United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and Administrator

Department/Agency: United States Agency for International Development

Position:

Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and Administrator

Executive Schedule: Executive Level II - Presidential Appointment with Senate Confirmation

Major Responsibilities:

Manage U.S. humanitarian assistance around the world
Promote U.S. national security by fighting poverty and the lack of economic opportunity, a root cause of violence and terrorism
Direct the Millennium Challenge Corp. and oversee the Office of U.S. Global Aids Coordinator
Administer programs to help strengthen agriculture, the environment, education and health in some of the world's poorest countries
Strengthen democracy, support free and fair elections and support human rights

Key Competencies and Preferred Qualifications:

Background in diplomacy
Management experience in public or private sector
First-hand experience in developing countries
Familiarity with Congress and public policy making
Ability to partner with NGOs

Insight:

The Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development manages the United States' humanitarian efforts around the world. USAID is the civilian arm of the government in helping countries escape poverty, recover from disasters and move toward democracy. This independent agency gets its foreign policy guidance from the Secretary of State and works in close concert with Foggy Bottom. Indeed, U.S. foreign service offices are a principal component of its staff. USAID takes center stage when natural disasters strike or countries are riven by violence, creating large-scale health, safety, sanitation and nutritional needs beyond the resources of the affected region. The administrator holds rank equivalent to the deputy secretary of state. President John F. Kennedy created the Agency for International Development in 1961 to administer economic assistance programs. The new agency could trace its roots to the Marshall Plan that helped rebuild Europe after World War II and to the help for poor countries that President Harry Truman promised in his 1949 inaugural address.

USAID partners with the humanitarian arms of the United Nations, government counterparts such as the United Kingdom's Department For International Development (DFID), charities and voluntary organizations, businesses, academic and indigenous organizations. It has working relationships with 3,500 American companies and more than 300 U.S.-based private voluntary organizations. It employs more than 2,000 civil service and foreign service employees in Washington and overseas as well as 5,000 foreign nationals it recruits to carry out its work in their home countries. Six hundred other Americans work for it as contractors, mainly based overseas.

President George W. Bush boosted foreign assistance and made helping AIDS victims in Africa and elsewhere a hallmark of his administration. The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) supported life-saving antiretroviral treatment for 1.7 million people and U.S. support for malaria programs helped millions avoid that deadly disease. But the administration's humanitarian efforts were a small fraction of what it spent to wage the war on terror and support combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Even within the Bush administration there were voices that said U.S. strategic interests would be better served by devoting more resources to democracy-building and humanitarian efforts like those undertaken by USAID. Longtime advocates of these programs were hopeful that the election of Barack Obama and the appointment of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state would presage an even larger U.S. role in humanitarian efforts. Obama promised during his campaign to pursue such a strategy. Liz Schrayer, executive director of the nonprofit Center for U.S. Global Engagement, said the president-elect's choices for his national security team - including holdover Secretary of Defense Robert Gates - "have all been vocal advocates for strengthening our non-military tools to advance more effectively America's national interests." The next administrator of USAID will play a large role in making that happen.

In addition to responding in a natural or man-made crisis, USAID is also tasked with addressing the chronic deficiencies in health, education, entrepreneurial support and democratic political institutions that plague developing nations. Former USAID administrator J. Brady Anderson told the Prune Book in 2000 that these long-term development projects deserve more public attention. "Those things are really important," he said. "The problem is, does the press think it's important?" Convincing both the news media and Congress of this importance is always part of the AID administrator's job.

The United States spends about 0.5% of the federal budget on all forms of foreign assistance. If President-elect Obama Secretary of State-designate Clinton and the new USAID administrator want to change that, they must first convince Congress. The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, which tracks the foreign aid contributions of 22 industrialized nations, said the United States was next to last behind Greece in the percentage of gross national income devoted to foreign aid, although it provides more dollars for relief than any other nation. Still, as a share of gross national income, the United Kingdom outspent the United States 2-to-1 on development aid in 2007. This is not pure altruism. Countries have self-interested economic reasons for giving aid - it fosters strong trading partners - and the industrialized nations also view it as an important way to foster democracy and economic growth and keep the peace.

Outgoing USAID Administrator Henrietta Fore, speaking at an international conference in Doha on Nov. 28, 2008, said that despite the unsettling events in the global economy, "the United States will meet our commitments, our obligations to the people in the developing world, and I know this same commitment is broadly shared among all present in Doha this week." The United States had nearly tripled its official development assistance since 2000, Fore said. In development work, "you must take the long view .... (and) we have a great deal to be proud of," including a reduction in child deaths from 13 million in 1990 to fewer than 10 million in 2007. The financial crisis has taught the historic lesson "that the health of the public and private sectors are deeply dependable on each other: from the tangibles of country regulations to the intangibles of the confidence of markets, consumers, and citizens," she added.

Fore's job regularly took her to the world's poorest countries and those struggling to escape disasters, both natural and manmade. She traveled to war-torn Georgia in August 2008 and hurricane-ravaged Haiti a month later. In a speech last May, she said of the USAID's mission, "Our work is a calling. There is no other way of putting it. One simply cannot know about what's happening in the world right now, and fail to act....The American people once again stand ready to help."

The next administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development must make the sales pitch to Congress that a bigger investment in foreign aid will generate a positive return, not simply by improving the U.S. philanthropic image, but also by creating consumers for American products and strengthening potential allies in an increasingly hostile world.

Key Relationships – Within the Government:

Secretary and Deputy Secretary of State
CEO, Millennium Challenge Corporation
Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services
Under Secretary for International Trade, Department of Commerce
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy

Key Relationships – Outside the Government:

President and Managing Director, World Bank
Administrator, United Nations Development Programme
Executive Director, World Food Program, United Nations
Vice President, Sustainable Development World Bank African Development Foundation
U.S. Permanent Representative, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
Secretary of State for International Development, United Kingdom
Permanent Secretary, Department For International Development (DFID), United Kingdom
President, Global Development Program, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
President, African Development Bank
Secretary General, Association of Southeast Asian Nations
President, Center for Global Development
Executive Director, Center for U.S. Global Engagement

Nomination Referred to:

Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

Current Position Profile:

1. Dr. Rajiv Shah (Confirmed: Dec 24, 2009). Former Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics and Chief Scientist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Director of Agricultural Development in the Global Development Program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Recent Position Profiles:

2. Henrietta Fore, M.S. (Confirmed 2007). Former assistant administrator of USAID and under secretary of state for management. U.S. Mint director in President Bush's first term. Assistant USAID administration under former President George H.W. Bush. Business woman. Chairman and president of Stockton Wire Products. Founder of Financial Services Volunteer Corp. Trustee of Aspen Institute and Asia Society.

3. Andrew S. Natsios, M.A. (2001- 2007). Former USAID chief operating officer. Former Massachusetts state representative and chairman of Massachusetts Turnpike Authority. Executive director of the Northeast Public Power Association. Vice president of World Vision. Retired Army Reserves lieutenant colonel; served in the Gulf War.

4. J. Brady Anderson, J.D. (1999-2001). Former assistant attorney general of Arkansas. Former ambassador to Tanzania. Special assistant to Bill Clinton in first term as governor. Worked in East Africa with Wycliffe Bible Translators. Naval officer and Vietnam veteran.