Ask the average American what the 302(b) allocations are and very few will be able to tell you that they are the spending caps that the Appropriations Committees in Congress put on our federal budget. 302(b) allocations are important because they are where a lot of decisions get made in the Senate and House.

From Oxfam America’s publication, “Foreign Aid 101.” http://bit.ly/mdKXrL

The House Appropriations Committee has set their 302(b) allocations for poverty-reducing foreign aid and the Senate is yet to do so. Jeremy Kadden of InterAction argues that the proposed cut to the state and foreign operations appropriations bill (SFOPs) in the House is “grossly disproportionate.” Estimates vary, but poverty-reducing and life-saving aid would see 15-20% cuts from current funding levels. Under the House spending plan, departments such as Defense, Homeland Security, Veterans and Congress itself would see budget increases.

Oxfam America has always argued that discussions of “more aid” should never be divorced from discussions of “better aid” or ways to  deepen the US government’s commitment to making poverty-reducing foreign aid more effective. This is because within the aid system, we all know that promised money does not directly translate into promises kept for people in developing countries. However, we also know that cutting such a small portion of the overall US federal budget (poverty-reducing aid is currently less than 1%) will in no way solve our country’s budget problems.

Last week’s article by Lindsay Abrams in The Atlantic, “The New Idealism of International Aid,” discusses how governments of developing countries are having more say in where aid money goes. This suggests that though the more aid argument might be hard for policymakers to hear, efforts to better aid are still resonating in Congress. The much-anticipated “Foreign Assistance Transparency and Accountability Act” (in previous iterations known as the Poe Bill) will be a movement towards making the most out of aid dollars.

With various other aid reforms moving in a promising direction and foreign aid becoming a better tool for development in recipient countries, it seems the only logical question to ask Congress is this—why divest now?

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You can learn more about InterAction’s Day of Action here. Do get in touch with your Congressional representatives. #NotJustNumbers

Aid transparency should be the lowest hanging fruit on the aid reform tree.  Donors know how much money they are investing, and where; why not just disclose that info?

And yet, within the US government, disclosing this data has been a long, slow, un-anesthetized root canal.  US foreign assistance is balkanized across twenty-two US government agencies.  But until yesterday, only USAID and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) had published information on their expenditures to the Foreign Assistance “Dashboard” at foreignassistance.gov.  No wonder that US government agencies (MCC excepted) generally get poor scores on Publish What You Fund’s (PWYF) Aid Transparency Index.

For months we’ve been watching foreignassistance.gov, looking for new data.  Suddenly last night it arrived.  At some point yesterday, the US government finally pulled back the curtain on two more agencies.  Aid data from the US Treasury Department and Department of Defense finally was posted to the dashboard.

This is not a lot of new data.  In FY11, Treasury and Defense accounted (respectively) for about 6% and 3% of US government aid spending obligations.  But politically, this is an important signal of progress.  Prior to yesterday, the only US government agencies who had reported spending data to the dashboard were under the authority of the Secretary of State—USAID and MCC.  Both identify aid as their primary mission.  But Treasury and Defense have other jobs; foreign assistance is in fact a much smaller portion of their mission.  The fact that they are sharing their data gives new hope that the dashboard can deliver on its promise to be a truly comprehensive tool for knowing where the US government is investing all of its aid dollars.

Not time for transparency champagne yet. Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images

But don’t pop the cork on that champagne yet.  It’s great that Treasury and DoD have added their data alongside USAID and MCC, but that data overall is still pretty pathetic.  You can see nice pie charts of overall US spending to a particular country or sector, but the dashboard won’t let you drill down to the level of detail that people in developing countries actually need.  For example, if you are a DC-based advocate who wants to see how much the US government spent on agriculture in Tanzania in fiscal year 2011, the answer is relatively easy to find; $39.1m.  But if you are at the Agricultural Council of Tanzania, trying to help your members understand how local food markets might be impacted by aid investments, the dashboard can’t provide you anything beyond that top line number.

