Experts Consider Future of Foreign Aid in Landscape of Great Power Competition

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Agency for International Development is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that has, since 1961, administered civilian aid to help with extreme poverty, health crises, food insecurity and climate change in more than a hundred countries around the world. USAID also works to advance American foreign policy goals like building market systems and strong democracies.

In the modern landscape of great power competition, foreign aid has become a greater strategic tool. As countries like China and Russia seek to offer alternative models for development — and undoubtedly a venue to distribute their own national priorities — aid experts consider what changes might be necessary to maintain USAID’s dominion and influence. 

“I really think that we are at a crossroads moment with foreign assistance and development policy,” Ambassador Mark Green, current president and CEO of the Wilson Center and former USAID administrator, recently shared during a discussion with the D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“Private commercial flows create opportunities for USAID that we didn’t have 20 or 30 years ago,” he said, but “foreign assistance has become overly fragmented [and] we are in a shock-prone world. So many of the forces at play are not forces that we anticipated; so many of the key tools that we have were crafted in a radically different time.

“We have to do a better job pulling together how we align [technology innovations and private enterprise] and how we use these tools,” he said. “If we are smart enough to harness the power of private enterprise, there is no limit to what we can do … [but] one thing that we have not done very well, that we really need to pause and look at is, what does success look like?”

Henrietta Fore, former executive director for UNICEF, agrees that USAID projects would have more sustainability with a mix of public and private finance. She contends that a greater emphasis on technology and soft power — that is, methods that are not coercion or payment — would also behoove the United States in the long run. 

“We have to think in the long term. USAID’s role has to be that of being a builder,” she said. “A builder of opportunities, of benefits, so that you can see prosperity in society at home [and] abroad. It has given power to develop in a way that has been very important for the world’s progress and for world peace.

“Democracy is very messy and you have to teach a lot of things with it,” Fore said. “Even if the public funding ends … the ideas and ideals of America are embedded in those [aid] programs.”

For as much good as it may have done in the past, recent global events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, have put American foreign aid to the test with some contending that the system isn’t set up adequately to meet today’s needs and worrying that other nations might take advantage of any ebb in America’s reputation for being the first and fastest for people in distress. 

“It’s not a pretty future if we don’t do things differently,” Rajiv Shah, president of The Rockefeller Foundation said, speaking to what he said was an “inequitable” response to pandemic aid.

“We live in a world that’s teetering on the edge of some nasty populist politics pretty much everywhere,” he said. “The American domestic example matters a great deal.”

Gayle Smith, CEO of the ONE Campaign, wants to see “USAID use its position to collaborate to achieve scale,” pulling in United Nations agencies, the private sector, financiers and others to be at the table to change how development works so that there is a synergetic approach. 

A collaborative method might lessen the attraction some developing nations are feeling toward aid from other competing powers, but Green believes that when it comes to foreign assistance and expanding democracy, there is no competition.

“I think we run a risk when we look at everything through the lens of great power competition,” Green said. “Competition is about us enhancing our abilities, our capacities, and taking the things that we are good at and pushing them out. If we’re constantly measuring ourselves in the tit-for-tat of great power competition, we overlook what we are really good at.

“We don’t talk about it enough, but … we’re good at what we do. Do more of it: Do more innovation. Harness youthful capacity and innovation.”

But he said, “the first thing that we should do when we go overseas is stop and listen.”

“Capacity building is the bread and butter of USAID, helping countries lead themselves. At the end of the day, that’s what countries want,” Green said. “We can help to steer a little bit, but I really think helping countries to steer [themselves] is the hallmark of success … and how we expand our reach as a country.”

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