2020 and beyond: Maintaining the bipartisan narrative on US global development

What are the underlying trends that will drive the 2020 election and affect development and international engagement? What are the relevant challenges, competing pressures, and opportunities that will dominate campaigns?

Support for foreign assistance has rested on the trifecta of national security, humanitarian values, and economic advancement. How do recent initiatives—such as USAID’s Journey to Self-Reliance emphasis on graduating countries from assistance, and the elevated focus on the role of the private sector as epitomized by the BUILD Act—fit this narrative? What narrative will resonate with policymakers and the American public as the rationale for foreign assistance and development?

Are there consensus issues such as women, youth, or education that provide opportunities to galvanize support and advance the development agenda?

What are practical themes and initiatives that a new Congress or administration could take up with broad-based support?

How to frame and create a narrative for bipartisan support on development issues that touch on big political divides—climate and migration? How to frame, or focus on the consensus aspects of climate in a way that defangs the politics? How to capture the constructive aspects of migration and stem forced migration?

If fragility is an existential challenge to development, and to U.S. foreign policy interests, is there a frame and an approach that would galvanize U.S. and international support, and avoid falling into the narrative of nation-building?

Do the Global Fragility Act and the report of the Task Force on Extremism in Fragile States offer a path to address fragility?

How to address reconstruction in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, if and when they emerge from violence and conflict?

How should the U.S. respond to the violence and break in the social contract in the Northern Triangle?

Where are the spaces for the U.S. to collaborate—and not—with China as a major development actor?

On which issues is China a potential competitor and on which ones a potential collaborator? Should we shape, contain, or compete with the Belt and Road Initiative? Is there space for cooperation and forging common ground with Western approaches to development?

What is the narrative, and a possible new initiative, that will sell 2020 candidates and the American people on U.S. international engagement and development and could be implemented by policymakers beginning 2021?

What will energize the ecosystem of policy makers, philanthropists, businesses, and civil society organizations who already understand the importance of and support development efforts?