Early proponent of USAID-State merger says it has its advantages

The idea of merging the U.S. Agency for International Development with the State Department is not a new one. The concept was explored during the George W. Bush administration, when Henrietta Fore served as both USAID administrator and director of the Foreign Assistance Bureau at the State Department. While the Trump administration’s rushed merger likely didn’t resemble what then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had in mind, Fore said there are advantages to integrating the two agencies. “[Rice] had the concept that the secretary of state could benefit from having the politics as well as the money in her control and under her direction. And I think it was a smart idea,” Fore said at Devex Impact House on the sidelines of the 80th U.N. General Assembly. “So we try to link diplomacy, development, and defense in a way that would be positive for the United States and for the people around the world who were our friends and allies and partners.” Fore, who’s now CEO of Holsman International and has straddled both the public and private sectors, said governments can learn from the corporate world. “I think there are so many areas that can be helped by [a] merger. The administrative and clearance [systems] in government … can be overwhelming,” she said. “We could streamline this. If you look at corporations, we would do it immediately. So why can’t we do that in government? We could. So it isn’t necessarily just the merger of the activities. It’s … the simplification and the streamlining of the processes that lie behind the organizations.” While Fore said we’re at an “inflection point,” she didn’t comment directly on the Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID. She did, however, criticize the loss of people who were let go in the process. “It’s their experience, it’s their expertise, it is all of their knowledge. And they are invaluable, and we are losing them quickly, so we’re going to have to rebuild,” she said. “We’ve done that before in USAID. When I was there, we … brought in lots of young people to be foreign service officers and civil service officers. And these officers really went out to change the world, and they were terrific. So we can do it again, but we have to rebuild thoughtfully and to make sure that we have this capacity, because the world needs humanitarian and development work. We just need to anchor it in public and private functions and possibilities of public-private partnerships.” On that note, she said the private sector is key to development moving forward. “I believe that the idea of more private sector involvement in what has been the public sector activities is just at its nascency,” she said. “This is going to be their decade, and we all have to just get behind that. There’s just enormous potential. As you know, I live in both the private world and the public world and I can see that we do not talk to each other enough, we don’t do enough together. We could, and it just has enormous possibilities.” So will Trump’s “America First” version of foreign policy also represent the next decade of development? “So there’s always been a self-interest portion in humanitarian or development work,” Fore said, “but there is also a very strong ethic of saving every life and … being there in the time of need for whatever the disaster – manmade or natural. And I do believe that that will remain, and that desire will remain.”