Puget Sound Millennium Goals Project

A recommended starting point for understanding U.S. foreign aid is a guide published by Oxfam America, May 2008:

FOREIGN AID 101: A quick and easy guide to understanding US foreign aid
http://www.oxfamamerica.org/newsandpublications/publications/briefing_pa...

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S FY2010 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS (FOREIGN AID) BUDGET

On May 7, 2009, President Obama submitted to Congress his FY2010 budget request. The majority of foreign assistance is included in the budget for the Department of State and other international programs. According to a White House (OMB) fact sheet, the budget "puts the United States on a path to double U.S. foreign assistance by 2015."

The fact sheet is at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fy2010_department_state/

A 3-page summary of key initiatives is at:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/fy2010_new_era/Department_of_State_...
Other_International_Programs1.pdf

The U.S. Secretary of State's Office provides more detail at:
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2009/05/123160.htm

Specific funding information for the Department of State's various programs can be found in a longer document (99 pages) at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2010/assets/sta.pdf

FOREIGN AID IN THE 111th CONGRESS

Congress is currently working on foreign aid funding levels for FY 2010 that will begin July 1, 2009 and for subsequent years.

Senate Concurrent Resolution 13 sets out (authorizes) the budget for all programs, including foreign aid, for fiscal year 2010 (it also revises the budgetary levels for fiscal year 2009) and sets out the levels for fiscal years 2011 through 2014. The Senate and House have agreed to the levels. See Legislation under the Main Menu for more information. Congress must now write a detailed appropriations bill that considers the President’s recommendations.

Foreign aid appropriations cover a wide range of activities. The 110th Congress developed Senate bill 3288 which was based on a joint House-Senate resolution previously agreed to that set spending levels for FY 2009 (see first attachment) and other separate policy and authorization legislation (which doesn’t need to pass to be included in the budget bill). This bill, which was not adopted, can be used to understand how funding might be allocated to foreign aid programs in the new appropriations bill.

S. 3288 Department of State, Foreign operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Bill, 2009

Title: An original bill making appropriations for the Department of State, foreign operations, and related programs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Sen Patrick Leahy [D-VT], chair of Senate Committee on Appropriations
Status: Introduced 7/18/2008 and placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders. Calendar No. 889.

This bill sets appropriation levels and specifies priorities and expectations for spending (see language in quotes) for most foreign affairs programs (and accounts), including a number that deal with MDG-related programs. It does not, however, include all expenditures of interest. For example, the 2008 "farm bill” (H.R. 6124 - Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008) included tax expenditures in the form of agricultural commodity subsidies. Also, additional spending is often included in supplemental appropriation bills for a fiscal year.

The foreign aid appropriations in S. 3288 total $36.7 billion, which is approximately $3.8 billion more than the amount needed to maintain purchasing power at the 2008 level, or a real increase of about 10%. The total for poverty reduction assistance has not been specified, but is perhaps half that amount.

The second attachment below provides details for several important aid program and accounts focused on poverty.

REFORMING FOREIGN AID

A Bread for the World briefing paper suggests needed reforms in US foreign aid policy and programs.
http://www.bread.org/BFW-Institute/briefing-papers/institute-briefing-pa...

And several coalitions of groups and individuals recently announced efforts to amend and modernize the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, which is the basic policy document that gives shape and substance to US foreign aid. For this see:

New Day, New Way: U.S. Foreign Assistance for the 21st Century, June 1, 2008, Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network
http://www.modernizingforeignassistance.org/

A Call to the New President for Responsible U.S. Global Engagement, The Connect U.S. Fund
http://www.connectusfund.org/node/1587

The White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda for the Next U.S. President, 2008, Nancy Birdsall, ed., Center for Global Development
http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/16560/

First Steps Recommendations for the President-Elect to Elevate and Strengthen Development and Diplomacy, Center for U.S. Global Engagement
http://www.usglobalengagement.org/tabid/3316/Default.aspx

Transition Recommendations: Policy towards multilateral development banks and the IMF; Poor country debt relief; sustainable and responsible lending for poor countries, December 3, 2008, Jubilee USANetwork
http://www.jubileeusa.org/transition-recommendations.html

FOREIGN AID POLICY REFORM

The Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Howard Berman, has introduced legislation that calls on the President to develop a new foreign aid strategy. The bill, H.R. 2139, is seen as a prelude to a major overhaul of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. See Legislation under the Main Menu for more information.

Both the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee are holding hearings on foreign aid reform. Transcripts and web videos of these hearings can be found at the committee's web sites:

http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/schedule.asp

http://foreign.senate.gov/hearing.html

THE DEBATE ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF FOREIGN AID

Numerous recent books, reports, and articles address the effectivenss of foreign aid, as well as how effectiveness should be measured. Some writers suggest ways to improve aid, while others advocate the termination or at least the scaling back of aid. See Resources under the main menu for these materials.

