the accomplishments and perspective that he would bring to the job of USAID Administrator. His background in the medical field and as a leader at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation would contribute to his embrace of innovative approaches to development. His tenure at the U.S. Department of Agriculture demonstrates his ability to lead new initiatives in research and science. As the Department’s point person on Secretary Clinton’s global food security inter-agency process, he has worked to develop a coherent strategy that encompasses the efforts of a number of U.S. government agencies.

You can get an even closer look at last week’s confirmation hearing here.

A full Senate vote on Dr. Shah’s nomination is expected next week. We’ll keep you posted as more news develops!

On December 1, Dr. Rajiv Shah appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for his long-awaited confirmation hearing to lead the U.S. Agency for International Development. After nearly 10 months and growing impatience from Congress, the development community, and within the Executive branch, Dr. Shah was warmly received by the Senate Committee, but with a sense of anticipation over the challenges he faces in re-building a widely perceived weakened Agency and strengthening U.S. global development policy. In his opening statement, Committee Chairman John Kerry noted that USAID may be the “last major foreign policy agency to have its leadership named, but its mission – poverty reduction and sustainable development – belongs near the top of our list of priorities.”

Dr. Shah, a medical doctor, former Gates Foundation senior official, and currently the Agriculture Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics, emphasized throughout his testimony the theme of “development as a discipline” in which USAID has a strategic leadership responsibility based on five principles set out by President Obama:

• Support for country-led plans and priorities
• Narrow the strategic focus of activities to maximize impact
• Coordinate with a cross-section of stakeholders
• Leverage the resources and activities of multilateral organizations
• Maintain a sustained commitment with a “focus-for decades”

What else did we learn about leadership and priorities of the USAID nominee? Policy planning is a “critical tool of a development agency,” he said, suggesting that he intends to restore policy and strategic capacity that USAID lost in 2006. He also noted the need to reinvest in the monitoring and evaluation capability at USAID and the importance of integrating evaluation into program design. Dr. Shah also stated that development assistance and USAID budgets would be his responsibility, working with other partners and directly engaging OMB. Each of these points address key concerns expressed by former USAID Administrators and other global development experts as key elements necessary for a viable and well-functioning institution, but which had been weakened or lost at USAID in the past two decades. They are also issues raised in S. 1524, the Foreign Assistance Revitalization and Accountability Act, which cleared the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in November.

On the thorny question of reporting relationships, Dr. Shah emphatically emphasized that he would report directly to Secretary Clinton. For the moment, this sets asides concerns voiced by some Senators and many in the development community that the new USAID Administrator would not have a direct line to the Secretary, thereby weakening the stature and elevation of the Agency. His day-to-day working relationship with the State Department, including the status of the Bush Administration-created position of Director of Foreign Assistance, however, was not addressed, but will be closely watched by the development community as an indication of how much influence over development policy Dr. Shah will exert.

For many of the operational issues raised by members of the Foreign Relations Committee, the USAID nominee deferred to the outcome of two Administration reviews – the Presidential Study Directive (PSD) on Global Development and the State Department’s Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR). Given that Dr. Shah will assume his post in the middle of the PSD and QDDR deliberations, this is an understandable response. But in his position as the QDDR co-chair and the USAID PSD representative, he will immediately need to be a key voice for the “discipline of development” in both processes.

Next steps: the Senate Committee plans to vote on the Shah nomination December 8, followed by consideration in the Senate at any time following Committee approval.

10:05 UDPATE: Senator Kerry just began his opening remarks. You can watch live here.

In just a matter of minutes, President Obama’s USAID Administrator nominee Rajiv Shah will testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. You can watch the hearing live here once it begins. A copy of Shah’s testimony has also been made available, which you can read here.

We’ll have more for you soon.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has just issued a statement regarding Dr. Rajiv Shah, President Obama’s selection to be the next USAID Administrator. You can read ONE’s take on the pick here.

Gates Foundation statement:

The selection of Dr. Rajiv Shah as the next administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) demonstrates a commitment to providing strong, evidence-based, effective U.S. foreign assistance. We have worked closely with Raj for several years and know he will bring the same commitment, intelligence and visionary management style to USAID.

Raj was an important part of the foundation’s leadership and played a key role in our efforts on global health and agricultural development. In global health, he worked to promote the development and distribution of vaccines, which are the most cost-effective public health investments we can make. He also helped develop and implement a strategy aimed at breaking the cycle of hunger and poverty by providing small farmers in the developing world with the tools and opportunities to boost productivity, and build better lives for themselves and their families. We are confident that he will bring the same rigor, innovation and belief in the transformative power of foreign assistance and sustainable development to USAID, and we look forward to working with him.

The Obama administration today nominated Rajiv Shah, a medical doctor and current under secretary for research, education and economics at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), to become the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The announcement ends months of speculation and frustration about the still-vacant development post and comes on the heels of a Senate resolution introduced by Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Ben Cardin (D-MD) to empower and strengthen USAID that passed last night by unanimous consent.

Senator Durbin said of the Increasing America’s Global Development Capacity Act (S.355), “Foreign development assistance is as critical to America’s standing in the world as diplomacy and defense.” He added that “as our development assistance grows, so does the need for an influential and transformative administrator at USAID.” Dr. Shah’s nomination helps answer who may at long last lead USAID. Nearly 300 days into the new administration, members of the development community had grown impatient that the White House had yet to appoint an administrator for USAID despite strong campaign commitments from Obama to “elevate, streamline and empower a 21st century U.S. development agency.”

Senators Kerry (D-MA) and Lugar (R-IN), chairman and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had also sent a letter to President Obama in September underscoring the need to appoint a USAID administrator expeditiously. Representatives Gary Ackerman (D-NY), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) circulated a “Dear Colleague” letter to the entire House of Representatives calling for the naming of an United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator immediately. Members of the development community had even taken to voting on polls see here on who could fill the vacancy. Dr. Shah’s was confirmed by the Senate in May for his current position at USDA, which should help avoid further vetting or other delays on his way to being confirmed as USAID administrator.

Suffice to say, there is much applause for the long-awaited nomination of a USAID administrator. We are now eager to ensure there is a swift confirmation process so that the new administrator is in place as quickly as possible and able to inform and shape the host of global development and foreign aid policy efforts currently underway at the White House, State Department and in Congress. Senator Dodd, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has said:

If U.S. development policy and, by extension, U.S. foreign policy is to succeed in the long run, USAID must be an independent body that can advocate for what it knows best—how to effectively deliver and implement U.S. foreign assistance. It must have a meaningful seat at the table…It has long been understood that international development is a critically important aspect of our foreign policy. It was high time we matched this reality with a real and meaningful commitment.

Having a USAID administrator in place is obviously a huge step in the right direction. Making sure that he has the tools, authority, and resources to meaningfully engage in the Presidential Study Directive on U.S. Global Development Policy, the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, the bipartisan Senate Foreign Assistance Revitalization and Accountability Act of 2009, and the promised rewrite of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act by House Foreign Affairs Committee becomes the next task at hand.

See ONE’s press release with more reactions to the nomination.