At town hall meetings for State Department and USAID employees on July 10-11, Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton outlined plans for a Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) of US foreign affairs programs. The reviews will parallel and complement similar long-standing reviews by the Defense Department of its global activities.
In her prepared remarks, Clinton said:
"We need to align our resources with strategic priorities to direct our funds and to maximize our impact. As individuals, as an organization, we need to work better, work smarter, and work together with more partners in and beyond our government. And instead of simply trying to adjust to the way things are, we need to get in the habit of looking to the horizon and planning for how we want things to be.
"To help us in that effort and to enable the Department and USAID to get ahead of emerging threats and opportunities and to make the case effectively for OMB, the Congress, and the people of our country for the resources we need, today, I'm announcing that we will, for the first time ever, conduct a Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, a QDDR, if you will. I served for six years on the Armed Services Committee in the Senate. And it became very clear to me that the QDR process that the Defense Department ran was an important tool for the Defense Department to not only exercise the discipline necessary to make the hard decisions to set forth the priorities, but provided a framework that was a very convincing one to those in the Congress, that there was a plan, people knew where they were headed, and they had the priorities requested aligned with the budget, and therefore, people were often very convinced that it made good sense to do whatever the Defense Department requested.
"Well, I want to make the same case for diplomacy and development. We will be doing this quadrennial review, which will be, we hope, a tool to provide us with both short-term and long-term blueprints for how to advance our foreign policy objectives and our values and interests. This will provide us with a comprehensive assessment for organizational reform and improvements to our policy, strategy, and planning processes. And this will help make our diplomacy and development work more agile, responsive, and complimentary. This is what we mean when we talk about smart power."
Following Clinton's announcement, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard L. Berman (D-CA), sponsor of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011, which passed the House of Representatives on June 10, said:
"I share the Secretary's view of the importance of undertaking a comprehensive and strategic planning process that will clarify the goals and objectives of our foreign policy and foreign aid programs, define the roles of the various civilian agencies in implementing them, and identify the appropriate resources and mechanisms for achieving them.
"As the process moves forward, special focus and attention should be paid to the long-term goal of reducing poverty and promoting broad-based and sustainable economic growth in developing countries, which must not be subordinated to short-term political and diplomatic objectives. Contributing to the advancement of internationally-recognized development goals serves not only our moral and humanitarian interests, but also our national security imperatives because it increases stability and reduces the likelihood of failed states.
"We in Congress look forward to working with Deputy Secretary Lew and Policy Planning Director Slaughter and the USAID Administrator as they spearhead this process; it corresponds to section 302 of H.R. 2410, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011, which passed the House of Representatives on June 10."