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InterAction Response to
CELEBRATE, INNOVATE AND SUSTAIN: Toward 2015 and Beyond
Discussion Draft 8/30/10
Celebrate, Innovate, and Sustain: Toward 2015 and Beyond is a significant step toward a strategy for
reforming foreign assistance and meeting the 2015 Millennium Development Goals. It is encouraging the
Administration recognizes that “assistance, while essential, cannot bring about development in the absence
of domestic policies and international flows of trade, investment, skills, and ideas that create opportunities
for lasting economic growth.” The paper also identifies good governance, broad based economic growth,
mutual accountability, measuring results, and the empowerment of women and girls as essential elements
for sustainable development. To turn these encouraging statements of principle into a strong, concrete
roadmap for success, InterAction encourages the Administration and Congress to take the following steps.
Recommendations:
1. InterAction calls upon the Administration to integrate its individual programs into a
strategy and issue a Global Development Strategy prior to the MDG Summit.
2. InterAction urges the Administration engage the NGO sector more actively in the
development and implementation of a global development strategy.
3. USAID needs to be explicitly recognized as the U.S. government’s lead agency in the
interagency process to reform international development.
4. The Administration also needs to work with Congress to reform key laws; among them
development aid, USAID, trade, and subsidies.
Positive aspects:
Transparency and predictability: The paper highlights the need for transparency and predictability as core
country partnership principles, as well as the need to involve both governments and citizens of poor
countries as the drivers of their development.
Operating methods: The Administration accepts that the current operating methods are insufficient to meet
the MDGs and some are counterproductive to effective and sustainable development. It calls for a “more
coherent division of labor among donor agencies, international organizations, and other actors based on
their respective comparative advantages.”
Aid Effectiveness: The paper recognizes the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Accra Agenda for
Action and includes a strong focus on mutual accountability, which “means delivering on our development
assistance commitments and improving the transparency of aid flows.” The strategy also calls for measuring
results and impact not just inputs, which are essential for improving development assistance.
Women and girls: The U.S. considers empowering women and girls to be “central to promoting sustainable
development and achieving many MDGs.” The proposals seek to advance an understanding of development
interventions’ impact on women and girls and to mainstream those findings into future development
programs and projects.
Infant mortality: The Road Ahead section appropriately highlights that “infant mortality is still unacceptably
high” and “reductions in maternal mortality and child under‐nutrition rates have been much too slow.”
Concerns:
On August 16th Secretary Clinton reiterated her support for improving U.S. development aid, “I want to see
our development efforts be viewed as the best in the world across the board, led by USAID, which I want to
see returned to become the premier development agency in the world and working with all of the other
agencies…” InterAction supports the Secretary’s position but unfortunately it has not been integrated into
the planning process.
U.S. institutional reform: The paper is disappointingly short on detail on institutional development reform
and does not identify the gaps or mechanisms to resolve them. The document mentions “elevating
development as a central pillar of our national security strategy, equal to diplomacy and defense, as well as
strengthening coordination between the Department of State and USAID” but does not provide specific
proposals to strengthen USAID to lead U.S. development efforts. For example the paper highlights the
effective and innovative aspects of Feed the Future, the Global Health Initiative, and the Millennium
Challenge Corporation. However there is no indication of how these programs will be integrated into a
comprehensive development strategy.
Partnerships and NGOs: The U.S. plan praises strategic partnerships and gives passing reference to NGOs in
the U.S. efforts to meet the MDGs. However, the document does not elaborate on effective partnerships or
the involvement of NGOs in the development process. InterAction urges the Administration to engage the
NGO sector actively in the development and implementation of a global development strategy.
In addition to the recommendations above, two other points are important to note:
Trade: The importance of mitigating exogenous shocks is stressed, but there is no mention of the role that
developed countries' economic and trade policies play in blocking sustainable development in low‐income
countries. It is critical that trade agreements do not harm poor people. We urge the U.S. to consider the DFID
model of placing development staff at the trade negotiation table, while boosting interagency transition
funds for changes that could negatively impact poor people.
United Nations: Though the paper is broader than the MDGs and endorses working with multi‐lateral
organizations it is surprising that there is no specific mention of the United Nations and its role in achieving
the MDGs.
Please send comments to:
John Ruthrauff, Director of Member Advocacy
JRuthrauff@InterAction.org
Steven Rocker, Senior Advocacy and Research Associate
SRocker@InterAction.org