All development stakeholders—including traditional donors and emerging providers—must respect and uphold these key principles by fulfilling the promises they made at Busan. For this to happen, the Global Partnership will need to rely on strong vision, high-level political engagement and a robust but flexible global accountability mechanism.

Reaching 17 million additional people is the equivalent to feeding every person in Michigan, Oklahoma and Iowa combined. Cutting red tape would also allow the U.S. to respond to hunger crises up to 14 weeks faster.

“How often do we have the chance to reach millions more people with life-saving assistance without asking taxpayers for a dime?” said Paul O’Brien, vice president for policy and campaigns at Oxfam America. “Save lives. Save tax dollars. This is a no-brainer.”

"Our one-size-fits-all food aid system is outdated, but Congress has the opportunity to fix it with this year's farm bill reauthorization," said Timi Gerson, director of advocacy at AJWS. "Our research shows we can reach millions more hungry people by passing long overdue reforms, so why wait?"

The report puts a human face on the negotiations over the Farm Bill in Washington, DC, calculating the number of additional people U.S. food aid programs could reach if long-overdue reforms are enacted. This includes increasing flexibility in food aid programs to allow for the local and regional purchase (LRP) of food, as well as ending the monetization of U.S. food aid programs whereby aid agencies are forced to sell off U.S. food in developing country markets to finance development projects.

The report finds that these reforms would allow food to reach millions more hungry people much quicker during crises and build self-sufficiency in local communities. It also finds that even conservative approaches to these reforms would cut hundreds of millions of dollars in waste and enable life-saving aid to reach millions of additional people facing crisis.

"Food aid is a vital part of U.S. foreign policy, but we are shortchanging millions of hungry people with unnecessary red tape," said Gerson. "U.S. policies are ripe for reforms that will save lives now and reduce the need for aid later by enabling local farmers to thrive."

“In this budget climate there can be no justification for turning down the chance to spend tax-dollars more wisely,” said O’Brien. “Members of Congress face a clear choice: stick with the same old policies that prop up special interest, or reform the program and stand up for American taxpayers and hungry people around the world.”

Notes to editors:
To read a copy of the report, see the infographic or get more information go to:
www.oxfamamerica.org/foodaid
or
www.ajws.org/foodaid

American Jewish World Service
Inspired by Judaism’s commitment to justice, American Jewish World Service (AJWS) works to realize
human rights and end poverty in the developing world. www.ajws.org

Oxfam America
Oxfam America is an international relief and development organization that creates lasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and injustice. Together with individuals and local groups in more than 90 countries, Oxfam saves lives, helps people overcome poverty, and fights for social justice. Oxfam America is an affiliate of Oxfam. To join our efforts or learn more, go to www.oxfamamerica.org

A shorter commitment won't get the job done. It takes time to help people build skills and infrastructure, to get policies changed, and to ensure that governments spend their money more effectively.

Smart development demands monitoring and evaluation. Organizations should be accountable to report not only what they do, but also how they measure it. Don't believe stories that guarantee long-term impact after one or two years' investment; that's barely time to lay some groundwork.

We all crave the easy answer, the quick solution, but if eradicating poverty were simple, people living in poverty would have sorted it out long ago. They may lack resources like land, but they certainly don't lack intelligence or insight. Poverty is a global challenge—one that we can overcome together, but listening and learning from people living in poverty, and developing solutions with them, takes time and sustained effort.

This issue of OXFAMExchange includes inspiring stories, but they are just snapshots from a family album: moments in a long journey together. Each story is ultimately about perseverance and the need for long-term commitment.

In a new report, “The politics of partnership: How donors manage risk while letting recipients lead their own development” released today as part of Oxfam America’s Ownership in Practice series, Oxfam examines the real challenges donors confront in building trust and support for local leaders as well as concrete ways the US can be a better partner and get the most out of foreign assistance.

“Real progress in fighting poverty requires bold, innovative approaches,” said Gregory Adams, director of aid effectiveness for Oxfam America.  “We can’t make real progress against poverty doing the same things we’ve always done.  And yet Congress is often reluctant to let development professionals take on the risk of innovating new approaches.  USAID is working to put more trust in poor people and governments; Congress needs to put trust in USAID’s new approach.”

