9AGENCY FOR
INTERNATIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
Max Primorac

MISSION

The U.S. Agency for International Development leads the U.S. government’s
international development and disaster assistance programs. USAID helps communities to lead their own development journeys by reducing the impact of conflict;preventing hunger and the spread of pandemic disease; and counteracting the drivers of violence, instability, transnational crime, and other threats. In alignment
with U.S. national security interests, the agency promotes American prosperity
through initiatives that expand markets for U.S. exports; encourage innovation;
create a level playing field for U.S. businesses; and support more stable, resilient,and democratic societies that are less likely to act against American interests andmore likely to respect family, life, and religious liberty.
OVERVIEW

USAID was established during the presidency of John F. Kennedy pursuant
to the Foreign Assistance Act of 19611 to promote the foreign policy, security, andnational interests of the United States. At the height of the Cold War with theSoviet Union, it sought to halt the spread of Communism by assisting peoples in thedeveloping world in their efforts to advance economically, socially, and politically.
The agency helped to transition Central and Eastern Europe from socialism tofree market–based democracies. Today, USAID leads the U.S. government’s global
development and humanitarian disaster assistance responses.
Over the years, USAID expanded the number of countries assisted, the scopeand size of its activities, and especially its budget. The Trump Administration faced— 253 —

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an institution marred by bureaucratic inertia: programmatic incoherence; wasteful spending; and dependence on huge awards to a self-serving and politicized aid
industrial complex of United Nations agencies, international nongovernmentalorganizations (NGOs), and for-profit contractors. Once started, programs continue
almost indefinitely—in many countries, for decades. USAID’s multibillion-dollar
humanitarian programs that were once 80 percent in response to natural disasters
are now 80 percent in response to violent, man-made crises and have become apermanent and immiserating feature of the global landscape.
Under the Trump Administration, USAID focused on ending the need for foreign aid by placing countries onto a Journey to Self-Reliance.2 The Administration
restructured the agency to reflect this strategic approach to development, streamlined procurement procedures to diversify its partner base, increased awards tocost-effective local (including faith-based) organizations, and improved internal governance. It instituted pro-life and family-friendly policies. It promoted
international religious freedom as a pillar of the agency’s work and built up an
unprecedented genocide-response infrastructure.
The Biden Administration has deformed the agency by treating it as a global
platform to pursue overseas a divisive political and cultural agenda that promotes
abortion, climate extremism, gender radicalism, and interventions against perceived
systemic racism. It has dispensed with decades of bipartisan consensus on foreign
aid and pursued policies that contravene basic American values and have antagonized our partners in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It has decoupled U.S. assistancefrom free-market reforms that are the keystone of economic and political stability
and has teamed with global institutions to impose central planning diktats on an
unprecedented scale. Wasteful budget increases requested by the Administration
and appropriated by Congress have outstripped USAID’s capacity to spend funds
responsibly, and U.S. foreign aid has been transformed into a massive and openended global entitlement program captured by—and enriching—the progressive Left.
The next conservative Administration should scale back USAID’s global footprint by, at a minimum, returning to the agency’s 2019 pre–COVID-19 pandemic
budget level. It should deradicalize USAID’s programs and structures and buildon the conservative reforms instituted by the Trump Administration. This will
require working closely with the U.S. Congress to make deep cuts in the international affairs “150 Account” while granting USAID greater flexibility in spending
its appropriated funds to achieve better developmental outcomes.
KEY ISSUES

Aligning U.S. Foreign Aid to U.S. Foreign Policy. U.S. foreign aid is too often
disconnected from the strategy and practice of U.S. foreign policy. Its coordination
is made difficult as the aid budget is divided among approximately 20 offices, agencies, and departments that provide some form of foreign assistance.

