Development Works Number 4, August 2012 | Page 4

loans and grants to developing countries to promote growth and poverty reduction. As Dr. Rajiv Shah, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, says, “This [15 percent] threshold is critical, as it enables the United States to block amendments … on critical issues.” He points out that the United States is the only country with this veto power. Maintaining and strengthening U.S. support for multilateral development efforts and institutions complements the renewed American emphasis on focusing development assistance on top priorities and achieving results. This way, the United States can specialize in particular programs and issues while still having a voice in the allocation of resources to projects around the world. One area where U.S. influence can be critical to the effectiveness of development assistance is the recognition that women do much of the essential work to grow crops and feed their families nutritious foods but too often lack access to resources. Another is the move toward more “transparency” in assistance programs—meaning that everyone concerned with a development project, from officials of donor countries to local beneficiary families, knows exactly what its objectives are and how the money is being spent. the international community did not consider it a high priority and advised aid recipients to develop manufacturing and other sectors. On the flip side, U.S. action persuades others to act. For example, from the Green Revolution’s beginnings in the 1960s, the United States supported this key effort—generating momentum that over a few years ended hunger for millions of people in Asia. The U.S. proposal to invest significantly more resources in agriculture made in L’Aquila, mentioned earlier, won support from other G-8 members, who committed to providing $22 billion in financing for agricultural productivity over three years. The Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) grew out of this U.S.-led multilateral initiative. GAFSP supplies funding for country and regional agriculture and food security strategic plans. Since it began in April 2010, the effort has received about $1 billion in pledges and continues to attract new donors. The U.S. Treasury Department called it a “compelling example of how the United States can internationalize” efforts to respond to urgent global problems, adding that an initial U.S. contribution of $302 million “directly leveraged $579 million from others.” GAFSP estimates that these resources will improve the food security of 7.5 million smallholder farmers. The idea behind leading and supporting multilateral development efforts is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. We can see this when we look at what is already being accomplished through newer efforts such as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the L’Aquila food security commitments and the GASFP grants that L’Aquila made possible, the Millennium Challenge Account, and CAADP. Multilateral cooperation enables the global community to pool its resources, share knowledge of what is working well, and identify and fill funding gaps in the most promising programs. Until 2005, the United States was the largest donor to every multilateral development fund, but a shift toward more bilateral assistance through efforts such as PEPFAR and Feed the Future means that this is no longer the case. In fact, the share of U.S. foreign assistance that is channeled through multilateral programs has fallen to 11 percent of our country’s total assistance—less than half of its level in 2000. The average for donor countries is 30 percent. Financial contributions are a way to show leadership in multilateral initiatives. Moreover, influence on important decisions within multilateral organizations is often linked to funding. For example, the United States contributes 15 percent of the funding for the World Bank, which provides Agricultural assistance programs that help improve soil, irrigation, storage, and access to markets often benefit two generations, including Pedro and his daughter Eloisa in Nicaragua. 4 World Bank/Arne Hoel Richard Leonardi/Bread for the World A Question of Leadership