Congress established the Helping to Enhance the Livelihood of People around the Globe (HELP) Commission to study U.S. development and humanitarian assistance programs and to propose bold reform recommendations for relevant structures, mechanisms and incentives. The Global Economy and Development program hosted the HELP Commission for the official release of its report on foreign aid reform, Beyond Assistance, which provides recommendations designed to harness the full potential of U.S. foreign assistance efforts.
Back to event page
Transcript
“As I look at the incoming administration on of the biggest challenges for the President is going to be putting a new face on how America engages with the world. And, the recognition here, the development assistance--the foreign assistance more generally--is one of the primary tools we have at our disposal to really do that. And, why do I say that? Because over the last several years, we’ve seen international polling, we have lost ground. Our reputational capital all around the world has taken a lot of hits. And we simply can’t afford at a moment when demographic power, economic power, energy resources are shifting the balance of global power. We simply cannot afford to be dissipating our capital that way. If you look at the soft power tools we have at our disposal, trade is going to be tough for political reasons domestically; immigration is going to be tough for obvious domestic political reasons; and climate change is going to take a while and is going to be tough, as well. But what is interesting about this report is I think is, that it shows there is a new bipartisan consensus on how critical this set of tools is.
“In terms of specific recommendations, we ran a bipartisan task force on transforming foreign assistance for the 21st century, over the course of about two years here at Brookings with CSIS. And, there are a number of similar recommendations that I hope Congress really listens to and that I hope the new President really listens to. These includes things like making sure trade and aid are reinforced. It includes things like leveraging that enormous generosity and power of the American private sector, of American volunteers, of American philanthropists, NGOs, the faith-based community. It includes, very importantly, increasing the capabilities the operational capabilities on the civilian side to actually carry out--to execute well. The one thing I worry about is that the structural recommendations might overshadow some of those. The ultimate recommendation of the (HELP) Commission is one that I think is sort of a continuation of the Jesse Helms reforms of the 1990s, but with much, much greater impact. And, the one thing, I think these will be very controversial, I think they go into areas that other agencies are currently involved in, agencies that I used to coordinate at the White House. Whether it be USTR’s work on trade. Whether it be Treasury’s work on international financial policies and policies toward the multilaterals. And, what I hope is that that set of recommendations, which I think is an interesting part of the debate, doesn’t overshadow some of these other things, which I think are immediate and where there is very, very strong immediate consensus.”