All this means that the dashboard remains what it has been since its launch in November 2010—all sizzle, no steak.  Without project-level data that helps people understand how aid is being invested and how we are measuring success, the dashboard fails to actually help US aid dollars work better.

So what’s the hold up?  No question there are significant technical hurdles to be overcome.  Those 22 agencies that deliver US foreign aid all have different computers and different methods of compiling data.  Never mind apples to apples; the intrepid but overworked dashboard team at the State Department’s F bureau faces enough of a challenge turning all this diverse stuff into something that vaguely looks like fruit.  And as frustrating as absent data can be, wrong data would be worse; once false data is out in public and replicated, they can become un-killable zombies, popping up again and again, fueling false conclusions.

But as difficult as these technical challenges are, they have solutions.  Other donors have figured it out; the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) and the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) are leaders.  (It’s no surprise they rank first and second respectively on PWYF’s rankings.)  Even the US government has figured this out in other places.  Check out “recovery.gov”, where you can track every dollar of the 2009 Recovery Act.  You can drill down to the zip code, and see disbursements and results data.  This is exactly the kind of data that citizens and leaders in developing countries are asking for.

As usual, the real challenge seems to be lack of political will.  Getting the recovery.gov website up and running was not easy either, but that effort had a couple political advantages. It had the President’s prestige committed to getting it done, and it was required by the Recovery Act legislation itself.  The US government put in resources to get that effort done because the President’s reputation was on the line, and Congress was looking over his shoulder.

Soon we expect that Congress will reintroduce legislation to require US aid transparency.  Last year, the State Department spent months actively opposing the legislation before finally yielding to the inevitable.  Unfortunately, Congress adjourned before the Senate could take up the bill.  This year, the State Department has a chance for a do-over, whether or not the State Department supports the legislation introduced by Congressman Poe and Senator Rubio. Last year, Senator John Kerry supported the bill; here’s hoping he will do so again as Secretary of State.

We’re all waiting to see just how serious they are about aid transparency.

Right before recess last week, Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA) re-introduced the Global Partnerships Act (H.R. 1793), the first major rewrite of foreign assistance legislation in decades. The bill is an enormous accomplishment, created through a three-year effort led by former House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman, Howard Berman.

Source: Brookings Institution, 2006.

A rewrite of the Foreign Assistance Act is long past due. US Foreign Assistance programs have not been reauthorized since 1986; the underlying law dates from 1961. The problem isn’t just the quaint and kitschy references to Kampuchea, East Pakistan, or Zaire; it’s the fact that good legislation should actually help US government implementers do their job well, and should help Congress conduct effective oversight. On both counts, the existing system is failing miserably (see chart).

Like most huge pieces of legislation, this one offers something for (almost) everyone—Pollyannas and pessimists alike. Cynics will be quick to point out that, with 889 pages and no Republican co-sponsors, this bill is hardly on a fast track to enshrinement in the US Code.

But such cynicism misses the point. An effort like the Berman/Connolly bill is not only important once it becomes law. It can also be important for the conversation it drives among different stakeholders. As we’ve noted before, the most important reason to update foreign aid legislation is to try to get a new consensus between the President, the Congress, and the American people about what we’re actually trying to achieve with our development programs and what success looks like. And the Berman/Connolly bill provides a wealth of specific improvements for policymakers to convene around, including, but not limited to:

• linking US funding priorities to country-level planning (Sec. 1018);
• greater aid transparency and predictability (Sec. 8301); and
• better coordination of US efforts to promote trade & investment in partner countries (Sec. 7002).

Oxfam has heard from local leaders in the field that recent US reform efforts are starting to get noticed. But few of these reforms have actually made it into law. Without legislation to protect these reforms—and more important, without political consensus around them—it’s possible many reforms won’t stick long enough to really pay off for people in the developing world.

We don’t expect Congress is going to swallow the Berman/Connolly bill whole. But it’s worth them spending some time chewing on it, trying to figure out where they can make real progress towards a new political consensus around US development efforts.

