The Obama Doctrine – where is the US going on development and diplomacy?

Government reports don’t come with much less enticing titles than the US ‘Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review’ but as is often the way, a boring title signals important content, setting out big and in some cases excellent plans for US foreign and development policy. The director of the review, Anne Marie Slaughter, presented the review at Chatham House in London last week – here are some highlights.

Some key messages are in the title of the review, ‘Leading Through Civilian Power’. which marks a rupture with the militarism and force projection of previous administrations. There’s a big focus on Human Security (described by Slaughter as an ‘important shift’), expanding the notion of security beyond terrorism to highlight issues of human rights and democracy – security within states.

A greater focus on regional and multilateral bodies shows that the US accepts that its unilateralist traditions are becoming increasingly counterproductive and ineffective in a multipolar world.

Slaughter described development as one of Hilary Clinton’s ‘principal charges to us, making it an equal pillar with diplomacy’. This included ‘rebuilding USAID’, moving from what she characterized as a ‘contracting agency’ to something more like the European model. Even allowing for her desire to flatter hosts, it was noteworthy that she said ‘we have looked extensively at DFID, which really is a thought leader’ – although that examination did not stretch to making USAID an independent government department like DFID. Along similar lines, here’s last week’s speech by the new USAID administrator Rajiv Shah, arguing that AID should get out of contracting and channel cash through governments, civil society organizations and private sectors. More on developments in USAID here.

Perhaps most striking of all was Slaughter’s (and Clinton’s) outspoken and sustained emphasis on women’s rights. I asked her about this, and whether it posed a risk to US foreign policy either in terms of domestic support (remember the backlash back in 1992 when Clinton as would-be first lady foreswore the baking of cookies) or in terms of relationships with less enlightened governments. Here’s her reply:

‘Things have changed domestically – we are on our third woman secretary of state now. But it has also changed because the evidence [that women rights are essential to development] is so overwhelming.’ With respect to relationships overseas, ‘there is a trade off that the Secretary of State is willing to make. You find ways to work with women’s groups even where governments are not supportive. It’s not easy, but it’s a place we have to go.’

All this echoed an excellent Guardian piece by Madeleine Bunting on Clinton’s ‘feminist foreign policy’.

The politics behind the QDDR is partly that when she sat as a senator on the Armed Services Committee, Hilary Clinton saw the impact of the Quadrennial Defense Review in proving value for money and supporting budget requests. Clinton wants Congress to require the State Department to repeat the QDDR exercise every four years – a way to keep the US Government from sliding back into old ways.

Final quote: “If there is an Obama doctrine, it is that ‘with power comes responsibility’”. Yup, Spiderman (or at least his Uncle Ben) has taken over the White House.

The ambition, the erudition and the appetite for change conjured up a whiff of the euphoria of November 2008, a pleasant change from much of the more negative mood music from the US in more recent times.

More on the QDDR here, from Global Dashboard’s David Steven.

See below for a full 40 minute presentation by Dr Slaughter in a suitably West Wing setting

The US gets serious on the Millennium Development Goals

Climate change legislation may have been blown out of the water in Congress, but Barack Obama is still moving forward on reforming the chaotic US aid system (see previous posts here). On Friday the Administration released the US plan for achieving the Millennium Development Goals, ahead of the UN’s September ‘high level event’ on the MDGs. Two paras caught my eye:

“In September 2009, President Obama launched a study of U.S. development policy and will be issuing a new development policy in the near future. The policy will focus on achieving sustainable development outcomes by promoting broad‐based economic growth and democratic governance, investing in game‐changing innovations that have the potential to solve long‐standing development challenges, and building effective public sector capacity to provide basic services over the long term. The policy also puts a premium on selectivity, on leveraging the expertise and resources of others, on mutual accountability, and on evidence of impact. This new development policy will guide the U.S. approach to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The United States fully embraces the MDGs, and as we move toward the UN High‐Level Meeting to review the MDGs this September, it is critical that we take stock of what we have learned. We know that assistance, while essential, cannot bring about development in the absence of domestic policies and international flows of trade, investment, skills, and ideas that create opportunities for lasting economic growth. We must stay focused on the development outcome we seek: sustainable progress toward higher standards of living in the developing world.”

The focus on ‘building effective public sector capacity to provide basic services’ is particularly welcome – an acknowledgement of the limits of purely private provision that you don’t always hear in US aid debates.

