US Congress grills USAID chief on localization, Ukraine, food crisis

Hal Rogers, the top Republican on the House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees the United States foreign aid budget, opened his questioning of U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power on Wednesday with two concerns:

Why is USAID channeling so much of its aid to Ukraine through the United Nations instead of through local organizations? And what is the agency doing to protect its funding from waste, fraud, and abuse?

Power pointed out that Rogers, who represents Kentucky, effectively answered his first question by asking the second.

“The rules and requirements that have been put in place at USAID over the years in order to guard against fraud, waste, and abuse entails an awful lot of due diligence on the front end,” Power said, adding that the process can take a year while the Ukrainian people need assistance now.

USAID must vet local partners to make sure taxpayer dollars are well spent, but they also need “speed and nimbleness,” she said.

The World Food Programme, UNICEF, and UN Refugee Agency have those systems in place, so despite higher overhead costs, they can deliver aid quickly, Power said.

Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, citing a recent Devex article, asked why overall USAID funding to local partners fell in 2021 even while it was being prioritized by Power and the agency.

There is a lag from the time a new administrator launches a new agenda and seeing the results, Power said, reiterating that USAID’s goal is to provide 25% of its funding to local organizations. Only about 6% of the agency’s funding currently goes to local partners.

Additional operating expense funding in the last fiscal year allowed the agency to hire more employees to help local organizations jump through compliance and legal hoops, but USAID needs to simplify and reduce administrative burdens, she said.

USAID is working on a consortium agreement with an NGO that would serve as an “umbrella” for grants to local partners in Ukraine, Power said. A USAID spokesperson told Devex the agency could not name the NGO — or any other partners in Ukraine — due to concerns about security and undermining the effectiveness of the response.

Power also noted that when the U.S. embassy reopens in Kyiv, USAID’s Disaster Assistance Response Team will get “back where it belongs” in the country. But for Ukraine, the most important U.S. contribution is direct budget support so that government institutions can continue to function, with assistance efforts managed by Ukraine’s own ministry of social policy, she noted.

Power’s remarks came during testimony about President Joe Biden’s fiscal 2023 budget request, which proposes $29.4 billion in funding for USAID programs. She appeared before the House Appropriations subcommittee in the morning and at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the afternoon.

She told lawmakers in both chambers that the contest between democratic and authoritarian governments has led to “a profound juncture in history” when the world is less free and less peaceful than at any time since the end of the Cold War.

Concerns about food security dominated the senate hearing and while addressing the issue drew bipartisan support, senators questioned the slow speed of food aid in Ukraine, Power’s recent comments on fertilizer, and the requirement that some food aid be shipped on U.S vessels.

“My own perception is that this [funding] will not meet the challenge of global food security,” Sen. Menendez, the top Democrat on the committee said. “When you have food insecurity and people are going hungry they are then driven to do things they might not otherwise do,” including migrating or starting conflicts.

The supplemental Ukraine funding passed on Tuesday in the House, which will be considered by the Senate in the coming days, is focused on Ukraine and Congress should get ready “for something bigger” to address the coming food security crisis, he said.