House Foreign Affairs Committee U.S. House of Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Republican
	Opening Remarks of Ranking Member Ros-Lehtinen at Hearing, Foreign Assistance Reform and Organizational Change – “Rebuilding US Civilian Development and Diplomatic Capacity in the 21st Century”
	June 25, 2008
	At our last hearing on the general topic of foreign aid reform I compared our foreign aid system as a bowl of spaghetti --- given the difficulty in following the lines of authority and achieving our foreign aid objectives. The specific topic before us today – the issue of the civilian capacity necessary to support our foreign aid programs – reminds me of the old adage of the glass of water. Depending on your perspective, the glass of water that is our current civilian capacity can be seen as either half full or half empty. Our level of staffing at the US Agency for International Development is an obvious issue for us to consider today. I think, is a good example of what I mean by the glass of water analogy. The number of direct-hire employees at AID has been cut in recent decades. That is where the glass seems half empty to some. But, the total number of staff, of all types, who now work for AID has risen – at least when compared with the total of three decades ago, in 1978. It just depends on how you compare staffing levels with the totals of earlier years and the types of employees that AID has today. There is certainly a question as to how much of our program management we should delegate to contractors. Many observers also rightly note that our foreign aid programs today are dispersed across many departments and agencies. Such observers rarely seem to emphasize, however, that those additional agencies also have additional civilian staff and additional sources of technical expertise. It may well be the case that such dispersion of programs across our government calls for better coordination. But we should be sure that, while we examine the question of coordination of agencies, we don’t overlook the fact that there are other staff capacities out there besides AID’s --- and that they may be playing a constructive role in supporting our aid programs today. That is something we may want to explore in more detail, perhaps in a specific hearing. In looking at US foreign aid today, we should not look back to 1961, the year that the Agency for International Development was created, as if it was something of a utopian age. It was simply a different age, with different circumstances. We certainly need to consider the evolution of our foreign aid programs, but we should also look abroad to see how other donor countries are addressing the development challenges of this age --- at the start of the 21st Century, as the title of today’s hearing notes. Germany and Britain have independent, centralized aid agencies, but others, such as France and Spain have aid agencies that are subordinated to their foreign ministries. Sweden has an International Development Cooperation Agency under its foreign ministry, but it reportedly directs a great deal of its aid funding to an investment capital fund rather than to more traditional aid programs. Denmark, in contrast, is reported to have decentralized its aid programs, transferring much of the management and decision-making to its overseas offices. The European Union’s program apparently has a complex structure, having three directorate-generals working with one implementing agency. And Japan’s International Cooperation Agency may soon merge with part of Japan’s Bank for International Cooperation. Whether these examples might ultimately impact the development of our own aid program is unknown. But I raise these examples to demonstrate that while some countries are trying centralization of their aid operations, others are going in a different, decentralized way.   The way that is chosen – centralization or decentralization – would certainly have an impact on staffing requirements, so I ask our witnesses to share their thoughts regarding the proposal for a centralized US aid agency and what it would require in terms of staffing levels. In closing, let me say that I believe that Congress has some difficult internal questions it needs to ask itself. Some governments, such as Britain’s, have much less legislative oversight over their aid programs. While that makes it easier for the British Department for International Development to draw up long-term plans and implement them with little objection by the British Parliament, will we want that as a model for the American Congress to follow? Finally, as we move forward toward possible reform of our Foreign Assistance Act, what might be the best way to engage our respective Leaderships, our Appropriations Committees and other authorizing Committees, such as Financial Services and Armed Services that have jurisdiction over large or growing development programs? Indeed, how might we meaningfully engage the Senate in this enterprise? In closing, I again commend my friend and colleague Chairman Berman for holding these hearings. They are a necessary first step for us to discover the questions we must ask ourselves, even if we are not yet sure what the answers may be. Thank you.