This report addresses foreign aid reform through early 2010. Several development proponents, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and policymakers have pressed Congress to reform U.S. foreign aid capabilities to better address 21st century development needs and national security challenges.

In Jan. 2006, Sec. of State Rice announced the ¿transformational development¿ initiative to bring coordination and coherence to U.S. aid programs. She created a new Bureau, which developed a Strategic Framework for Foreign Assistance to align aid programs with strategic objectives. The Framework became a guiding force in the FY 2008 and FY 2009 budgets, as well as the FY 2010 budget request. Numerous studies have addressed various concerns and provided recommendations regarding U.S. foreign aid policy, funding, and structure. Of the 16 recommendations, only enhancing civilian agency resources has the support of all of the studies covered in this report. This report is a review of selected studies written between 2001 and 2008. Table.

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the role of foreign assistance as a tool of foreign policy has come into sharper focus. The President elevated global development as a third pillar of national security, with defense and diplomacy, as articulated in the U.S. National Security Strategy of 2002, and reiterated in 2006. At the same time that foreign aid is being recognized as playing an important role in U.S. foreign policy, it has also come under closer scrutiny by Congress, largely in response to a number of presidential initiatives, and by critics who argue that the U.S. foreign aid infrastructure is cumbersome and fragmented, and that aid policy and is unfocused.

Views range from general approval of the F process as a first step toward better coordination of aid programs and the need to build on it, to strong criticism of the creation of the F Bureau, its inadequacy in coordinating or reforming much of what is wrong with foreign aid, and the need to replace it with a cabinet-level department of foreign aid. [...] In the FY2009 budget request, the Bush Administration reiterated the importance of the Department of State and U. S. Agency for International Development (USAID) by saying that the FY2009 budget "reflects the critical role of the Department of State and the U. S. Agency for International Development in implementing the National Security Strategy. [...] Problems most commonly cited include the lack of a national foreign assistance strategy; failure to elevate the importance and funding of foreign aid to be on par with diplomacy and defense as a foreign policy tool; the FAA's outdated organization and strategic goals of foreign aid programs; a lack of coordination among the large number of cabinet-level departments and agencies involved in foreign [...] They range from a complete replacement of the basic authority of the U. S. government to provide most types of aid, namely, the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, to various degrees of restructuring the foreign assistance apparatus and organization within the executive branch, to new ideas and methods of funding, allocating, and evaluating the effect of foreign assistance. [...] Build on the F Process Secretary Rice's Transformational Development created within the State Department the Office of the Director of Foreign Assistance and the Foreign Assistance Framework (FAF, or F process), which is intended to provide coherence to U. S. foreign assistance policy, provide budget transparency, and allow for monitoring and evaluation of the effectiveness of foreign assistance p.

Contents: (1) Introduction; (2) Recent Trends in Foreign Assistance; (3) U.S. Aid-Related Activities, by Agency: USAID; State; DoD; HHS; USDA; Treasury; Millennium Challenge Corp.; Peace Corps; Others; (4) Existing Coordination Mechanisms; (5) Aid Coordination in Other Countries; (6) Selected Coordination Options: Enhance Coordination as Part of a National Foreign Assistance Strategy; Empower One Entity to Coordinate All U.S. Foreign Aid; Build on White House/NSC Structures with Department/Agency Rep.; Separate Strategic Assistance from Development Assistance; Enhance Coordination and Authority at the Country Level; Require Whole of Gov¿t. Reporting; Require IG Reports on All Aid Activities; (7) Legislative Activity. Illustrations.

This report analyzes how the U.S. makes policy towards the multilateral development banks (MDBs) and identifies ways by which Congress can shape U.S. policy and influence the activities of the banks themselves. Contents: (1) Introduction; (2) The Executive Branch and the MDBs: Treasury Department Leadership; U.S. Executive Directors at MDBs; Other U.S. Agencies; Policy Coordination; (3) Congress and the MDBs: Relevant Committees; Sources of Congressional Authority: Authorizing Actions; Power of the Purse; Appropriations for MDBs, FY 2000-2010; Congressional Oversight; Budgetary Issues; (4) Conclusion. Illus. This is a print on demand edition of an important, hard-to-find report.