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The USAID Administrator should be authorized to take on the additional roleof Director of Foreign Assistance (DFA) with the rank of Deputy Secretary at the
Department of State in charge of all U.S. foreign assistance. The DFA role would
empower this person to align and coordinate the countless foreign assistanceprograms across the U.S. government and carry out the agenda of the next conservative President more effectively. A version of this role existed during the last
two years of the George W. Bush Administration, but the Obama Administration
eliminated it in 2009.
Countering China’s Development Challenge. Through its trillion-dollar
Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) has directedbillions of dollars in loans and investments to advance its geostrategic objectiveof displacing the United States as the premier global power. The PRC leverages
its transactions—termed “debt traps” by many critics—to strengthen its global
influence, extract natural resources, isolate Taiwan, win political support atinternational fora, and access ports and bases for its military. In Latin America,
25 of 29 countries participate in the BRI, and the PRC ranks as the region’s largest
trading partner. Since 2005, Chinese state-owned banks have issued $138 billion
in loans to Latin American countries, and other Chinese entities have invested
an additional $140 billion. In Africa, China has issued $160 billion in loans anddominates the continent’s rare earth mining sector, which is critical to global
energy development.
The World Bank estimates that 60 percent of all BRI loans are in financial
distress, leading many countries to seek emergency financial help from Western
donors. Chinese-funded projects are known for employing substandard labor andenvironmental practices, fueling corruption, promoting wasteful financial decisions by governments, advancing China’s geostrategic interests, and creating anunequal trade relationship in which China secures raw materials from developing
countries and sells those countries manufacturing products. For example, Brazil,
a world leader in shoe production, saw its industry collapse under a flood of cheap
Chinese imports. China’s mercantilist penetration of the developing world andthe negative consequences for developing countries’ healthy economic growth
have undercut U.S. strategic relationships in those countries and wasted billions
in U.S. foreign aid.
During the Trump Administration, USAID:l

Inaugurated a robust counter-China response called Clear Choice3
that contrasted America’s development approach based on liberty,
sovereignty, and free markets with China’s mercantilist authoritarianismthat pursued predatory financing schemes and economic and politicalsubordination to Beijing.

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l

l

l

l

Launched its first Digital Strategy4 to promote safe 5G access in emerging
markets and combat Beijing’s efforts to equip regimes with tools to
stifle democracy.
Struck bilateral development relationships with Japan, Israel, Kuwait, Qatar,
the United Arab Emirates, and Taiwan to support projects in sub-SaharanAfrica, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.
Established an office in Greenland to help counter China’s claims of being “anear Arctic state” and reoriented its programming across Asia—including
establishing a USAID Mission to Central Asia—in line with America’s IndoPacific strategy.5
Joined with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to help coastal countries
detect and halt illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing and confront
criminal activities practiced by state-run Chinese fishing fleets that violate
international norms, ravage fishing industries in developing countries,
worsen food insecurity, rob vulnerable communities of their livelihoods,
and deplete maritime resources.

USAID built an organizational infrastructure to carry out its multiple lines ofcounter-China operations. An agencywide Clear Choice Executive Council and
USAID–U.S. International Development Finance Corporation Working Group
reviewed all proposed assistance programs and proposals through a counter-China
lens. A senior executive–level Clear Choice Coordinator, reporting to the Administrator, advised the agency’s leadership on initiatives to counter China, supported
by a fully dedicated six-person Secretariat.
The Biden Administration discontinued these programs and allowed USAID’s
counter-China architecture to waste away, subordinating our national security
interests to progressive climate politics in which Communist China is viewed asa global partner.
The next conservative Administration should restore and build on the Trump
Administration’s counter-China infrastructure at USAID, end the climate policy
fanaticism that advantages Beijing, and assess bilateral aid through the lens of
U.S. national security interests, rewarding those countries that resist China’s
debt diplomacy. It should finance programs designed to counter specific Chinese
efforts in strategically important countries and eliminate funding to any partnerthat engages with Chinese entities directly or indirectly. USAID’s Bangkok-based
Regional Development Mission for Asia should focus its strategic attention on
supporting cross-border initiatives designed to counter Chinese influence.

