The New Republic features CGD visiting fellow Andrew Natsios's paper on USAID and quotes CGD president Nancy Birdsall.
From the article:
"Now at the Center for Global Development, Natsios has produced one of the fiercest and most intelligent critiques of the U.S. government’s aid policies—one that is particularly persuasive because it is written by a man who has been both the administrator of American aid funds and one of the heads of an organization that has long been an important recipient of those monies ($344 million in cash and foodstuffs in 2009). Simply put, Natsios’s thesis is that the inevitable tension between accountability to the bureaucracy, as well as its appropriators in Washington, and good development practice in the field is now so skewed toward regulatory compliance that the U.S. global aid system is becoming ever more dysfunctional. Too often, Natsios argues, Washington’s diktat to its development specialists and its NGO and for-profit contractors “to measure and account for everything, and avoid risk” ends up fatally compromising sensible and effective action on the ground.”