Insights From Acting Administrator Alonzo Fulgham
FrontLines - November 2009
Eleven months and ten FrontLines columns later, I am extremely
pleased to report that we have a nominee for USAID administrator. I
know that everyone at USAID joins me in welcoming the nomination
of Dr. Rajiv Shah to lead us in carrying out the Agency’s development
and humanitarian mission. As an agency, and as a community, we
stand committed to doing everything possible to facilitate a smooth
confirmation process and an orderly transition.
I write this column days before leaving for Rome to lead the
U.S. delegation to the World Food Summit. Later this month, more
than 120 mission directors and senior management will descend on
Washington for the Worldwide Mission Directors Conference. There
they will receive their “charge” from senior administration leadership
and share lessons from the “front lines” of some of the most challenging
environments anywhere in the world.
And in the midst of it all, countless USAID staff—from
Washington to Windhoek, Kabul to Khartoum—are providing intellectual
leadership in the Presidential Study Directive on U.S. Global
Development Policy (PSD-7) and the Quadrennial Diplomacy and
Development Review (QDDR).
Launched in August 2009, the presidential study represents our
government’s first-ever attempt at establishing a global development
policy. The study is considering the elements of a U.S. global development
policy, the means to implement that policy, and how the U.S.
government should organize itself to best carry out the policy. USAID
is participating in the White House-led study for the president alongside
15 other executive departments and agencies.
At the same time, the QDDR, launched by Secretary Clinton in
July 2009, is aimed at providing strategic guidance for strengthening
institutional capabilities and effectuating corresponding organizational
changes required for USAID and the Department of State to meet 21st
century challenges. The QDDR is led by the deputy secretary of state
for management and resources and is co-chaired by State’s director of
policy planning and myself. The effort is supported by a small interagency
core team, which includes USAID participation.
The QDDR and PSD-7 together represent an historic opportunity
for USAID and the broader development community to elevate and
modernize development as an equal partner, with diplomacy, in the
furtherance of our foreign policy and national security.
Meant to be mutually reinforcing, the QDDR and PSD-7 will provide
a vision for our development strategy in the 21st century and a
roadmap to strengthening our capacity to project “smart power.”
They will help us to analyze where we are performing effectively;
where our efforts are falling short; and how we can strengthen our
capabilities to achieve real impact.
The QDDR in particular presents a unique opportunity to address
“stove-piping” and redundancy across State and USAID, and will
help USAID to define its comparative advantage vis-à-vis other
donors and partners.
Just as the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review serves as
an analytical tool for the Defense Department to justify its resource
requests, so too the QDDR will serve as a vehicle to inform our own
budget request.
We will be using future pages of FrontLines, and many other
mechanisms, to keep you informed of developments on both the
QDDR and PSD-7.
In the meantime, I want to thank all of our staff for your support
and important contributions to these endeavors. Throughout my travels
as acting administrator, I am constantly in awe of the work our
missions carry out on behalf of the American people and our partners
in the developing world. Thank you for all that you do.
★
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