You can see the influence of the Gates Foundation, with its twin emphases on innovation and impact measurement (‘a relentless commitment to measuring results’, in the words of the MDG Strategy). Hardly surprising as the new head of USAID, Rajiv Shah (left), is a former GF high flyer. This document shows how quickly Shah and USAID have won back lost political ground from other government agencies (USAID was put in charge of developing the MDG strategy and Shah unveiled the strategy on Friday).

The document also stresses the importance of promoting ‘broad-based economic growth’ and the need to ‘invest in and empower women and girls’. Good stuff.

The Obama administration didn’t have to do this. Not many votes in it, and the global financial crisis could have provided a perfect excuse for retrenchment or delay, so kudos for some real leadership. That will hopefully invigorate the preparations for the MDG summit. For the US, the next step is finishing and publishing that overall US development strategy, which has already been leaked in draft form.

What to make of the leaked US development strategy?

First the plug: I’m in the US at the moment (for quite a long time, if the ash cloud has anything to do it) and will be speaking at Oxfam America in Washington DC on Tuesday at 12 noon (1100 15th St NW, 6th floor). Subject: the UK elections and development policy. Co-speaker Jim Kolbe from the German Marshall Fund. [Update: Sorry, got the address wrong - the event on Tuesday is now taking place at the Ronald Reagan Building, wherever that is.]

Back to business. The reader survey suggested themed series of posts, so this is aid week on the blog – I’ll be posting a series of articles on various aid debates and new papers.

First up, what’s going in with the US aid reform process? (see previous posts for background). I’ve just been reading the leaked draft of the Obama administration’s Presidential Study Directive on the purpose of US foreign aid, which the President set in motion last August. It’s very top level, and quite hard to pin down but here are some initial impressions. First of all, the very big picture: it calls for a US global development strategy - that’s actually the bit the development community in the US are most excited about. Basically, this strategy is a chance for Obama to say US foreign aid should be about poverty, and should be pursued through country ownership. It would be great if he could release some kind of National Strategy for Global Development by the MDG Summit in September.

What’s hot?
Big emphasis on the security aspects of development: ‘[We will] elevate development as a central pillar of our national security strategy, equal to diplomacy and defense’. That means USAID joining relevant National Security Council (NSC) meetings and a new ‘development impact assessment’ as part of the procedures for reviewing trade, intellectual property, immigration policies etc.

Growth, growth growth: ‘Foster the next generation of emerging markets by enhancing our focus on broad-based growth and democratic governance’ (and that ‘broad based’ is the only reference I can find, however oblique, to inequality).

and fingers crossed...

USAID will be beefed up through ‘a commitment to rebuilding USAID as our lead development agency’.

What’s not?

Climate Change strikingly absent, probably due to the congressional rancour over the cap and trade legislation.

The document is big on governments and markets, but there’s very little mention of citizens or their organizations (beyond supporting their right to the occasional election).

So development is ‘equal to diplomacy and defense’. What happens when the three conflict? No suggestion of how such tensions will be resolved. Speaking at Harvard last Friday, the President’s development adviser and person in charge of the PSD, Gayle Smith, said the ‘big test’ of the new strategy would be the extent to which development informs the other two Ds. Good luck with that. The danger is, of course, that the traffic will all be in the other direction, as development policy is placed at the service of defence and diplomacy – coherence is a double-edged sword.

Some other pluses:
Big technology push to ‘increase our investments and engagement in development-focused innovation’ including more public money for research and an intriguing promise to ‘remove impediments to innovation and adaptation by the private sector.’ – Could the US government come out in favour of overhauling intellectual property rules to release more technologies for poor countries?

A welcome recognition that systems matter as well as stuff. ‘the US will invest in systemic solutions that go beyond the provision of inputs, such as building sustainable health systems and productive agricultural sectors. This focus on sustainability will also be central to how we approach humanitarian assistance and our engagement in pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals.’ That sounds promising in terms of reforming food aid, where the US has historically dragged its feet compared to other aid donors, insisting on using it as a means to dump US farm surplus, even at the risk of undercutting local production.

And a possible minus:
An apparent wish to increase policy conditionality (where the aid donor mistakenly tries to micromanage the development process by specifying the policies and reforms governments should pursue): the US ‘will be giving greater attention to pursuing policy reforms essential for development as a matter of our diplomatic engagement’.

