Gregory Adams, Director of Aid Effectiveness for Oxfam America, said: “The Global Health Initiative represents an opportunity to change the way we do global health overseas: from a top-down, uncoordinated approach to country owned, demand-driven health aid that saves lives both now and in the future.”
In the pilot countries, US aid for global health is expected to begin the shift toward country ownership and away from the bureaucratic “stovepipes” that can sometimes stand in the way of care. The US approach to global health has been largely uncoordinated across more than 12 US agencies that implement global health programs overseas, which results in burdensome reporting requirements for countries. If fully embraced and implemented, the updated plan will have the potential to more adequately strengthen local health systems, and shift global health aid to where it is needed most.
"The Global Health Initiative could be a step in the right direction,” said the former Minister of Health of Mozambique, Dr Francisco Songane. “It is extremely important to take a comprehensive approach and in a long term perspective, assisting the countries in need in the implementation of their development strategies. The initiative gives primacy to the needs of women and children, including the newborn, which underscores the centrality of the family for the improvement of the health status and socio-economic development, while highlighting the urgency of having functional health systems."
Oxfam America anticipates the release of the implementation roadmap in late summer, and the rollout of the program beyond the pilot countries to all 80 countries where the US provides global health assistance. Crucial to this rollout will be full integration into broader efforts to make US aid more effective.
Adams said: “In advance of the MDG Summit in September, we hope the Obama Administration will incorporate the GHI plan into a unified global development strategy for fighting poverty and disease.”
]]>Two weeks after a leaked draft of the National Security Council document entitled “A New Way Forward for Global Development” signaled the Obama Administration stepping up efforts to reform US efforts to fight global poverty, today’s discussion focused on the importance of letting recipient countries lead development programs and plans. The United States has an opportunity to unravel the confusion and dysfunction of US development programs and set clear goals and priorities, making way for a donor strategy that empowers local communities to fight corruption and hold their governments accountable
“Aid, used in smart ways, can save lives and help people pull themselves out of poverty. But 60 years of foreign assistance have shown that donor countries cannot fix the problems of poor people by themselves, no matter how well donors understand development,” said panelist Raymond C. Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America. “For US foreign assistance to empower citizens and ensure equitable growth, we need a clear US strategy for fighting global poverty. The President must issue his US Strategy for Global Development, so our aid will be driven by the needs and priorities of poor people, and will put recipient countries in the lead.”
The discussion was moderated by Josh Rogin, blogger for Foreign Policy’s “The Cable” and included Esther Tallah, Manager of Cameroon Coalition Against Malaria and board member of UNITAID as well as the Honorable Minister Amara M. Konneh, Minister of Planning and Economic Affairs of Liberia.
The event was the fourth in a series hosted by Oxfam America to discuss how the United States can improve aid to the developing world. The three prior events brought African leaders, former Afghan Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani, and the Haitian Ambassador to the United States, His Excellency Raymond Joseph, together to share experiences and offer their assessment of ongoing discussions in Congress and at all levels in the Obama Administration on foreign assistance reform.
In addition to the public panel, Oxfam America organized a workshop with Obama Administration officials, Congressional staffers, development experts, and private sector leaders to discuss how US development policy can better provide for recipient country ownership by engaging civil society to determine country-specific priorities and needs.
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This panel considers three important policy processes now underway—the Quadrennial Diplomacy & Development Review (QDDR) being advanced by the State Department, the Presidential Study Directive (PSD) being carried out by the National Security Council to review US global development policy, and efforts to rewrite the US Foreign Assistance Act within the US Congress—and the historic opportunity they offer to reshape US foreign assistance and global development policy to be more effective, coherent and integrated. It brings NGO perspectives, drawn from decades of working in poor communities worldwide, together with US government policy perspectives.
Moderated by: Professor Nicholas Burns, Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics, Harvard Kennedy School
Featuring
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In a second event co-hosted by Oxfam America and Foreign Policy that brought developing world leaders to DC to discuss improving U.S. foreign aid, Dr. Ashraf Ghani, who engineered Afghan economic reforms as finance minister under President Hamid Karzai, Orazio J. Bellettini, executive director of good government organization Grupo Faro in Ecuador, and Vivek Ramkumar, manager of the Open Budget Initiative at the International Budget Partnership highlighted the critical importance of transparency and predictability to overall aid effectiveness.