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Climate Change. Upon taking office, President Biden issued executive orders
to “put the climate crisis at the center of U.S. foreign policy and national security”
and mitigate “the devastating inequalities that intersect with gender, race, ethnicity, and economic security.”6 USAID subsequently declared itself “a climate agency”
and redirected its private-sector engagement strategy—teaming with America’s
corporate sector to wean countries off foreign aid through private investment andtrade—to support the Administration’s global policy to “transition from fossil fuels
to renewable energy.”
The Administration has incorporated its radical climate policy into every
USAID initiative. It has joined or funded international partnerships dedicated toadvancing the aims of the Paris Climate Agreement and has supported the idea ofgiving trillions of dollars more in aid transfers for “climate reparations.”
The Biden Administration’s extreme climate policies have worsened global
food insecurity and hunger. Its anti–fossil fuel agenda has led to a sharp spike inglobal energy prices. Inflation has hit the poor the hardest as they expend a higher
proportion of income on food purchases. Farmers in poor countries can no longer
afford to buy expensive natural gas–based fertilizers that are key to achieving highyields of food production. Under advice from climate radicals, the government of
Sri Lanka even banned chemical fertilizers entirely without having any replacements in place. The result has been hunger and violent political instability.
The aid industry claims that climate change causes poverty, which is false.
Enduring conflict, government corruption, and bad economic policies are themain drivers of global poverty. USAID’s response to man-made food insecurity
is to provide more billions of dollars in aid—a recipe that will keep scores of poor
countries underdeveloped and dependent on foreign aid for years to come.
The impact on Africa is especially acute. South Africa, for example, relies on
coal-powered plants to generate 80 percent of its power needs. It would need $26
billion in foreign aid to make the full transition away from coal. Multiplying thisamount by dozens of other countries on the continent, the financial resources
needed to transition away from fossil fuels are unachievable. In Latin America,
countries that are global leaders in oil and gas production have sharply curtailed
their energy production in line with climate activists, upending the hemisphere’s
major source of export revenues and condemning it to years of economic and political instability.
USAID should cease its war on fossil fuels in the developing world and support
the responsible management of oil and gas reserves as the quickest way to end
wrenching poverty and the need for open-ended foreign aid. The next conservative
Administration should rescind all climate policies from its foreign aid programs(specifically USAID’s Climate Strategy 2022–20307); shut down the agency’s offices,
programs, and directives designed to advance the Paris Climate Agreement; andnarrowly limit funding to traditional climate mitigation efforts. USAID resources— 257 —

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are best deployed to strengthen the resilience of countries that are most vulnerable to climatic shifts. The agency should cease collaborating with and funding
progressive foundations, corporations, international institutions, and NGOs that
advocate on behalf of climate fanaticism.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Agenda. USAID installed advisers on
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) committees “in all its Bureaus, Offices, and[overseas] Missions” and created “an agency-wide dashboard and DEI scorecard
for all bureaus, offices, and missions” to track staff compliance with the Administration’s DEI directives. A Chief DEI Officer oversees this DEI infrastructure andsits in the Administrator’s office. DEI directives are now part of all agency policies
and are incorporated as standard clauses in all contract and grant awards. Thoseseeking to do business with the agency must “describe the approaches they will
use to diversify their partner base.”8 USAID often ties DEI to “gender and climate
equity,” corrupting every aspect of the agency’s overseas work.
The upshot has been to racialize the agency and create a hostile work environment for anyone who disagrees with the Biden Administration’s identity politics.
This pursuit of ideological purity threatens merit-based professional advancement
for staff who do not overtly conform, hyperpoliticizes what should be a nonpartisan
federal workplace environment, creates an institutionalized cadre of progressive
political commissars, corrupts the award process, and discourages potential contractors and grantees that disagree with this radical agenda from applying for
USAID funding.
The next conservative Administration should dismantle USAID’s DEI apparatus
by eliminating the Chief Diversity Officer position along with the DEI advisers andcommittees; cancel the DEI scorecard and dashboard; remove DEI requirementsfrom contract and grant tenders and awards; issue a directive to cease promotionof the DEI agenda, including the bullying LGBTQ+ agenda; and provide staff aconfidential medium through which to adjudicate cases of political retaliationthat agency or implementing staff suffered during the Biden Administration. Itshould eliminate funding for partners that promote discriminatory DEI practices
and consider debarment in egregious cases.
As federal departments and agencies cannot play partisan politics, staff—irrespective of hiring mechanism—as well as implementers and grantees that engage
in ideological agitation on behalf of the DEI agenda should be dismissed, and entities should be debarred. The next conservative Administration should return theauthority over all civil rights issues at USAID to the agency’s Office of Civil Rights,
which is the appropriate locus for ensuring that all Americans have guaranteedequality of career opportunity at USAID.
Refocusing Gender Equality on Women, Children, and Families. Insteadof protecting women’s and children’s unalienable human rights and propelling
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what females are and what femininity is through “gender” policies and practices.
For instance, these Administrations have diluted USAID’s focus on assisting vulnerable women, children, and families around the globe by adding protections forand ideological advocacy on behalf of progressive special-interest groups. USAID
now aggressively promotes abortion on demand under the guise of “sexual andreproductive health and reproductive rights,” “gender equality,” and “women’s
empowerment” and advocates for those who claim minority status or vulnerability.
Families are the basic unit of and foundation for a thriving society. Without
women, there are no children, and society cannot continue. As evidenced by theconfirmation testimony of now-Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, theprogressive Left has so misused and altered the definition of what a “woman” isthat one of our U.S. Supreme Court Justices was unable to delineate clearly thefundamental biological and sexual traits that define the group of which she is apart. USAID cannot advocate for and protect women when they have been erased
globally along with the values and traditional structures that have supported them.
The next conservative Administration should rename the USAID Office ofGender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE) as the USAID Office ofWomen, Children, and Families; refocus and realign resources that currently
support programs in GEWE to the Office of Women, Children, and Families; redesignate the Senior Gender Coordinator as an unapologetically pro-life politicallyappointed Senior Coordinator of the Office of Women, Children, and Families; andeliminate the “more than 180 gender advisors and points of contact…embedded in
Missions and Operating Units throughout the Agency.”9
In addition, the next conservative Administration should rescind President
Biden’s 2022 Gender Policy and refocus it on Women, Children, and Families
and revise the agency’s regulation on “Integrating Gender Equality and Female
Empowerment in USAID’s Program Cycle.”10 It should remove all references, examples, definitions, photos, and language on USAID websites, in agency publications
and policies, and in all agency contracts and grants that include the following
terms: “gender,” “gender equality,” “gender equity,” “gender diverse individuals,” “gender aware,” “gender sensitive,” etc. It should also remove references to“abortion,” “reproductive health,” and “sexual and reproductive rights” and controversial sexual education materials.
In the past, the word “gender” was a polite alternative to the word “sex” or term
“biological sex.” The Left has commandeered the term “gender,” which used tomean either “male” or “female,” to include a spectrum of others who are seeking toalter biological and societal sexual norms. The promotion of gender radicalism isanathema to the traditional norms of many societies where USAID works, causes
resentment by tying lifesaving assistance to rejecting the aid recipient’s own firmly
held fundamental values regarding sexuality, and produces unnecessary consternation and confusion among and even outright bias against men.

