US foreign aid wavers between chaos and strategy

While the U.S. State Department has taken control of foreign aid programs, America’s global development engagement remains in a state of flux, according to experts who spoke in a Devex Pro Briefing on Wednesday. On one hand, the looming end of the fiscal year has forced a rapid increase in aid spending. On the other hand, U.S. development advocates are still watching and waiting for clearer signals about the overall strategy that will guide foreign aid programs — or if one even exists. “Right now, it’s chaotic,” said Jim Kunder, a long-time aid expert and principal at Kunder/Reali Associates. “You would expect it to be chaotic. A bunch of new people are being hired. Offices have been destroyed. We’ve just fired 6,000 Foreign Service National foreign staff who helped run our foreign aid program overseas.” “What I don’t know in the long term is whether we really are going to have a rational foreign aid program,” he added. There is some reason to hope that might begin to materialize, said Kate Eltrich, president of KAE Strategies LLC and a U.S. budget expert. “There are some good signals,” she said, pointing to spending plans shared by the State Department in recent court filings. “That’s a really good sign that they have gone through a lot of internal processes in the administration to say, ‘Here’s what we agree with, here’s where we want to go,’” she said.