Kerry offers bill to revamp foreign aid
Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and his Republican colleague Richard Lugar yesterday introduced a bill to overhaul the US system for providing global development aid.
The bill would make numerous changes in the way aid is allocated and strengthen the US Agency for International Development, which has withered in recent years as aid programs were shifted to other departments, including the Pentagon.
It is widely expected that Dr. Paul Farmer of Harvard Medical School, founder of Boston-based Partners in Health and a leading global health activist, will be appointed to head USAID.
The bill would require increased coordination and transparency in US aid programs, reestablish a bureau for strategic planning within USAID, and give more authority to USAID staffers in the field. It would also create an executive-branch council to evaluate aid programs.
Oxfam America, the Boston-based nonprofit relief and development group, welcomed the bill. Raymond C. Offenheiser, its president, said: “Over the last two decades, USAID has had its legs cut out from under it - its resources and staff have been slashed while more development capacity has been shifted to the Department of Defense. Along with rebuilding USAID, the US must shift its focus from development projects that meet short-term political and security goals back to long-term development goals that not only help more people escape poverty, but in the long run, create greater stability and good will for the US.’’
Many development groups have pushed the Obama administration to address the fragmented foreign-aid process.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said recently that she would work to elevate foreign development to the level of defense and diplomacy in US foreign policy strategy.
