Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network: Redesign Reaction: Empowering aid: The real disruptive play for U.S. foreign policy
Anthony Pipa, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution’s Global Economy and Development Program and former chief strategy officer at USAID, outlines how development, strategy, leadership, measurement, and innovation matter in any plans to restructure U.S. development programs (8/4).

Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network: Redesign Reaction: Reinventing Our Institutions for the Future of Global Development
Ann Mei Chang, former chief innovation officer and executive director of USAID’s Global Development Lab, and Smita Singh, founding director of the Global Development Program at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (retired) and former member of President Obama’s Global Development Council, discuss their ideas to create a truly “fit for purpose” U.S. aid architecture (8/9).

Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network: Redesign Consensus: Development Community Defends Independent Lead Aid Agency
MFAN Co-Chairs George Ingram and Connie Veillette, and Tessie San Martin, Plan International USA president and CEO, outline 10 core commonalities that fall under three main themes in various aid architecture proposals, concluding, “As the administration continues its consultations and drafts its own proposal, we hope they will elevate these common threads and meaningfully engage Congress in the process” (8/10).

Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network: Redesign Data: Dueling Dashboards
Sally Paxton, the U.S. representative for Publish What You Fund, and George Ingram, chair of Friends of Publish What You Fund, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and MFAN co-chair, discuss “two websites that purport to publish the same information, one at State (ForeignAssistance.gov) and one at USAID (Foreign Aid Explorer), but the published data is often at odds with each other.” They conclude, “[W]e could both avoid duplication of effort and ensure higher quality and more consistent data by combining these two databases into a single website housed at USAID” (8/15).

Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network: Redesign Reaction: Getting to the nitty gritty to make the most of foreign aid
James Kunder, a member of MFAN’s Executive Committee and former acting deputy administrator of USAID, discusses the details of MFAN’s recent publication “A New Foreign Aid Architecture Fit for Purpose.” Kunder writes, “It has forced us to focus on the nuts and bolts of HOW we organize to effectively reach whatever ultimate goals policymakers set for U.S. foreign aid…” (8/23).