First the Army, Now Ag: Who Says It's Hard to Find a Leader for USAID?

This Saturday the world will observe the International Day of the Eradication of Poverty.  Here in the U.S., we will likely be marking it in the absence (still!) of a USAID Administrator charged with the responsibility of voicing the development implications of and strategies for U.S. engagement in the world.  Almost one year into an administration that ran on a serious, integrated, elevated global development platform, there is still no leader for that important agenda.   Or is there?Is it State?Of course we can technically say the global development perspective has a leader in the Secretary of State, as she has responsibility for bringing the diplomatic and development voices, policies and programs to bear on meeting U.S. foreign policy objectives.   The bulk of U.S. foreign assistance is also under her domain as the USAID Administrator reports to her and she chairs the board of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (which doesn’t give her ultimate authority but certainly the potential for powerful steerage).  Structural decisions such as the role of Deputy Secretary Jack Lew being put in charge of all diplomatic and development resources, as well as the chair of the President’s interagency Global Health Initiative certainly put State in the driver’s seat of foreign assistance policy. But there are important development policies and programs outside of her jurisdiction – trade, investment, the multilateral development banks, etc.Or Defense?In many respects, the Defense Department has become a leader on the development agenda.  There has been a sharp increase in DOD funding and authority for non-kinetic security assistance initiatives since 2002. Indeed, it manages a large share of U.S. official development assistance (16% in FY2007).  Attention, funding and human resources (military, diplomatic and development alike) are heavily focused on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and stability operations in Pakistan, under the control of military commanders and senior diplomatic envoys.  USAID has a voice and is playing a role in those arenas, but one that is often underappreciated and probably not listened to.  In the need to respond to immediate threats, investments in long-term growth and institution building will be trumped by short-term imperatives.   And agencies with operational and programmatic flexibilities (more resources, less directed/earmarked funding, less oversight on spending, etc.) will step into the leadership vacuum to “get the job done.”Is it now USDA?Most recently, USDA has voiced its interest in playing a greater leadership role in the development space.  Quite a departure from its stated mission (including that of its overseas arm, the Foreign Agricultural Service) of helping American farmers and encouraging greater exports of U.S. agricultural products.  Its point of entrée is Afghanistan, where Secretary Vilsack, apparently at the urging of envoy Holbrooke, has asked Secretary Clinton to transfer $170 million to USDA to play a more significant role in agricultural and economic development.  Note that it (just as USAID is doing) would have to hire the expertise to both send to Afghanistan and manage the program here in DC to be able to meet the terms of that request.   According to congressional and agency staff, however, Afghanistan is not a “one off.”  Rather, USDA would like to transition from providing temporary staffing from across the department to respond to disasters and conflict into a permanent dedicated staff deployed globally, with authorities currently provided to USAID for longer-term agricultural development programs.  It goes without saying that USDA plays an invaluable role in providing technological and technical expertise to U.S. strategies for agricultural development overseas.  But it has traditionally been a supporting role to USAID.  That is why rumors that coordination of the administration’s interagency and multilateral Food Security Initiative is to be tasked to USDA Undersecretary for Research, Education and Economics, Raj Shah are being met with concern.  Not because Undersecretary Shah wouldn’t be a respected, capable coordinator – he would be – rather, because it is yet another work-around of USAID.  And, in this case, a work-around that doesn’t even report to the Secretary of State in her role as overall foreign policy director.Everyone?So perhaps what we are really facing is too many leaders of USAID, or at least their mission and operational prerogative.  And what I fear we are witnessing is a decapitation and slow amputation of every limb of what once was a powerful, respected, mission-focused agency.  Would a strong, empowered, high-profile USAID Administrator make a difference?   Probably.  An appointee of sufficient stature in the interagency, with the support of the White House, might be able to make the case that there is no other way to rebuild the morale, competence and prestige of an organization than to give it leadership over something hugely important.  What might USAID look like today if all the workarounds over the past five years – MCC, PEPFAR, State Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS), the Global Health Initiative and the Food Security Initiative – were used as means to modernize and elevate the agency?   Who might be incentivized to head the agency and who might he/she then inspire to work in the agency if it were given right now the leadership of, say, S/CRS (combined with its Office of Transition Initiatives) and the Food Security Initiative (convince Raj Shah to transfer to USAID)?   Why, in the midst of two important development policy and structural reviews – the State Department Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review and the White House Presidential Study Directive, would further fragmentation and confusion be the way to go?  Why, when today’s challenges are increasingly global in dimension and increasingly linked to global economic stability and development would the U.S. not be prioritizing an elevated, unified development-focused voice with the policy and budgetary means to credibly represent U.S. global development interests in the world?A friend and colleague known for loving conspiracy theories recently said to me, “are you sure this isn’t a purposeful strategy by the administration to decimate USAID to the point where it is so irrelevant there is no longer has a case for strengthening it?”   In a leadership  void, we are going to continue to get what we are getting – other agencies stepping up to fill the vacuum out of claims of necessity, and conspiracy theories that demoralize those fighting for 24/7 development leadership. The problem with conspiracy theories is that the good ones always have just a hint of possibility.