Anne-Marie Slaughter: Any Secretary of State "Would Be a Fool to Give Up" the QDDR

For Anne-Marie Slaughter, architect of the first Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, what was most pleasing about the second one, released last week, was that there was a second one. ‘It’s hard to have a quadrennial review if it’s only one,’ she told me in the latest CGD Podcast.

In her time as Director of Policy Planning at the State Department, Slaughter was responsible for bringing to life Secretary Clinton’s vision of a four-yearly blueprint, the QDDR, that helped to plant development firmly at the heart of US foreign policy.

The QDDR is modelled on the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review, except the military’s version is enshrined in legislation.

So, Slaughter tells me, a second QDDR, suggests the idea has taken hold and will be hard for a future administration, red or blue, to kill off. ‘It’s a great opportunity for whoever the Secretary of State is to put his or her mark…it concentrates the mind on what are my goals,’ she says, ‘Any individual Secretary would be a fool to give up that kind of tool.’

In our talk Slaughter emphasized that the QDDR embodies the attitude that development ‘is not charity, it is not a moral obligation. It is in the US’ self-interest to invest in country’s prosperity and health and literacy and security.’

Now President and CEO of the New America Foundation, and a leading scholar on international relations, Slaughter spoke with me after delivering the annual Sabot lecture at CGD, that honors the memory of Richard Sabot, a leading light of development economics and a founding Board member. Previous speakers have included Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Lord Nicholas Stern and Lawrence Summers.  

Slaughter also made headlines in 2012 with a controversial article for The Atlantic entitled ‘Why Women Still Can’t Have It All’, which became the most read article in that magazine’s history. Given the development focus on womens’ and girls’ empowerment in recent years, I asked her if her views had changed.

‘This in many ways will be the century of finally unleashing all of human potential, not just male human potential,’ she told me.

‘I think in the US and in developed countries we need to focus less on women and more on care, more on the value of caring for others, whether it’s done by women or by men…..In developing countries it’s still a matter of more basic rights because really women still need to be recognized as full human beings.’

‘It’s a society-wide change that needs to happen. You cannot expect any human being, man or woman, to go all out on their career and raise children and take care of parents all at the same time. It just can’t happen. Men couldn’t do it. Women can’t do it.’