The role of foreign aid in a challenging time

The holiday season and the glimmer of a new year always invite reflection on the year gone by, and 2016 has brought much to reflect upon. 

It’s been a year of unprecedented global crisis, with those forced to flee their homes numbering higher than ever since World War II, inequality reaching staggering heights in developed and developing countries alike, and the effects of climate change threatening to alter the very face of this planet we all call home.

{mosads}And if these challenges weren’t enough, increasing nationalism, xenophobia, and partisanship only exacerbate their negative effects.

The United States has long been a leader in the international arena, from diplomacy, to business, to philanthropy. This leadership is needed now more than ever — in fact, we need more of it.

Over the next few months, we’re expecting to hear increasing calls here at home for the United States to isolate itself and take a backseat on the world stage. But for a Trump administration to halt our involvement and support for things like foreign aid would be a grave mistake.

Foreign aid is a tiny piece of the U.S. budget each year, but it is greatly outweighed by its power and potential.

Even at less than 1 percent of the budget, U.S. foreign assistance is helping to ensure girls are able to go to school, families have access to quality medical care, small businesses have what they need to get started and scale up, and millions who rely on agriculture are able to produce enough crops to nutritiously feed and support their families into the future.

U.S. foreign assistance has contributed to the international effort to bring more than 1 billion people out of extreme poverty since 1990, and to help their families achieve basic human needs like food, housing, health and education.

Diseases like polio, HIV/AIDS and malaria are now in retreat and the proportion of undernourished people has fallen by half.

These are not just investments in education, health or agriculture, they are investments in peace. When individuals, communities and countries are able to provide for themselves, stability and peace typically follow. After all, countries at peace make better trading partners, safer bets for business, and stronger allies.

Now is not the time to cut back on our support for foreign aid, but to make it better. If done well, foreign assistance will help set our partner countries on a path toward self-sufficiency and aid independence.

To do that, the United States should strive to design and implement foreign aid programs in a way that gives developing countries increasing autonomy.

This includes aligning U.S. development projects with country priorities, funding and strengthening local organizations and institutions, and bolstering countries’ ability to generate and collect domestic resources in a way that favors — and doesn’t harm — the poor. Ensuring governments, civil society and citizens of partner countries are meaningfully included in U.S. foreign assistance projects is not only what’s right, it is what better works.

In recent years, successive U.S. presidents have made progress on this front. President George W. Bush established the Millennium Challenge Corporation, which works directly with national governments and local actors as a requirement. President Obama issued the first-ever Presidential Policy Directive on Development which led the U.S. Agency for International Development to increase its investments in partner governments, local organizations and private sector.

There is room for improvement, but this should not come at the expense of the agencies trying to do this work, or the people around the world whose lives and livelihoods are better for it. Simplifying structures and ensuring stronger inter agency cooperation are critical.

This week, the United States built on this work through its participation in the second High-Level Meeting of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation in Nairobi. The decisions made at this meeting re-set the standards for foreign aid and development cooperation for years to come, and the whole world is narrowly watching what the U.S. says and does closely in this key moment of history.

On the agenda in Nairobi was also the worrisome trend shutting civic space in too many countries: 156 laws and other restrictions constraining freedoms of association and assembly were reported in 75 countries since 2012. Women’s organizations and women’s rights are especially affected and should therefore be especially defended. The next generation of development cooperation should opt for a citizen-state compact that allows progress, democracy and empowers women and those worse off. A commitment to move in this direction is critical in Nairobi, and the United States must support it.

Now is not the time for the United States to step back. Our global challenges are far too great, and it’s not who we are.