How can we best ensure that development assistance reaches those who need it most? Here are six building blocks.
How can we best ensure that development assistance reaches those who need it most? Here are six building blocks.
The incoming chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen signaled a few weeks ago that State Department and foreign aid programs will most likely be cut when she assumes the chairmanship in 2011. In a recent statement, Ros-Lehtinen laid out her agenda, “I have identified and will propose a number of cuts to […]
Today (Tuesday, November 2) is Election Day in the United States. While it is an off-year for presidential elections, in my home state of New York the entire state legislature is up for election, governor, attorney general, comptroller, both US Senators (rare as they are usually staggered , but one is running for Hillary Clinton’s […]
Two stories about important trends in international development at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the the British equivalent, the Department for International Development (DfID): 1. Federal Times article on decreasing reliance on contractors and increasing insourcing at USAID can be found here. An excerpt: USAID is trying to rebuild a work force […]
USAID is to be commended for creating and successfully implementing a program in Egypt that combines the best of development policy and US higher education resources. The LEAD Program (Leadership for Education and Developoment) anually selects two students from each of Egypt’s 27 governorates to attend the American University of Cairo. The scholarships are reserved […]
_______________________________________________________________________________ Federal Times.com has a story this week about USAID’s moves to do more of their work in house instead of farming it out to contractors. The U.S. Agency for International Development plans to bring in-house more work related to program design and monitoring and evaluation, Administrator Rajiv Shah said May 5. Shah made the […]
Senator John Kerry (Democrat – Massachusetts), as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has put a temporary hold on all US democracy promotion programs for Cuba while the State Department conducts a review of these programs so that the Committee can investigate their effectiveness. This is a review that many experts have hoped for, […]
For the past three days I participated in USAID’s online dialogue about various international development topics. Called “Global Pulse 2010, “ USAID has the following to say about it: …a 3-day, online collaboration event, that will bring together individual socially-engaged participants and organizations from around the world. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is […]
When I was in Uganda last month I was fortunate to learn more about an interesting parliamentary internship program being carried out by the Center for International Development (CID) of the State University of New York (full disclosure: I used to work there). Supported by Higher Education for Development (which uses fairly small grants to […]
Today is a national holiday here in the U.S., celebrating the life and achievements of Martin Luther King, Jr. There is nothing I could add to the many paeans to King (but I recommend that anyone needing a refresher look up his writings and speeches). But in thinking about the times King lived in and […]
“Because that’s where the money is” – Willie Sutton, when asked why he robbed banks ——————————————————– The New York Times ran a story this past Sunday noting that some U.S. universities that set up operations in Dubai are having trouble attracting enough students. Apparently, the economic downturn there has hit Michigan State and the Rochester […]
http://www.alliance-exchange.org/policy-monitor/2009/12/09/exchanges-funded-635-million-fy-2010
TheAlliance for International Education and Cultural Exchange notes [t]he Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved last week a measure that would make changes to foreign assistance programs, including the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), CQ.com and Foreign Policy.com both report. The approved bill would authorize $255 million over six years to establish a council within […]
Earlier this fall the Brookings Institution published a report titled “A New Way Forward: Encouraging Greater Cultural Engagement with the Muslim World,” by Cynthia Schneider (who certainly has the qualifications to write about this topic as an art historian, former ambassador to the Hague, professor of culture and diplomacy at Georgetown and fellow at Brookings). […]
I have written before about the out-of-balance role of contractors in development and in US foreign policy in general – with the hope that the ongoing QDDR will take a hard look at how much is contracted out, to what sorts of entities and with what kind of alignment with development goals and foreign policy interests. Yesterday, […]