Three former USAID Administrators on foreign aid

Source: "Arrested Development: Making Foreign Aid a More Effective Tool," J. Brian Atwood, M. Peter McPherson and Andrew Natsios,Foreign Affairs, November/December 2008. (Only the first 500 words are available free online.)

J. BRIAN ATWOOD was Administrator of USAID from 1993 to 1999, under the Democratic Clinton administration. M. PETER MCPHERSON was Administrator of USAID from 1981 to 1986, under the Republican Reagan administration. ANDREW NATSIOS was Administrator of USAID from 2001 to 2005 under the Republican Bush administration.

I quote:

Washington's foreign aid programs have improved in many ways during the Bush presidency. Official development assistance has increased from $10 billion in 2000 to $22 billion in 2008, funding two dozen presidential initiatives, many of them innovative and groundbreaking. At the same time, however, the organizational structures and statutes governing these programs have become chaotic and incoherent thanks to 20 years of accumulated neglect by both Republicans and Democrats in the executive and legislative branches. The president has elevated development to a theoretically equal place with defense and diplomacy in what is considered the new paradigm of national power: "the three Ds." But this vision has not been realized because of organizational and programmatic chaos. The Defense Department's massive staff has assumed roles that should be performed by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Pentagon's $600 billion budget has eclipsed those of the civilian agencies.

Comment: What a concise and accurate description of the current (dismal) status of the foreign assistance program of the United States. The next administration should make the reform of foreign assistance a high priority.

Remember that after World War II we had the most prestigious political leaders of the United States involved as leaders of the foreign aid program. Atwood, McPherson and Natsios were all acknowledged as serious and effective heads of USAID, but none of them approaches the national status of General George Marshall. Harold Stassen, director of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Foreign Operations Administration from 1953 to 1955 was a former governor and legitimate presidential candidate in 1952. I would suggest that the next administration should appoint someone to reform U.S. foreign assistance of comparable competence and national stature. I think both will be necessary to get the job done, and such an appointment would signal the serious intent of the White House. JAD