John Norris :
First and foremost, expertise in development, management and understanding the ways of Washington are crucial in whether an administrator succeed or fails. Those who struggled as administrators tended to have little development experience before taking the job and were new to Washington. All those who have been most successful had practical international and development experience before taking the post and understood how the federal government worked.
It isn’t a shock that people with experience fare better; what is shocking is the number of times that presidents have seen fit to appoint administrators who were expected to magically pick up how to be a good administrator on the fly. Development is a complex endeavor and running the U.S. Agency for International Development is not the best place to get your on-the-job training.
The most accomplished administrators have understood both development policy and the need to nest USAID’s approach within the broad directions of foreign policy.
Simply examining the CV of any incoming administrator for development experience is probably the relative gauge of how they are going to do on the job. The development community as a whole probably needs to do a better job speaking out loudly when it looks like underqualified appointees are going to be put in such important posts. Unless there is some political outcry or price to be paid, presidents will continue to put forward some names for USAID administrator that don’t pass the laugh test. The relation between party affiliation and doing well running the agency is cloudy. Republican presidents have appointed some of the very best administrators and some of the very worst. But as one USAID staffer maintained, “Democrats care about aid; Republicans manage it,” and there may be some truth to that.
In reality, however, some of this may be a structural issue. Competent Republican USAID administrators naturally garner support from Democrats in Congress who want to see assistance programs preserved. Democratic USAID administrators expect little support from Republicans, and Republicans in Congress are often happy to demonize foreign assistance when their party is out of power in the White House but to expand spending when they are. Senator Jesse Helms never tried to eliminate USAID when there was a Republican president.
The links between party affiliation and policy approach have been fairly clear. Republicans have generally been stronger advocates of both free market approaches, less willing to work with multilateral institutions and more prone to “securitize” assistance. Democrats have tended to have more of a people focus, have stressed human rights and democracy to a greater degree, been more willing to work with multilaterals, and stronger supporters of family planning and environmental protection.
The best administrators have tended to take a balanced position, working to promote institutional reform while still keeping an eye on the importance of addressing basic human needs.
The most accomplished administrators have understood both development policy and the need to nest USAID’s approach within the broad directions of foreign policy. They are able to maintain relations with the diverse constituency that cares about aid programs – the State Department, the White House, Congress, nongovernmental organizations, the university community, private contractors, religious groups and others – and make them feel like their disparate efforts are going toward a coherent whole.
Almost all of the good administrators have recognized the importance of USAID’s policy shop, long-term strategic planning and control of the agency’s budget process. It makes sense: Effective development isn’t a simple mechanical exercise of delivering dollars and projects; it requires a strong theory of the case about what you are trying to achieve and how you go about it.
Policy and budget functions have tended to drift toward the State Department under weak and subpar administrators, with senior State Department officials often reasoning that emasculating USAID’s ability to control money and policy was the easiest route to control the agency. USAID’s ability to fend off Helms in the 1990s convinced many in the State Department that poaching USAID’s authority was far easier than doing away with the entire institution.
Speculation continues to swirl that Administrator Rajiv Shah will leave the agency not far in the future. The White House, State Department and whoever ultimately replaces him at the helm of USAID would be wise to look back at the agency’s history before scheduling any confirmation hearings.
(John Norris is the executive director of the Sustainable Security and Peacebuilding Initiative at the Center for American Progress).