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Here’s what else I had to say about the bill from last week’s InterAction Forum:

Five Minutes at Forum with Greg Adams from InterAction on Vimeo.

Tariq Sayed Ahmad is a Researcher with the Aid Effectiveness Team at Oxfam America.

On Wednesday Raj Shah will release USAID’s internal progress report on its “USAID Forward” reform agenda. The report will provide a wealth of aggregate numbers that fill out the broad picture of the changes that have been brewing at USAID over the last half decade.

Here’s one such story of why this matters.

Photo: Alexis Huaccho Magro / Oxfam America

Manuel Dominguez, mayor of Alao in the San Martín region of northern Peru, had been trying for years to access funds from the Peruvian government to deal with the increasing piles of trash in his growing city. While Dominguez was fully committed to using his limited city budget as best as he could to tackle the problem, it was not until USAID began investing in the Ministry of Environment, that Dominguez and his staff succeeded in obtaining significant funds from the national government, working with the Ministry of Economy and Finance. (You can learn more about Dominguez’ story here.)

In Peru, Oxfam America’s own forthcoming research shows that US reforms are enabling USAID staff to find ways to work with those leaders who are doing the right thing, and to enable regional governments like the government of San Martín to respond to local needs.  In 2011 USAID got the chance to use its new risk assessment tool, the Public Financial Management Risk Assessment Framework (PFMRAF) with regional government officials.  As a result, USAID was able to understand and weigh the strengths and weaknesses of San Martin’s systems, and they “did not identify any insurmountable risks that prevent USAID/Peru from moving ahead in utilizing the financial and procurement systems of the regional government.”^[1] The regional government then took the initiative to manage USAID programs directly, enabling the US to provide more funds through Peruvian country systems to help leaders like Mayor Dominguez respond to the needs of his people.

Of course working through country systems can be tricky. Partner governments are not monolithic entities. Rather, they are a mish-mash of institutions, bureaucracies, with a varied array of talent, accountability, and professionalism.  As more capacity assessments have been undertaken under IPR however, USAID is seeing that many local institutions are very effective, and provide great investment opportunities for the US.

“What the USAID partnership allowed us to do was to bring together all these different needs, actors, and resources at national, regional and local levels, which already existed in Peru, to solve a shared problem,” says Rosa Salas, director of the project at the Peruvian Ministry of Environment, who joined forces with Magda Ushiñahua, a counterpart at the Peruvian Ministry of Economy and Finance.

Municipalities like San Martín Alao had been neglected before the decentralization process began and deepened in Peru, giving local civic leaders a greater opportunity to unlock domestic resources to protect the health and well-being of their citizens and the surrounding Amazon. The relationship between USAID and the Ministries is helping mobilize domestic resources in addition to US funds. Peruvian taxpayer money has now been allocated for 127 municipalities to participate, benefitting an expected 5.65 million people.

The success of the USAID’s work in Peru is not that USAID delivered benefits, but that the agency helped Peruvians utilize their own resources.  In 2010, USAID initiated USAID Forward, a series of seven policy reforms intended to change the way USAID does business, including Implementation and Procurement Reform (IPR) and Country Development and Cooperation Strategies (CDCS). USAID Forward changes internal rules and regulations to better utilize country systems to enable local ownership of aid, something for which Oxfam America has long advocated.  These reforms built on previous efforts to rebuild USAID’s staff numbers, to make sure the agency has the professional staff they need to make local investment work.

We’re keen to see what USAID’s report has found. Our research is finding that USAID Forward is identifying local partners where US foreign assistance can be used effectively and allowing the US to look in places they haven’t looked before.

Manuel Dominguez, for one, couldn’t be happier. He says,

“My people and I can stop pollution in our district. We just needed a partner. We know how to get it done.”

Photo: Alexis Huaccho Magro / Oxfam America

Mary Marchal is Partnerships Advisor on Oxfam America’s Aid Effectiveness Team. 

As sequestration looms, I can’t help but think—what do Americans and policymakers imagine when they think of developing countries and our assistance to them? Do massive federal budget cuts have human faces associated with them?