"American aid is too volatile,” said Dr. Ghani. “This is because it has to be approved by an annual Congressional budgetary process – approval is often delayed and money is then rushed to be spent. Predictability, through sharing information with governments, citizens and civil society, is the prerequisite to transparency and mutual accountability."
Since the first Oxfam-Foreign Policy event on the topic in July, the aid reform debate has accelerated. In late-September, Oxfam released Ownership in Practice: The Key to Smart Development, a major report with policy recommendations calling for the U.S. to “strengthen the voice of poor people and the responsiveness of the state” as part of any aid reform effort.
The Obama Administration and Congress have also created unprecedented momentum for reform:
Last week, the Obama Administration also took the long-awaited step of nominating an Administrator for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). If confirmed, the nominee, Dr. Rajiv Shah, would hopefully be the lead development voice in the foreign aid reform process and major foreign policy decisions by the Obama Administration.
“Leaders and citizens of developing countries want more ownership of the development process,” said Paul O’Brien, Oxfam America’s vice president of policy and advocacy. “For U.S. policymakers to transform U.S. development policy, they must increase aid transparency and deliver timely, predictable information to aid recipients. This would give them a real stake in building a better future for themselves.”
]]>“Oxfam America welcomes the Obama administration’s announcement of Dr. Rajiv Shah as USAID Administrator. With solid experience in international agriculture and health, Shah is well positioned to lead this crucial US agency.
“We look forward to working with Shah and USAID to reinvigorate and restore the agency’s capacity to lead US development efforts around the world. Oxfam America believes that a commitment to modernizing US government development assistance can have a lasting impact on global poverty and that, over time, smart development will enhance US moral standing and national interests and ultimately build a safer world for all.
“Shah assumes responsibility over USAID at a crucial moment in history. For many years, USAID has been under-resourced and politically marginalized. But today’s international challenges – from the financial crisis to climate change -- make it more important than ever to rebuild USAID from a compliance agency for NGOs and contractors to what it once was: the world's most prestigious development agency.
“Shah’s challenges are great. He must work within a legal framework that is almost half a century old. US development efforts have become diffuse and USAID’s development objectives unclear, with the Pentagon and more than 20 other federal agencies increasingly engaged in development activities. There is a need to reassert the leadership role of USAID in managing US overseas development assistance, and strengthen its ability to deliver concrete results that will enhance USAID’s standing and credibility. Most importantly, there is a need for a national global development strategy to guide the US government's efforts to fight global poverty.
“But there’s also growing momentum for a new era in US foreign aid, with a number of processes already underway that will reshape US global development policy. Additionally, bipartisan legislation has been introduced in both the House and Senate to initiate foreign aid reform, as well as strengthen and elevate USAID.”
“Oxfam America is eager to work with Shah as he contributes to this effort to make US development programs more effective.”
]]>In a report, “Band Aids and Beyond” published today to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Ethiopia famine, Oxfam says international donors need to adopt a new approach to humanitarian disasters which focuses on preparing communities to prevent and deal with disasters such as drought before they strike, rather than relying mainly on short-term emergency relief, such as imported food aid.
Twenty-five years ago Ethiopia was struck by one of the worst famines in its history. An estimated one million people died and millions more suffered from extreme hunger and malnutrition. Today, millions in Ethiopia and across East Africa are facing severe food and water shortages after years of poor rains. It is estimated that drought costs Ethiopia $1.1bn a year—almost eclipsing the total annual overseas assistance to the country.
Currently, 70 percent of humanitarian aid to Ethiopia comes from the United States. Out of the $3.2 bn of US humanitarian assistance to Ethiopia since 1991, 94 percent has been in the form of food aid – almost all of it sourced from within the US rather than purchased locally or regionally. Most US food aid has conditions applied to transport and packaging, which can cost up to $2 of US taxpayers’ money to deliver $1 of food aid.