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The next Administration should ensure that USAID’s goal in service of its
mission is to help protect and propel all members of society—women, children,and men—from conception to natural death. To do so, USAID’s Office of Women,Children, and Families should strive to ensure that communities have their basic
human needs, without which they will be unable to thrive, met first and foremost.
Basic human needs include equal and safe access to potable water, sanitation, food,education, health care, houses of worship, justice, pregnancy and family resource
centers, working capital, electricity, technology, and business opportunities. The
Office of Women, Children, and Families should implement the Geneva Consensus Declaration on Women’s Health and Protection of the Family and prioritize
partnerships with local organizations, including faith-based organizations (FBOs).
Protecting Life in Foreign Assistance. Protecting life should be among thecore objectives of United States foreign assistance. Shortly after taking office, however, President Biden issued a memorandum that reversed a myriad of pro-life
policies and revoked the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance (PLGHA)
policy, widely known as the Mexico City Policy. Biden also restored funding to
the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which supports and implements
China’s coercive abortion and sterilization regimen.
PLGHA requires foreign NGOs, as a condition of receiving assistance, to agree
not to perform or actively promote abortions as a method of family planning inforeign countries. Previous pro-life Presidents beginning with Ronald Reagan
applied these conditions to family planning assistance, but President Trump for
the first time expanded the Mexico City Policy to protect “global health assistancefurnished by all departments or agencies” (estimated to be $8.8 billion annually).
The Biden Administration restored abortion subsidies to pro-abortion NGOs
including Planned Parenthood International and MSI Reproductive Choices. In
reversing PLGHA, Biden declared a radical assault on the policy of protecting life,
choosing instead to promote abortion on demand around the world under theguise of “sexual and reproductive health and rights.” USAID’s priority of funding
the global abortion industry negates programs that promote life, women’s health,and the family.
Even under PLGHA, several loopholes allowed support for the global abortion
industry to continue. International NGOs that perform and promote abortions
overseas like Population Services International, Pathfinder, PATH, the Population
Council, EngenderHealth, and WomanCare Global International continued toreceive funding from USAID under PLGHA and now, under Biden, receive tensof millions more in U.S. taxpayer dollars in foreign assistance annually without
any oversight. When the United Nations Secretariat promoted abortion and abortion-inducing drugs under the umbrella of “sexual and reproductive health” asan element of its COVID-19 Global Humanitarian Response Plan in May 2020,
the exemptions in PLGHA for humanitarian aid and multilateral organizations— 260 —