At Oxfam, many of the people we work with and talk about—and who will be directly affected by cuts to poverty-reducing aid—are ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Majeda Begum Shiru comes to mind—a woman who rarely even used to go into government offices where she lives in southeastern Bangladesh.

“Even if I did, I felt uncomfortable,” she says.

After being trained in public speaking and leadership (provided by NGO Bangladesh Nari Progati Sangha with support from USAID), Shiru was elected as a member of the District Public Policy forum.

Today, she has become one of the locally-elected officials she used to fear.

It is people like these who drive our work on Oxfam America’s aid effectiveness team and why we continue to advocate for better aid, despite a difficult budget climate and now looming sequestration.  Evidence tells us that US development aid works when resources are put directly into the hands of those people like Shiru, who are working every day to improve their communities.

The Pew Research Center last week released a new national survey on potential cuts in US government spending. For 18 of 19 programs tested, majorities want either to increase spending or maintain it at current levels. Unfortunately, the only exception was assistance for people who are poor in the developing world.

At less than 1% of the US federal budget, eliminating humanitarian and development aid won’t help us cover the budget gap. Cutting programs that serve people who are poor in the US won’t help either. It’s an argument we’ve made at Oxfam (and will continue to make) again and again.

So how do we give policymakers and the American public a chance to see foreign aid the way we see it? How can poverty-reducing foreign aid be associated with people like Majeda Begum Shiru, rather than nameless or voiceless people who receive a bednet or a bag of seeds?

In January, Oxfam America created a series of ads featuring stories of local “changemakers” who are holding their governments accountable, seeing results, and using US foreign assistance to get it done. Twenty-eight billboards in metro stations and at Washington DC’s National and Dulles airports were accompanied by print and online ads, op-eds, interviews, articles, and blog posts. The ads superimposed DC-insider buzzwords such as “job creator” and “beltway outsider” with decidedly non-DC imagery—people surrounded by fishing boats in Ghana, a plant nursery in Tanzania, a roadway in Malawi.

When the billboards went up, we started hearing that the images drove the buzz—colorful, intriguing, contextualized photos of powerful people, all of whom we know and admire and who helped shape the campaign. Thus far, it seems many audiences think we’re getting the protagonists right. (You can see a compilation of folks’ reactions on Twitter here, as well as one aid critic’s reaction here.)

However, we don’t yet know what will affect the US general public’s view of foreign aid. On the first day the ads hit, the New Media team reported that the first blog post was being shared more than average. Even though the campaign was focused on DC policymakers, this led us to invest in some sponsored Facebook ads with friends of Oxfam’s friends. Many people’s reactions were overtly negative however, and we feared this would overshadow the critical message. Clearly very few US citizens realize that less than 1% of the US federal budget goes to poverty-focused international aid. Oxfam America’s publication, Foreign Aid 101, and this campaign from ONE start the conversation, but there is a long way to go.

Regardless of what happens in Congress in coming weeks, we will continue to fight to make aid more useful to those leading change in their own countries. And we will continue to ask people like Majeda Begum Shiru, Emiliana Aligaesha, Manuel Dominguez, Martha Kwataine, and Nana Kojo Kondua IV to show us how.

Malawian health advocate Martha Kwataine is working to make sure her national government responds to the needs of Malawians in rural areas, not just those living in the capital.

As Mayor of San Martin Alao, Peru, Manuel Dominguez is working to better manage his own municipal funds to clean up waste blighting his town.

Village Chief Kojo Kondua IV of Abuesi, Ghana, is making sure national officials enforce fishing regulations fairly, ensuring his village’s source of jobs and food for the future.

Tanzanian farmer Emiliana Aligaesha and fellow farmers formed a successful private company; she now trains other farmers to improve their yields and market access.

Monday is Inauguration Day. As President Obama takes the oath of office for the second time, his foreign policy team is getting a makeover. Obama’s nominations of John Kerry for State, Chuck Hagel for Defense, and Jack Lew for Treasury will put new faces in the three US government cabinet roles with the most impact on America’s global development efforts.

