Dear Senator:
On behalf of both the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network – a coalition of international development practitioners and foreign policy experts committed to strengthening development as a key component of U.S. foreign policy – and InterAction – the largest alliance of U.S.-based international development and humanitarian NGOs, with over 190 member organizations operating in every developing country – we are writing to express our strong support for the “Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act of 2015” (S. 2184), sponsored by Senators Marco Rubio and Ben Cardin.
U.S. foreign assistance budgets and programs should be transparent and based on rigorous evidence and learning to ensure the effectiveness of every dollar spent. S. 2184 would both establish evaluation guidelines for U.S. international development and economic assistance programs and centralize public access to data and reports through the existing ForeignAssistance.gov aid transparency website. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously approved this legislation in 2013 and again in 2015. A companion bill sponsored by Representatives Ted Poe and Gerry Connolly unanimously passed the House in 2012 and was approved by the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in 2015.
Specifically, the legislation would: 1) require the President of the United States to establish and implement uniform monitoring and evaluation guidelines – with measurable goals, performance metrics, and monitoring and evaluation plans – across U.S. international development and economic assistance programs; and 2) require the Secretary of State to ensure the ForeignAssistance.gov website contains detailed information regarding U.S. foreign assistance on a program-by-program and country-by-country basis that is updated quarterly. It would further require that analysis be undertaken by the Government Accountability Office to inform Congress on relevant agencies’ adherence to these benchmarks.
While some progress has been made in recent years, today fewer than half of the more than two dozen federal departments and agencies involved in delivering U.S. foreign assistance have published data to ForeignAssistance.gov, and not enough meaningful aid information has been included. The time has come for the President to issue and oversee a set of common guidelines on the monitoring and evaluation of these programs and ensure that important aid information is available to the public. American taxpayers, along with partner country governments and citizens, deserve to have the ability to access comprehensive, timely, and comparable data on U.S. international development and economic assistance.
Given its strong bipartisan support in the previous sessions of Congress, we urge you to support and swiftly pass the “Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act” to maximize the impact of our foreign assistance.
Sincerely,
George Ingram
MFAN Co-Chair
Brookings Institution
Carolyn Miles
MFAN Co-Chair
Save the Children
Connie Veillette
MFAN Co-Chair
The Lugar Center
Sam Worthington
President & CEO
InterAction
Endorsing Organizations (27):
Alliance to End Hunger
Bread for the World
CARE USA
ChildFund International
Congressional Hunger Center
Global Health Council
Global Poverty Project
Habitat for Humanity International
Helen Keller International
InterAction
International Youth Foundation
Mercy Corps
Millennium Water Alliance
Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network
ONE
Oxfam America
PCI (Project Concern International)
Plan International USA
Save the Children
The Borgen Project
The Hunger Project
U.S. Fund for UNICEF
USAID Alumni Association
VEGA (Volunteers for Economic Growth Alliance)
WASH Advocates
WaterAid America
Women Thrive Worldwide