U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has sought to position USAID as a key lever in the global fight to arrest democratic backsliding and rebuild public faith in democratic governance.
For consecutive years, USAID’s headline event on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly proclaimed that “democracy delivers.” USAID Administrator Samantha Power has taken up her own pen to describe “how democracy can win,” and the agency’s humanitarian operations have been marshaled for Ukraine under a much bigger campaign of preserving the rules-based international system.
But when it comes to USAID’s actual bureaucratic muscle and financial firepower, the overwhelming bulk of the agency’s work focuses on other sectors, particularly health and humanitarian assistance. It adds up to a mismatch between what’s often framed as an existential struggle for the future of global democracy and an agency that spent just over 3% of its total budget on democracy, human rights, and governance in the 2022 fiscal year.
About the author
Michael Igoe@AlterIgoe
Michael Igoe is a Senior Reporter with Devex, based in Washington, D.C. He covers U.S. foreign aid, global health, climate change, and development finance. Prior to joining Devex, Michael researched water management and climate change adaptation in post-Soviet Central Asia, where he also wrote for EurasiaNet. Michael earned his bachelor's degree from Bowdoin College, where he majored in Russian, and his master’s degree from the University of Montana, where he studied international conservation and development.