Congress will soon be grilling Kerry, Lew, and Hagel in their confirmation hearings. Senators will likely ask questions about the nominees’ plans to protect key US alliances. No doubt many of these questions will focus on America’s military, diplomatic and trade relationships.

But some of the most powerful alliances America has aren’t with governments—they are with ordinary people who are doing extraordinary things. This week Oxfam America’s Aid Effectiveness team launched an ad campaign featuring four of these American allies. (Click on the images to learn more about each of them.)

The basis of these alliances is the tiny amount of US assistance that the United States invests in fighting poverty around the world. It’s less than one percent of the federal budget—but it’s the tool that helps local leaders like Kwataine, Dominguez, Aligaesha, and Kondua deliver powerful results.

America partly does this because we’re generous. But more important are the selfish reasons; when local leaders like these four are successful in improving their countries and communities, it delivers a world that is fairer, more peaceful, and more prosperous—which, after all, is the stated goal of much of America’s foreign policy.

Local leaders like these four need a few things from the United States to be successful. First, they need America to be honest and transparent about our goals and policies, so they know how to work with us. Second, they need us to be willing to work directly with them, and invest our time, money, and effort in their success. Finally, they need us to be willing to trust them to know what works best for their own communities and countries, rather than impose our own politics and processes on them.

So now is the time to make sure Senators ask the right questions in these confirmation hearings. How do the nominees plan to protect and deepen our development alliances with people like Kwataine, Dominguez, Aligaesha, and Kondua? Will they support strong development policies that put more trust in local leaders like these? Will they faithfully pursue policies that give local leaders in developing countries the information, capacity and control they need to solve their own problems?

The answers could determine whether President Obama is able to build a lasting legacy on fighting global poverty.

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Related Pages

Slideshow: Don’t cut aid. It’s working.

Ray Offeneheiser, President of Oxfam, in the Huffington Post: Don’t cut aid. It’s working.

Coming to a billboard near you: A very different portrayal of aid, by Jennifer Lentfer on Oxfam’s First Person blog

Press release: Novel ad campaign urges no cuts to poverty-fighting foreign aid

Storify compilations of tweets about the ad campaign: A very different portrayal of aid and Is Oxfam America just like all the others?

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Note: Oxfam America does not take U.S. federal funds, but we do support effective development programs.

“Wear a dark suit. You’ll be wearing an over-sized cardboard mask.”

This is not a set of instructions I expected to hear in my new job as a writer, but here I was, being asked to play the Senate Majority Leader from Nevada.

As the newbie, what was I going to do? Say no?

The next day, my new colleagues scurried around as onlookers and the Congressional police force carefully eyed what we were doing. The image of the 18 foot high inflatable yellow duck against the backdrop of Congress’ hallowed halls was certainly a site to behold.

As I danced around to Benny Hill music with “Nancy Pelosi”, “Mitch McConnell”, and “John Boehner”, I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t think, “What have I gotten myself in to?”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5yTYh7pz9A&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

In the two weeks since my stint as Harry Reid, my time at Oxfam has been less eventful, but no less exciting. I’ve been drinking from a fire hose, manned (and womaned) by a group of intelligent, talented, and committed people in Oxfam America’s Washington DC office that I have affectionately named “The Wonk-tivists.”

As I read my team’s annual plan, it became clear that these are folks who know that people lift themselves out of poverty. That’s why they are focused on making international aid more effective and more responsive, a topic near and dear to my heart.

But first, we must protect the tiny proportion of poverty-reducing aid that is part of the federal budget, hence the need for the lame duck stunt. (Check out some of the media coverage here and here.) Humanitarian and development aid is less than 1% of the federal budget. And although cutting aid won’t prevent Congress from jumping off the fiscal cliff, it will prevent us from upholding our responsibilities to people around the world who are working hard to bring change in their communities.