ARCHIVE OF CURRENT FOREIGN RELATIONS/FOREIGN ASSISTANCE LAW

The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 has been amended numerous times in the past half century, and other stand-alone foreign aid legislation has also been enacted. The Committees of the U.S. Senate and House that have jurisdiction over foreign affairs/relations have assembled all “current” foreign assistance law into two documents entitled Legislation on Foreign Relations that list all enactments since 1961:

Volume I-A. Legislation on Foreign Relations Through 2005 (published January 2006) - Includes the FAA, bills that amended it, and other related legislation, and runs 1153 pages.
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_house...

Volume I-B. Legislation on Foreign Relations Through 2005 (published April 2006) - Includes other current legislation and related executive orders and runs 1760 pages.
http://hirc.house.gov/archives/109/25514.pdf

(We could not find more recent publications. Our assumption is that new editions of the two volumes are only produced when there is a sufficient backlog of changes.)

Deconstruction of Volume I-A

Understanding the organization of foreign assistance legislation requires a little study. A starting point is to separate the FAA and related enactments into manageable pieces. If Volume I-A is reduced by eliminating everything except the amended underlying legislation, Foreword, Table of Contents, and list of Abbreviations, its pages number 417. It can be supplied in pdf format by request to the PSMGP. The Index to Volume I-A, which runs 72 pages, can also be supplied.

This is the current law FAA that contains policy statements. Under the indexing system used by the committees, it is designated as “a” in the table of contents. (Other foreign assistance acts, including military assistance and previous amendatory acts are similarly labeled alphabetically from b to z, and then double alpha notations are used that run from aa to rr. Everything from b to rr is in reverse chronological order.)

Basic Policy Statements

Policy incorporates values and is also stated variously in the legislation as goals, objectives, purposes, principles, priorities, and findings. It can usually be found in lead sections that express “legislative intent”, but it may even be in definitions of terms used in the legislation. In the FAA, policy for development assistance is found in Part I, Chapter 1 on the pages following the list of amendatory legislation and runs 5 1/2 pages. It’s organized into two sections: Sec. 101 dealing with General Policy, and Sec. 102 dealing with Developmental Assistance Policy. These sections would serve as one possible starting point for the rewrite.

Other Policy Statements in the FAA

Several more specific policy areas may be of interest. Microfinance policy is addressed in Chapter II, Title VI, Subtitle A – Grant Assistance, Sec. 251, Microfinance Development Assistance, on page 149. The full federal microfinance initiative is in the Microenterprise Results and Accountability Act of 2004, found on page 604 of Volume I-A. Funding support ($250 million) for microfinance is contained in the 2009 International Affairs Budget that the Senate passed last year. It presumably will also be addressed in President Obama’s 2010 budget for which details are forthcoming.

Since the FAA addresses military assistance, it contains policy statements that could be under review in a rewrite that emphasizes 3D foreign policy (Defense, Diplomacy, and Development). Military aid policy is stated in Part II, Chapter 1, Section 501, pages 249-250. And Part III, Chapter 1, Section 601, pages 303 and 304 gives general policy provisions for the “encouragement of free enterprise and private participation”, including the promotion of trade.

Policy is also explicitly stated in stand-alone legislation that is bundled with the FAA. For example, the Millennium Challenge Act of 2003 that established the Millennium Challenge program involving agreements and funding to individual developing countries has very succinct yet important policy declarations. They can be found at Title VI, Sec. 602, page 571 of Volume I-A.

Congressional Policy in Other Legislation

Members of Congress introduce aid-specific bills that contain policy statements. An example is Representative Adam Smith’s Global Poverty Act of 2007. Its policy is expressed briefly in one section. For a list bills including Smith’s that were introduced (but not enacted) in the 110th Congress go to Legislation in the Table of Contents.

Another is the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) that was part of the Trade and Development Act of 2000, enacted in that year. Representative Jim McDermott sponsored it and has been instrumental in improving it through subsequent amendments. It contains policy statements that are found in Vol. I-B at pages 169-170.

Policy is also both explicitly and implicitly stated in budget authorization and appropriation bills and is often conditioned by provisos and “sense of Congress” qualifications. And policy can also be made in the President’s executive orders. In these cases, Congress may follow-up by enacting legislation that further elaborates the policy.

Other Volumes of Legislation on Foreign Relations

For completeness, it needs to be mentioned that the two committees have also compiled several other volumes of legislation in the same series that are available online:

Vol. II-A. Legislation on Foreign Relations Through 2005 (published May 2008) – Department of State; Information and Educational and Cultural Exchange Programs
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_house...

Vol. II-B. Legislation on Foreign Relations Through 2005 (published September 2008) – Arms Control and Disarmament; United Nations Participation; War Powers
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_house...

Vol. III. Legislation on Foreign Relations Through 2005 (published October 2008) – Legislation authorizing U.S. participation in international financial institutions, including the IMF and World Bank, and tariff and trade laws.
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/useftp.cgi?IPaddress=162.140.64....