USAID to push localization, counter China's influence, Power says

The U.S. Agency for International Development will look to work with more local partners and better support them as part of an effort to make the agency more effective, capable, and nimble, the agency’s administrator Samantha Power said at two congressional hearings Wednesday.

In the fiscal year 2020, USAID obligated about 5.6% of its budget to local partners around the world, with most of its funding going through large, primarily U.S.-based organizations and companies, according to Power.

It’s not the first time that USAID has made a push toward localization — it took on such efforts during the two previous administrations, but the organization’s reliance on large, mainly U.S.-based partners continues.

“To engage authentically with local partners and to move toward a more locally-led development approach is staff, time, and resource-intensive — but it is also vital to our long-term success to sustainable development,” she said at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.

One key element to boosting USAID’s work with local partners is increasing staffing. Power gave the example that each USAID contracting officer has managed more than $65 million annually during the past four years — four times the workload of their Department of Defense colleagues. The Biden administration requested additional funding to hire more staff at the agency in its budget proposal.

Power said working with local partners is critical to whether the development USAID supports is sustainable over time. The reason for so little investment in local partners, she said, is because efforts to move quickly result in “a lot of gravity pulling us to very large, often U.S.- based contracting partners that may deign to enlist local partners as part of a contract or grant.”

USAID isn’t making the investments in internal capacity — from accounting to the ability to comply with USAID regulations — that are necessary to help small local organizations work with the agency, she added.

While the New Partnerships initiative and the Local Works initiative are a good start, USAID needs to try to lower barriers to entry for local organizations and invest in their internal capacity so they can meet the oversight requirements USAID has, Power said.

At the House Foreign Affairs Committee, where Power also testified Wednesday, Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Democrat from Texas, asked the administrator to share which aspects of the previous administration’s reorganization — implemented under former administrator Mark Green — she plans to keep and which she plans to change.

Power described an early change she is seeking at the agency that would mirror the structure of the Department of State by adding a second deputy position.

One of those deputies would focus on internal management issues, such as “staffing, workforce, diversity equity and inclusion, partnering with local organizations, being more nimble, being the kind of agency that everybody can think of as the speedy tool in the toolbox to meet a need that wasn’t anticipated in the prior budget cycle,” Power said.

The other would focus on policy and program issues in light of President Joe Biden’s decision to elevate USAID to a seat on the National Security Council. 

According to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, the two deputies should have a hearing next week, pending agreement with Republicans on the committee. He “hopes” they will be confirmed before the August recess.

Overall, Power said that the last administration’s reorganization “largely has created efficiencies and synergies” and noted that “people really commend the effort that my predecessor Mark Green made in making that happen.”

One of the key moments of the Senate hearing was a tense exchange with Senator Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, who questioned the requested foreign aid budget increase, especially in light of the country’s mounting deficit.

Paul called foreign aid “welfare we give to other countries” and said that the U.S. should conserve its resources, especially because there is a lack of “evidence that the money we launder throughout the world over time has been a benefit to us.”

Power said one of her priorities as USAID administrator is to enhance the rigor of evaluations, increase accountability, and take a close look at programs. But she defended U.S. aid, especially since the pandemic has illustrated how connected the health and safety of Americans is to people around the world.

“Nobody is arguing we’re not connected,” Paul said, adding, “it’s just whether we have to pay for everything.”

Power responded: “So you want the Chinese then to pay and to exact their leverage in that manner? You want someone to do it, but we’re to be the freeloader on a Chinese-led world order? I’m not for that.”

Power was critical of China in other remarks and set up USAID as a part of the administration’s efforts to counter its promotion of authoritarianism worldwide.

President Joe Biden’s democracy summit, expected to take place later this year, is an opportunity to take a “fresh look at the resources required to meet this moment with China trying to pull countries into the autocratic and authoritarian column every single day using the tools of suppression and tech surveillance to do so” and then using them to help “undermine democratic norms” at the United Nations, she said.

“We are doing a soup to nuts look at programming. Ideas are welcome because this is not an afterthought for Beijing. This is the point,” she said.

In both the House and Senate hearings, lawmakers questioned the COVAX vaccine facility’s decision to purchase Chinese vaccines. Power said it is “appalling,” “completely outrageous,” and “typical” that China is selling and not donating its vaccines or contributing financially to the facility.

She explained that COVAX, facing shortfalls from Indian supply that was withheld for domestic purposes since the emergence of the Delta variant and broad lack of vaccine supply, was left with little choice but to buy the Chinese vaccines.

“In an hour of relative desperation, they felt they needed to bring vaccines online as quickly as possible,” she said, adding it was “no excuse for what China did in that process.”

In response to concerns from lawmakers that the U.S. wouldn’t get credit for its vaccine donations — particularly since the 500 million Pfizer vaccines the U.S. has committed to donate will go through COVAX — she said that all doses from the U.S. will be branded with the American flag, and the government is “intent on making it known” when vaccines arrive.

One issue that came up repeatedly and in both chambers of Congress was the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and what that means for USAID programs and staff.

Power said that USAID’s partners are currently doing “contingency planning for refugee outflows into neighboring countries.” She cited estimates that Afghanistan could see 500,000 refugees by the end of this year, but also noted that “darker scenarios” could put that number much higher.

“Our partners right now … want to stay. Many of our partners were there before 9/11 and before the U.S. arrived,” Power said.

Michael Igoe contributed to this article.