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Monday November 9, 2009

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Past Event

A Presidential Transition Event

Memo to the President: Redefine America's Global Development Cooperation

Global Poverty, Foreign Aid, Foreign Assistance Reform, Development, The Presidential Transition


Event Summary

The fight against global poverty has become a fight for global security. But after an awkward entrance into the 21st century, America must redefine its role in the world, including its relations with developing countries. The new administration has an opportunity to refashion its foreign assistance leadership, and with it the role of the United States in forging a new era of global development cooperation involving both industrial and developing countries.

Event Information

When

Wednesday, December 10, 2008
3:00 PM to 4:30 PM

Where

Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC
Map

Event Materials


Contact: Brookings Office of Communications

E-mail: events@brookings.edu

Phone: 202.797.6105

On December 10, Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Colin Bradford offered a public memo to the president-elect with recommendations how to modernize U.S. aid efforts and address the global development challenges of the 21st century effectively and with accountability. Bradford was chief economist of USAID during the Clinton administration where he also had the lead role in U.S. coordination with other bilateral and multilateral donors. The memo is the fifth of 12 Brookings memos on the most crucial public policy priorities facing the new president.

A distinguished panel included Bradford and three former USAID administrators: J. Brian Atwood, dean of the Hubert H Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota; Peter McPherson, president of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges; and Andrew Natsios, distinguished professor, Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. George Ingram, vice president of the Academy for Educational Development and board member of the Center for US Global Engagement, moderated the discussion.
 

Transcript

COLIN BRADFORD: ... the reform era requires political leadership, so I join the administrators and many others of you in the room and others outside in thinking that a Secretary for Global Development is an answer to this particular global moment, this global political moment and this moment for reform.

... If you look at what the president-elect has done with the national security team and the economic team, I mean it's clear that four is better than one, and that he's not lodging the leadership in a single person but in a team, in a group, all of whom were distinguished.

... just imagine a world in which the donor coordination functions of the United States are led by a person such as Jim Wolfensohn or even Bob Zoellick. Think about what kind of a world we would have if the policy coherence element, the drawing together of the different threads of American development cooperation effort were led by the likes of Wesley Clark or Colin Powell or even David Gergen.

Think of what it might be like if we had the Congressional relations in the hands of someone like Lee Hamilton or Jim Leach. Think of what would happen if we had the capacitation effort, the mobilization of the private sector and the civil society in the hands of someone like Senator Chuck Hagel or Bill Gates.

Now, I'm not suggesting that we have a debate here about whether these particular people are the people we want, but rather encouraging you to think of people like them that we might think about to take on leadership segments of the development cooperation effort so that there's actually a team of people that approach this. We haven't lodged all our hopes and all the world's hopes in a single person, but in a team of people who are able to bring this off.

Participants

Moderator

George Ingram

Vice President, Academy for Educational Development
Board Member, Center for US Global Engagement

Featured Panelists

Colin I. Bradford

Nonresident Senior Fellow, Global Economy and Development

J. Brian Atwood

Dean, Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota

Andrew Natsios

Distinguished Professor, Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University

Peter McPherson

President, National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges


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