Summary of H.R. 2139

The Initiating Foreign Assistance Reform Act of 2009

The "Initiating Foreign Assistance Reform Act of 2009" (H.R. 2139), introduced by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) and Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL), is intended to refocus the U.S. government’s global development policies and programs to make them more effective at helping poor countries and their citizens. The bill also serves as a precursor to a broader foreign assistance reform effort later this year, including a comprehensive rewrite of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.

The bill is composed of four key components:

This section requires the President to develop and implement a National Strategy for Global Development. The strategy is intended to provide coherence and guidance to U.S. government development policy and activities.

The strategy shall:

The bill mandates that the strategy must be flexible enough to respond to changing recipient needs as well as changing U.S. interests. The bill also requires the President to consult a variety of stakeholders, including Congress, NGOs, international organizations and recipients when crafting the strategy. The strategy shall be available to the public.

This section requires the President to develop and implement a system for how each federal agency involved in delivering foreign assistance will measure and evaluate their aid programs. The emphasis is on going beyond simply counting inputs and outputs to measuring outcomes and impacts as well. Each U.S. department and agency will be required to establish measurable performance goals (including gender-sensitive goals), the capacity to conduct monitoring and evaluation activities, and a process to identify the lessons learned and results from the evaluation activities so that they can be incorporated into future budgeting and implementation of U.S. foreign assistance programs. The bill requires evaluations to be developed in consultation with heads of other appropriate federal departments and agencies, governments of host countries, international and indigenous nongovernmental organizations, and other relevant stakeholders. The bill authorizes assistance to federal agencies and recipient governments to develop their capacity for effective monitoring and evaluation.

The bill would also create a "United States Foreign Assistance Advisory Council," to be composed of seven experts in monitoring & evaluation of foreign assistance programs, to advise the U.S. government on monitoring and evaluation tools. The work of the council would be made public.

The bill requires the President to publish comprehensive, timely, comparable, and accessible information on United States foreign assistance on a detailed program-by-program basis and country-by-country basis. To ensure transparency, accountability, and effectiveness of U.S. foreign assistance, American taxpayers and recipients of U.S. foreign aid will have access to all information regarding the planning, allocating and disbursement, contracting, monitoring and evaluating elements of U.S. foreign assistance. The information must be available on the Internet and via the Federal Register.

This section repeals eighteen (18) outdated provisions of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.