Before coming to Oxfam, I worked with over 300 grassroots organizations in southern and east Africa. What is undeniable to me, in my decade of service in the international aid and philanthropy sectors, is that assistance to vulnerable families within their immediate locales builds on long-standing African traditions of community-level sharing of agricultural labor, assistance in times of drought and other calamities, and shared child care. In fact, across Africa, the poorest and most vulnerable people set up indigenous and resilient coping mechanisms such as self-help groups, church groups, burial associations, grain loan schemes, and rotating credit and loan clubs (Lwihula & Over, 1995; Mutangadura et al., 2000; Wilkinson-Maposa et al., 2009).

Earlier this year, the Aid Effectiveness Team at Oxfam America conducted research with these local change-makers in seven countries to help describe the experience of people living and working on the ground where US foreign aid is delivered. Their findings and collection of stories show how threats to Congress’ foreign aid budget puts the results accomplished by people like Emiliana Aligaesha at risk.

Emiliana Aligaesha of Karagwe, Tanzania. Oxfam/MaishaPlus2012

Emiliana Aligaesha and her fellow community members are part of a community group that formed a local private company in Karagwe, Tanzania. They sell coffee and beans and USAID and the World Food Programme have been among their clients. Local leaders declare Ms. Aligaesha’s farm exemplary, even though she has had little formal agricultural training. In addition to her farm’s productivity, Ms. Aligaesha has become a kind of researcher and innovator in the village, testing out new agricultural techniques for others to follow. Most importantly to this former teacher, Ms. Aligaesha’s nine children have all been put through college.

I know why I signed up. I’m here at Oxfam to support the people like Emiliana Aligaesha that are making our world safer, more prosperous, and better for us all.

So if asked to impersonate a 72-year-old Senator again at Oxfam, I’ll readily say yes.

With the 2012 election over, the lame-duck Congress is diving back into its unfinished business. First on their to-do list: funding the federal government for next year, including America’s efforts to fight global poverty and save lives. Will Congress protect life-saving aid? Or will Congress duck fiscal reality and common sense as they waddle through the budget gridlock?

Aid to fight poverty and help out in disasters is one of America’s proudest traditions—and smartest investments. For decades, American aid has helped people escape poverty and survive war and hunger.  US aid has helped end polio, fuel the Green Revolution, and rebuild shattered economies. It has also helped build some of America’s strongest allies, like Turkey, South Korea, and Poland. When you look at that record, and then consider the cost—less than one percent of the federal budget—your elected representatives in Washington would have to be quackers to vote to cut aid.

And yet aid, despite this legacy of success, global poverty assistance always seems to end up the ugly duckling of the federal budget. Perhaps it is because aid has a complicated story to tell. Of course aid doesn’t lift people or countries out of poverty—people do that themselves.

People like Cyiza Eliab in Rwanda who started a farm cooperative with his neighbors to grow corn and beans to help feed their families and earn an income. With a little help for USAID’s Feed the Future program, Cyiza‘s cooperative built a storage shed where corn is hung to dry, which reduced rot and increased profits.  With the additional income, Cyiza can educate his children and brighten their futures.

Or Kim Nay Heang, a 57-year-old entrepreneur from Cambodia who got USAID support to transform her household fishpond into a profitable business venture. With this income, Heang helped her family survive a dramatic spike in food prices—and provided an education for her five grandchildren.

Or Jose Ordoñez, a Honduran corn farmer who started to plant more profitable crops, like papaya, and is now able to transport the fruits to a market where they fetch a good price, travelling on rural roads constructed using U.S. assistance. He is now earning enough to secure his family’s future.

Farmers, entrepreneurs, nurses, teachers, watchdogs who call out corruption and abuse—these are America’s partners in the fight against global poverty. For decades, assistance from the US government has been there to help. Sure, we don’t always do it as well as we could. But when it pays off, we get a world that is better, safer, and more prosperous for everyone.

But telling how aid works is hard; holding up the example of money going to shiftless foreigners is easy. No wonder some politicians try to feather their own nests by saying aid is a waste. You can expect a flock of critics to peck holes in the foreign aid budget over the next few weeks. But don’t fall for it. Don’t let them wash poor people—or America’s values and interests—down the drain. Stand up and protect America’s poverty-fighting and life-saving aid.

