Reforming U.S. Foreign Aid: Recommendations from the OECD Development Assistance Committee Peer Review

In today’s cost-cutting budget environment, efforts to reform U.S. foreign assistance programs to better support development outcomes have become more important than ever. What are the main opportunities and challenges as the U.S. aid architecture seeks to adapt to a changing global environment? How can better aid management and cooperation support these goals? The Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) conducts periodic peer reviews of member countries to answer these questions. The peer review focuses on helping countries understand areas for improvements in development strategy and structure, as well as identify and share best practices.

On July 28, Global Economy and Development at Brookings and the OECD hosted a discussion on the recently completed peer review of the United States. J. Brian Atwood, chair of the OECD Development Assistance Committee, provided an overview of the peer review’s findings. Following his remarks, panelists including Donald Steinberg, deputy administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Senior Fellow Homi Kharas, deputy director of Global Economy and Development at Brookings, and Connie Veillette, director of the Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance Program at the Center for Global Development, discussed the review process and its conclusions in the context of ongoing reforms. Fellow Noam Unger, policy director of the Foreign Assistance Reform Project at Brookings, moderated the discussion.

After the program, panelists took audience questions.