"The Obama administration is close to putting in place an overarching development policy.  I suspect some of you might have read the draft," quipped USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah at a U.S. Global Leadership Coalition event last week.  The room full of foreign policy professionals, still waiting anxiously for the results of the Administration's Presidential Study Directive on Global Development (PSD-7) and the State Department's Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), laughed.  A draft of PSD-7 was leaked to the Foreign Policy blog "The Cable" on May 4 and quickly circulated around the community.

The two insights into the Administration's thinking on the future of development policy - the PSD draft and Shah's townhall appearances - provoked reactions from around the community, some hopeful and some skeptical about the elevation of USAID.

The Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network (MFAN) supported Shah's announcement of "reform of his Agency and America's development apparatus overall, in order to drive more tangible results for recipients, implementers, and taxpayers."  They saw promising changes outlined in the PSD-7, but "believe the document could go further toward ensuring that the discipline of development is strong and distinct."  MFAN emphasized the need for detailed strategies for involving Congress in reforms, particularly through a rewrite of the Foreign Assistance act of 1961.

"The PSD report draft "identifies real challenges, opportunities and priorities for our development policies, highlights the importance of country ownership, and elevates development as a key pillar of US foreign policy," wrote Oxfam America in a press release.  Their synopsis was positive, but pointed out that without a U.S. Global Development Strategy, the Administration still lacks a concrete strategy.

Sarah Jane Staats posted a synopsis of the "The Foreign Aid Reform Story So Far..." that was lighthearted in form but meaty in content on the Center for Global Development's Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance blog.  While she sees some positive steps forward in PSD-7, "there is a lot of room for interpretation, including what a national strategy for global development will actually say and when; what elevating development means in practice; and how the U.S. will make hard choices between different types of development interventions." Staats and CGD president Nancy Birdsall support greater autonomy for Shah and USAID in an op-ed on the GlobalPost. They point out that, despite the ongoing PSD and QDDR, the Administration has launched food security and global health initiatives that continue the status quo system of complex oversight and authority mechanisms.

Rebecca Williams at the Stimson Center's Budgeting for Foreign Affairs and Defense program takes a closer look at the leaked draft and details the structural, planning, strategy, and authority issues that are addressed by PSD-7 - and those that remain.

The German Marshall Fund of the United States was not heartened by the leaked draft: "a careful reading of the draft document suggests continued bureaucratic tussles are the order of the day, and the U.S. Agency for International Development remains a pawn in these interagency 'turf' wars."

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