Reaction to the US's new development policy: the good, the bad, the uncertain

[pampango]

Source: The Guardian

There are many things to like about the US policy on global development, but implementation will be the acid test



On Wednesday at the United Nations millennium development goals summit, President Barack Obama announced the US policy on global development.

There are many things to like in the policy – aiming for sustainable development, enabling local entrepreneurship, public-private partnerships, being selective in what we do and where, country ownership, a division of labour among donors, and the renewed centrality of evaluations to guide investments. The policy represents major progress in justifying and elevating development, even if it seems like it has taken ages to reach this point.

However, the hard part of the exercise now begins: implementation. Many good ideas have died in bureaucratic black holes. Will the implementation be able to match the rhetoric? Will turf battles trump good intentions? Why, if the agencies had difficulties reaching agreement on important aspects of the development policy over the past year, should we now expect them to play nice in the implementation phase?

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2010/sep/24/us-global-development-policy-reaction