Any other good (preferably not too fawning/self-serving) analyses or reactions?

Links I liked: mobiles v coke; Obama’s Mandela moment etc

Are mobiles the new Coca Cola? Mobile phones are held up as the most promising aspect of new technology in terms of helping poor people improve their lives, but some new research suggests people are cutting back on food and other essentials to pay for the all important status symbol. See here for a summary of the research and discussion.

A promising new website called African Arguments Online, hosted by the Royal African Society and the Social Science Research Council, promises to provide ‘the most vigorous debates on Africa available on the web’.

Why is the Hudson airplane rescue a metaphor for the financial bailout? See here

Hyperactive Yale blogger Chris Blattman tries to ‘dream like an engineer’ on African infrastructure here

Top Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee brilliantly captures the historical significance of the Mandela moment of Obama’s inauguration here. I thought Obama’s speech showed a real recognition that campaigning may be conducted in poetry, but governing is done in prose (a line originally coined by Mario Cuomo, I believe).

And just because I like the title, how about ‘markets punish UK for saving markets‘. The UK government bails out the banks at huge cost to the taxpayer. Financial analysts say ‘ooh look, a big deficit’ and start dumping sterling and shares. In the immortal words of Gordon Gekko in Wall Street, ‘if you want a friend, get a dog.’

What might Obama do on US Aid Policy?

By the time I got to the US (a week after the election), euphoria seemed to have given way to the strange interregnum between presidents. I found a vast gossip machine on who gets what job in the new administration (7000 jobs are up for grabs), and a lingering underswell of pride and anticipation, laced with concern at inflated expectations (not confined to the US – have a look at this front page from Uganda).

Aid is clearly not going to be Obama’s top priority, but he has already said some sensible things about his plans, and there are some real opportunities, many of them created by some well targeted research and advocacy work involving networks of foundations, thinktanks and NGOs, with Oxfam America’s excellent aid effectiveness team playing a central role. Read More …

US elections: killer facts, what happens now? And Palin the poet

The December issue of my favourite current affairs magazine, Prospect, has some great analysis (laced with whimsy) of the election and transition. Top billing goes to an insightful assessment of Obama’s likely direction by Michael Lind. Lind cautions against euphoria, drawing on the already over-used comparison with FDR in predicting that Obama’s first term will mostly have to be devoted to dealing with the economic crisis. Sorting out the US health system will probably have to wait for a second term when, like FDR, reformers will need to think big. (Man of the moment Paul Krugman thinks Obama has to think even bigger than FDR – writing in the New York Times, he said ‘the truth is that the New Deal wasn’t as successful in the short run as it was in the long run. And the reason for FDR’s limited short-run success, which almost undid his whole program, was the fact that his economic policies were too cautious.’

Prospect also has a handy guide to the most influential thinktanks and other influences on Obama from Martin Walker at the Woodrow Wilson Center. He gives the nod to the Center for American Progress, the Brookings Institution and Lind’s own New America Foundation.

Here are a few killer facts from the issue: Read More …

How did the book go down in Obamerica?

Just got back exhausted from an intense two week tour of the US organized by the hyper-efficient Kristen Prince at Oxfam America. Highlights included an afternoon on Capitol Hill in West Wing Wonderland discussing the book with Congressional staffers, big and enthusiastic turnouts at the Gates Foundation, Northeastern, Georgetown and Brandeis Universities and the World Bank (where we broke our sales record), a presentation to some Silicon Valley types at Stanford (I’ve never had valet parking outside one of my talks before…), and an enjoyable knockabout with Lant Pritchett at Harvard’s Kennedy School (Lant’s a climate change denier – he doesn’t deny it is happening, but thinks we shouldn’t spend any money on it. He was part of the misleadingly named ‘Copenhagen Consensus‘, which mercifully seems to have dropped off the map of late). So what emerged from this extended road test with about 1000 of the USA’s best and brightest? Read More …

What has Obama said about aid, development and climate change?

I’m in the US for a couple of weeks to promote the book round universities and thinktanks (details here). But an added bonus is to experience the new mood in Obamerica. I won’t add to the mountain of op-eds and blogs on the global and historic significance of seeing a black family in the White House. Or to the gigabytes of ‘advice’ on what the new administration should do first. Instead let’s look at what he’s said so far on aid, climate change and development. Read More …