The U.S. Agency for International Development plans to release on Friday, Sept. 16, a strategic framework outlining its priorities for 2011-15, as pressure mounts within Congress to trim the U.S. foreign affairs budget — a move that officials say could undermine U.S. influence in multilateral organizations such as the World Bank.
The Obama administration is having to make hard choices on where to allocate funding and how to continue its ambitious reform program for USAID, U.S. officials said Wednesday at a Washington event hosted by the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network.
The strategic plan that is to be released later this year will outline priorities regardless of budget, said Susan Reichle, assistant to the administrator for USAID’s bureau of policy, planning and learning. Reichle argued that the areas included in the framework are key to U.S. national security.
Still, the threat of budget cuts hangs above the agency. Event participants spoke of a potential reduction of between 10 percent and 50 percent in USAID’s operating expenses, a move that could jeopardize the agency’s ambitious reform agenda dubbed USAID Forward, which involves procurement reform and increased hiring.
“USAID Forward is, ultimately, the agency’s operating expense,” said Reichle, emphasizing the need to rebuild the agency’s talent pool.
The agency needs people trained in evaluation, science and technology, and innovation to pursue its goals, she added.
The State Department is keen to maintain “some degree of momentum” in hiring new staff and implementing USAID Forward, said Jake Sullivan, the department’s director of policy planning.
The U.S. Department of State, on its part, is doing its best to “embrace focus and selectivity” for fiscal 2012 and 2013, Sullivan added.
Sullivan added the State Department plans to complete internal restructuring later this year based on recommendations in the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review published last year. Changes include the creation of two new undersecretary positions, including one who heads a newly created bureau focusing on crises.
Administration officials said their focus would remain on reaching goals set in three priority sectors — climate change, global health and food security — and on improving preparedness for natural disasters and political upheaval such as the Arab Spring.
USAID has “begun an extensive” process of reviewing and reforming requirements imposed by Washington on implementing partners in the field, officials said. The goal was to allow USAID field personnel and their partners to focus more on development work.
Officials highlighted the progress of the U.S. Partnership for Growth initiative currently being tested in four countries: Ghana, El Salvador, Tanzania and the Philippines. This initiative follows a whole-of-government approach to identify and help address roadblocks to economic growth in partner countries, and involves joint analysis and planning among donor and recipient governments. Sullivan cited progress in El Salvador and the Philippines, where the United States is helping address issues of tax administration and corruption.
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