Tonight’s the last debate between President Obama and Governor Romney. This one is advertised as the “foreign policy” debate.

US foreign engagement is often described as resting on a three-legged stool; the three “Ds”. Defense, diplomacy, and development. The Obama administration, and Secretary Clinton in particular, has always emphasized that diplomacy and development are equal partners of the three. In past Presidential debates, US financial contributions to foreign assistance and reducing poverty were occasionally topics. During a 2000 debate, then-Governor Bush and Vice President Gore talked about their views, prodded by a question from Jim Lehrer.

I’m guessing that the last “D”, development, will be missing this time round.

CBS newsman Bob Schieffer will moderate tonight and has announced an agenda with topics ranging from Afghanistan to the Middle East, with a bit of terrorism thrown in. Also China. But no airtime for development, foreign assistance. There’s a lot to talk about, actually; the outstanding progress made on some counts and the terrible failure on others. The fate of initiatives launched by President Bush during his term to address AIDS and new foreign aid programs for poor countries with good governance. The new initiatives launched under President Obama on food security and health.

Some politicians (former and possibly future) still think it’s worth talking about and supporting.

But, in all likelihood, issues that matter to the roughly 1.3 billion people who live in and with poverty—and to the hundreds of millions of US taxpayers who pay for these programs—won’t make an appearance.

To make the debates go better, a lot of my friends play drinking games. They’re generally designed to crystalize and shatter the clichés, pierce the banality, and give life to the predictable.

So, I’ll make a game of it. If either candidate mentions “poverty” or “poor people” or even something close, I’ll give $25 to their campaign. If either candidate makes something like a defense of foreign aid, or talks about US obligations—moral and otherwise—to the least of us, I’ll donate $100.

Should make it more interesting.

Editor’s note:  At 9 pm tonight, hundreds of Oxfam America supporters will raise their voices to change the conversation by calling attention to the fight to end hunger and poverty during the debates. How? By signing up on Thunderclap to tweet and post to Facebook. Join us.  

Aid is a vital tool in the fight against global poverty. But too often, aid delivers less than it promises.

If you follow the debate over development aid, you’ve probably heard that there was a big conference last year in Korea that was meant to make aid work better. Oxfam’s new briefing paper—“Busan in a Nutshell”—is intended as your guide to what happened at that conference, the “Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness.” “Busan in a Nutshell” explains what happened at Busan, and how implementers and advocates need to work together to make sure the global community delivers on its promise of more effective aid.

Since the Paris Declaration of 2005, donors, recipients, advocates, and others have been working to improve aid so it delivers better poverty fighting results. Last year, in Busan, these groups met to form the “Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation,” which sets the international standard on the principles of effective aid and good development to which all development actors should subscribe.

“Busan in a Nutshell” documents the commitments made at Busan, and recommends how to ensure aid effectiveness commitments are implemented. These principles include:

• country leadership and ownership of development strategies;
• a focus on the ‘right’ results that matter to the poor in developing countries;
• inclusive partnerships among development actors based on mutual trust and transparency and accountability to one another.

Alice collecting some of her ground nut crop, Copperbelt, Zambia (2006) Emma Walsh/Oxfam

All development stakeholders—including traditional donors and emerging providers—must respect and uphold these key principles by fulfilling the promises they made at Busan. For this to happen, the Global Partnership will need to rely on strong vision, high-level political engagement and a robust but flexible global accountability mechanism.

The US government has already begun its efforts to implement its Busan commitments. A few big changes include their efforts to increase transparency of the aid they give, put more American aid dollars through local systems, and end complicated rules that make local investment difficult. Ultimately, however, the real verdict on US efforts will come from how well citizens and leaders in developing countries think the US is supporting their efforts to develop themselves.

Check out “Busan in a Nutshell” to learn more about what is at stake for the leaders of the Global Partnership at their first meeting next week in Tokyo.