When donors try to circumvent national governments and impose their own vision, it often leads to weak results. For example, following Haiti’s earthquake in 2010 the international community encouraged the creation of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission to coordinate reconstruction because of Haiti’s long history of both corruption and capacity constraints. Although the commission was established by the Haitian parliament, it is not subject to government audits. There are also questions about whether the commission has improved coordination of aid or merely added to the multiplicity of development actors in the country.

“Instead of trying to avoid risk, donors should accept and manage the risks associated with building more-effective partnerships,” said Adams. “Meaningful partnerships are the only way for donors like the US to get the most out of foreign assistance dollars, especially over the long run.”

Highlighting research from Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, Malawi, and Tanzania, Oxfam concludes that that the only way to yield real and lasting development successes is when the US and other donors trust and support local leaders and take concrete steps to manage risk across different contexts.

Said Ghanaian member of parliament Albert Kan-Dapaah, “In Ghana, just like in the US, we rely on independent media and citizen ‘watchdogs’ to keep those of us in government honest. US support to Ghana should help us strengthen that relationship of accountability and transparency, which is ultimately the only way to build a better and safer future for Ghanaians. The US government has not always pursued genuine partnerships with countries like Ghana, but this is slowly starting to change through Partnership for Growth and the Millennium Challenge Corporation.”

The report identifies nine steps that the US can take to pursue partnership and manage risk, instead of seeking to avoid it:

• How to deal with the risk of corruption in poor countries:
1. Identify and support promising leaders, agencies, and public efforts inside and outside government that are seeking to change things for the better.
2. Work to support political and civil rights that let citizens hold their governments accountable.
3. Pair investments in government capacity with investments in civil society “watchdogs.”
• How to deal with the risk that poor countries lack capacity:
4. Commit to support promising in-country partners for longer periods of time.
5. Make direct, long-term financial and technical investments in the success of local institutions.
• How to deal with the risk that poor people will make failed investments:
6. Partner to strengthen existing local rules and systems and resist setting up burdensome and duplicative rules and systems.
7. Fund the priorities that recipients have identified.
8. Demand performance.
9. Encourage and support transparency.

“As new donors emerge, the US risks losing influence if that influence is strictly based on accounting every dollar, rather than the overall results,” said Adams.  “Poor people need to shape how aid is invested to deliver the ‘right’ results. Including recipients in defining and managing aid offers new opportunities for the US in building long-term effective partnerships. However, it is up to the administration, Congress and taxpayers alike to support such efforts, beyond any partisan line, so the US can step up during this closing window of opportunity on the world stage.”

“No maple leaf is big enough to hide the shame of Canada’s summit of broken promises,” said Mark Fried, spokesperson for Oxfam. “The G8’s failure will leave a sad legacy of kids out of school, denied medicines for the sick, and no food for the hungry.”

With total G8 aid frozen, their five billion dollar commitment to maternal health will likely be taken from vital areas such as education and food, cautioned Oxfam.

“This year the headline is maternal health, last year it was food. With overall aid frozen, the G8 are just shuffling the same money around to different pots,” said Fried. “The only promise that counts is the Gleneagles one to increase aid by $50 billion by 2010 and that is the one they have abandoned today.”

At the last G8 Summit, donors pledges $22 billion over three years to support agriculture in developing countries, but Oxfam calculates that at most $6 billion of this is new money and they are double counting it to pay for other initiatives, such as helping poor countries cope with climate change.

“There are a billion hungry people in the world but it seems the G8 are out to lunch. Instead of new money for old promises, we got old money, re-pledged, recycled and renamed,” said Fried. “Oxfam asks France, as next year’s G8 host, to offer real accountability and resuscitate the G8’s flagging commitment to the world’s poor.”

As focus now shifts to the G20, Oxfam is encouraged by the place development issues have garnered on the agenda, and called on leaders to give poor countries a seat at the table.

“The G20 mustn’t repeat the G8’s mistake of only inviting Africa for the photo ops,” said Fried.

Oxfam also urged the G20 to adopt a financial transaction tax to raise the funds necessary to fight poverty and climate change.

"After the scandal of the G8's broken promises, the G20 now has the chance to stand up and deliver for the world's poor,” said actor and Oxfam Global Ambassador Bill Nighy in Toronto. "A Robin Hood Tax on banks is a simple but brilliant idea to raise hundreds of billions of dollars to help millions of poor people who have been hit hardest by global economic downturn, hunger and climate change."

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.