Penny Lawrence, International Director for Oxfam, who has just returned from visiting Oxfam projects in Ethiopia, said:
“We cannot make the rains come, but there is much more that we can do to break the cycle of drought driven disaster in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. Food aid offers temporary relief and has kept people alive in countless situations, but does not tackle the underlying causes that continue to make people vulnerable to disaster year-after-year.
“Donors need to shift their approach, and help to give communities the tools to tackle disasters before they strike. Drought does not need to mean hunger and destitution. If communities have irrigation for crops, grain stores, and wells to harvest rains then they can survive despite what the elements throw at them.”
It is essential that donors rise to the challenge and provide adequate funding for emergency assistance for this year’s crisis—current response by international donors is far below requirements estimated by Governments and UN agencies. But in this report, Oxfam argues that it is equally essential that donors do more to back programs that manage the risk of the disaster before it strikes, such as early warning systems, creating strategically positioned stockpiles of food, medicine and other items, and irrigation programs.
For instance, in Somali region Oxfam is building birkhads, or protected wells, to enable communities to ‘harvest’ rain during the rainy season to make sure there is more water available nearby when the rains stop. These types of programs receive just 0.14 percent of overseas aid. Yet, the agency says, that it is a more sustainable approach, as the emergency response is designed to contribute to development and keep communities safer in the years to come. This approach is cost-effective: for every $1 invested in this approach, $2-4 are returned in terms of avoided or reduced disaster impacts.
The call for donors to shift their approach comes as Ethiopia faces ever-greater threats from natural disasters. Climate scientists predict that by 2034, the 50th anniversary of the 1984 Ethiopia famine, what are now droughts will become the norm, hitting the region three years out of every four. A shift of approach is needed to prevent climate shocks developing into disasters which will push more people into poverty.
Lawrence said: “Climate change makes the urgency of this approach greater than ever before. Ethiopians on the frontline of climate change cannot wait another 25 years for common sense to become common practice.”
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"Rebuilding USAID is critical to effective delivery of US foreign assistance to fight poverty—which is recognized as key to America's strategic and security interests. We are working hard to build momentum to get reform passed this year." said Raymond C. Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America.
"Over the last two decades, USAID has had its legs cut out from under it—its resources and staff have been slashed while more development capacity has been shifted to the Department of Defense. Along with rebuilding USAID, the US must shift its focus from development projects that meet short-term political and security goals back to long term development goals that not only help more people escape poverty, but in the long run, create greater stability and good will for the US. Rebuilding USAID gives the US and its development policy a start down the right path."
Currently, USAID has little capacity to strategize and create comprehensive development plans for the countries in which it operates says Oxfam. The bill addresses this issue by establishing USAID mission directors as responsible for coordinating all development and humanitarian assistance efforts in the field, under guidance of the Chief of Mission.
"This bill is a welcome move by Senator Kerry to help reinvigorate US foreign assistance," said Offenheiser. "Kerry is creating a scenario that will allow USAID development professionals to do what they do best—work closely with local communities and governments to deliver long-term programs that help to alleviate poverty and build prosperous communities."
"Transparency is also key to getting the most out of US development aid. Without good information, recipient governments can't plan, poor people can't hold their governments accountable, and the US taxpayers can't see results. Development professionals, aid recipients and US taxpayers need to see exactly where money is going and what the expectations are, so that there is greater accountability and success. Success means more positive change in the lives of poor people."
Key themes addressed by the new legislation include rebuilding USAID's capacity to think and implement strategically; giving the agency new tools to measure, evaluate and innovate to achieve smart development; promoting transparency and flexibility; and investing in human capital.
The aid reform debate in Washington has gained momentum in the last few months. Secretary of State Clinton recently announced that the State Department and USAID will be undertaking America's first-ever Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), in order to streamline the aid system and to put development on par with national security and diplomacy in foreign policy debates and decisions. In Congress, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) has introduced the Initiating Foreign Assistance Reform Act of 2009 (HR 2139), which has more than 90 bipartisan co-sponsors.
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