Invest in Global Equity
Transform Foreign Aid to Meet Today’s Challenges
In a world rife with tensions–between the world’s most powerful and powerless nations; between democracy and authoritarianism; between vast technological innovation and grotesque deprivation–America has both the opportunity and the obligation to lead. In the face of the sweeping changes and new threats posed by globalization, our challenge is to ensure that the world is more united than divided.
We are making little progress. Worldwide, an estimated 115 million children are not in school, and some 11 million children die before their parents each year. More than 50 countries are poorer today than they were in 1990. Meanwhile, the world’s ten wealthiest nations, which constitute only 14% of the world’s population, are more than 75 times richer than the ten poorest and account for 75% of global GDP.
Our commitments to human dignity, equity, and freedom from need can only be realized if we make every effort to transform those commitments from ideals to reality. And this is not just about our ideals: As President Bush pointed out in his 2002 National Security Strategy, the United States faces an increasing threat from weak and impoverished states that are unable to provide for their citizens or protect their borders from terrorist or criminal infiltration.
Our new threats and challenges have fostered efforts to overhaul our intelligence systems, transform our military, and create entirely new government departments and functions. Far less has been done, however, to streamline the agencies and resources that we use to promote economic development, develop functional economies and new markets, knit together regional markets, and build capable, democratic states.
The Plan:
1. Rewrite the 2000 page, 1961 Foreign Assistance Act – which now includes 33 objectives and 75 priorities – to include the consolidation of all foreign aid programs under a single Department for International Development headed by a Cabinet-level Secretary with a clear, strategic focus on building capable states.
2. Reform the bureaucracy to increase flexibility: Provide contingency funding, set at no more than 10 percent of the aggregate budget, for prompt investments in post-crisis transitions or other targets of opportunity; expand budgetary flexibility, including “notwithstanding” authorities; provide authority to pool U.S. resources and harmonize aid delivery with other bilateral donors; and reduce earmarks.
3. Increase America’s share of international development financing to 0.7% by 2015.
4. Initiate a public-private partnership with major financial firms to create Global Development Bonds that can generate increased capital investments in the developing world.
5. Devote increased intelligence resources to monitoring and analyzing key weak and failed states.
For more information: Global Equity: An Action Plan for Global Economic Opportunity
The Expert: Gayle Smith, Peter Ogden
To contact one of our experts please call/e-mail Sean Gibbons, director of media strategy, at 202-481-8228
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