How the Next Chapter of U.S. Foreign Assistance Could Hurt International Development Globally

It’s a familiar story. New administration, new changes to U.S. foreign assistance. Practically every new administration since the end of the Cold War has been eager to reshape development assistance to fit its foreign policy and domestic budget vision. So it’s no surprise the Trump administration wants to do the same. But this time the plans are more worrisome. Trump’s 2018 budget proposed slashing foreign aid (already “skinny” at less than one percent of the federal budget) by more than 30 percent and there is talk of consolidating the aid and diplomacy functions.

Many experts worry the administration’s plans for foreign aid will hurt national security. They are right, but not just because America needs development in addition to diplomacy and defense. The United States has been a global leader in international development, helping to make it more inclusive, better coordinated, and more effective over several decades. An absent or adversarial United States could significantly stall or roll back progress and hurt international and U.S. interests in the short and long-term. Here are five areas to watch:

1. Global Influence: Western official aid agencies used to be the only sources of development assistance. Now private and non-Western donors are also major players. With their own funding and relations with host-country governments, these actors could have a better opportunity to increase their influence in countries and on the development agenda globally if the United States is absent. Geopolitical implications may not be so much a problem with philanthropies as it could be with some emerging donors. China has embarked on a multi-billion dollar, multi-country investment through its One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative and is a key founder of the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
2. Consensus Goals: World leaders’ adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000 and the successor Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, helped align the international community’s resources and efforts along common priorities such as ending poverty and hunger. Given Trump’s “America First” focus and early track record on international agreements (the Paris Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, for instance), continued U.S. commitment to the SDGs may be questionable. Missing U.S. support will surely slow progress on the SDGs even if the rest of the international community goes on.
3. Partnership: Aid agencies first began to partner with civil society, the private sector, and others in the 1990s when they faced budget constraints. Since then partnership has become a development principle and a tested business model to optimize partners’ complementary resources, capacities, and risk appetites. The appeal of deal-making and using others’ resources could help partnership continue under the administration. However, the choice of partners and purposes will likely follow narrow Trump priorities. Partnerships in areas such as climate change, trade, and gender could fall off.
4. Evidence and Best Practices: The idea of aid agencies basing programs on evidence, adapting to lessons, or collecting performance data was once taken lightly. Pressure to justify aid budgets, the push for a focus on results, and modern technology have since made evidence and best practices an industry expectation. But meaningful monitoring, evaluation, and organizational learning require adequate funding and a commitment to norms. Without sticking to evidence and best practices, U.S. assistance could lose its credibility domestically and internationally. Importantly, the loss of U.S. leadership in this area could also mean losing a key voice that has challenged China’s rising development model for its weak adherence to environmental, human rights, and governance best practices.
5. Conflict and Fragile Countries: In the early 2000s, the development community began to understand that countries in conflict or that are fragile need more specialized and flexible assistance than “normal” developing countries. This recognition spurred the creation of new strategies, financing tools, technical programming, and operations to fit the unique needs of this set. Starving U.S. foreign assistance now and consolidating it with diplomacy risks losing the specialized capacity and institutional knowledge gained from more than a decade of experience in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other conflict and fragile countries. Moreover, it will be very difficult to rebuild the capacity quickly should the United States and its partners need to respond to new crises.

The potential loss of U.S. leadership in international development could threaten current and future gains globally. Many congressional members understand the stakes and have helped stem cuts to U.S. foreign assistance. But political support is unpredictable in this environment given other legislative battles. Also, there is still the possible consolidation of development and diplomacy to worry about. So while we’ve heard this story before, the newest chapter of the U.S. foreign aid saga is still being written.