Transformational Diplomacy Still Transforming

* This is a joint post from Sheila Herrling and Sarah Jane Hise.In a meeting hosted by InterAction on Tuesday, staff of the Office of the Director of Foreign Assistance (OFA) provided an updated foreign assistance framework, as last reported by Sheila and me. There are some nice additions since the last round, including several recommendations from a working group of experts in development, diplomacy and defense organized by the Aspen Institute Global Interdependence Initiative. Most notably:

• the addition of a category for global/regional issues;
• clarification of the category “other USG agency contributions” over which Tobias would have coordinating but not budgetary authority; and
• changing one of the basket titles from “reforming countries” to “restrictive countries,” to avoid the eyebrow-raising that the former titled inspired.

It's refreshing to see OFA committed to regular outreach to the public on the evolution of its reform agenda. For us, perhaps more important than what was said, was what was either not said or not responded to clearly enough. The task of reforming foreign assistance is undoubtedly a hard job and full kudos to the hard-working staff trying to get it right. To inform their efforts, here are a few key points we came away with after the meetings:

• Monitoring and evaluation cannot be an afterthought nor under-funded. OFA response to how they plan to quantify and measure achievement toward their stated goals was that they felt it was important, but that they couldn't make progress on it until the framework was operational. The Millennium Challenge Corporation is learning that this approach is a mistake, as detailed in a new GAO study. The lessons and recommendations in CGD’s Evaluation Gap Working Group Report should be applied to OFA’s reform agenda.
• Recipient countries should be drawn into the process now. A “country-driven” foreign assistance framework grounded in a desire to “maximize resources reaching the field” ought to be complemented and informed by active outreach to the countries themselves early on. This too is a lesson learned by the MCC.
• Gender is not just an implementation effectiveness issue. The multiplier effects of a gender-integrated priority-setting strategy are tremendous. Getting it right at the strategy and resource allocation stage facilitates more effective delivery. Women’s Edge Coalition has some great evidence.
• Strategically place our bilateral assistance program into the larger international aid architecture. Our OFA assistance should complement quite strategically U.S. policies and resources in multilateral institutions such as the U.N. and the multilateral development banks.
• A strong communications operation can be everything. Convincing Americans and Congress that tax dollars toward foreign assistance are used well and worth it requires a massive communications and outreach strategy. CGD’s Rich World, Poor World: A Guide to Global Development is a series of briefs and a public education campaign that provides often over-looked facts about the links between U.S. policy and development outcomes.