2025 Presidential Transition Projectilluminated another loophole in the policy’s effectiveness in safeguarding U.S. taxpayer dollars from being used to promote abortion.
Pro-abortion groups also have received funds under other categories of foreign
aid that fall outside the scope of global health assistance, including women-related
and economic assistance programs. Members of Congress have advocated closing
these loopholes by extending PLGHA to all foreign assistance through the Protecting Life in Foreign Assistance Act, sponsored by Senator Mike Lee (R–UT) and
Representative Virginia Foxx (R–NC).11 Current law in the Foreign Assistance Act
gives the President broad authority to set “such terms and conditions as he may
determine” on foreign assistance, which legally empowers the next conservative
President to expand this pro-life policy.
To stop U.S. foreign aid from supporting the global abortion industry, the next
conservative Administration should issue an executive order that, at a minimum,
reinstates PLGHA and summarily blocks funding to UNFPA but also closes loopholes by applying the policy to all foreign assistance, including humanitarian aid,
and improving its enforcement. The executive order to reinstate PLGHA should
be drafted broadly to apply to all foreign assistance. It should simultaneously
rescind President Biden’s memorandum entitled “Protecting Women’s Health at
Home and Abroad,” issued on January 28, 2021.12 The new pro-life executive ordershould apply to foreign NGOs, including subgrantees and subcontractors, andremove exemptions for U.S.-based NGOs, public international organizations, andbilateral government-to-government agreements. All entities funded by USAID,
both directly and indirectly, should report their compliance with the PLGHA, and
USAID should institute penalties, including debarment from future federal funding,for violations of it. The new executive order also should instruct the Administratorof USAID to publish reports on implementation of the PLGHA by both prime andsub-prime recipients.
In addition, the Helms Amendment should continue to be applied, as it has been
by both Republican and Democratic Administrations for more than 50 years, as acomplete ban on the use of taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions abroad.
International Religious Freedom. Conservatives believe internationalreligious freedom is central to USAID’s development efforts. President Trump’s
Executive Order 13926 on “Advancing International Religious Freedom”13
instructed the Secretary of State, in consultation with the USAID Administrator,
to budget at least $50 million a year for programs that advance international religious freedom and “ensure that faith-based and religious entities, including eligible
entities in foreign countries, are not discriminated against on the basis of religious
identity or religious belief when competing for Federal funding.”
Under the Trump Administration, the agency set up a senior-level Chief Adviser
for International Religious Freedom who reported directly to the Administrator with the task of coordinating a “whole-of-USAID” approach to achieving this— 261 —

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priority. It created a robust genocide-response capability. USAID affirmed theagency’s partnerships with faith-based organizations through its rule on “Participation by Religious Organizations in USAID Programs;”14 “Partnership Guidanceand Answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for Faith Based Organizations;”
and “Legal Guidance and Answers to FAQs for USAID Staff.”Today, USAID officials and their progressive partners have resisted efforts topromote religious freedom, especially as it relates to abortion and gender ideology,
which are anathema to the traditional societies where USAID funds programs (inaddition to many U.S. taxpayers). U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken repudiatedhis predecessor’s focus on religious freedom.
The next conservative Administration must champion the core American valueof religious freedom, which correlates significantly with poverty reduction, economic growth, and peace. It should train all USAID staff on the connection between
religious freedom and development; integrate it into all of the agency’s programs,
including the five-year Country Development and Coordination Strategies due
for updates in 2025; strengthen the missions’ relationships with local faith-basedleaders; and build on local programs that are serving the poor. Congress should
appropriate funding to USAID specifically to support persecuted religious minorities in line with Executive Order 13926.
Streamlining Procurement and Localizing the Partner Base. USAID is a
grantmaking and contracting agency that disburses billions of dollars of federal
funding in developing countries through implementing partners, such as U.N. agencies, international NGOs, for-profit companies, and local nongovernmental entities.
In rare instances, such as in Jordan and Ukraine, the agency provides direct budget
support to finance the operations of host-country governments. USAID far more
often counts on expensive and ineffective large contracts and grants to carry out
its programs. It justifies these practices based on speed and a lower administrative
burden on its institutional capacity.
Partnering and procurement reform was a pillar of the Trump Administration’s
effort to secure better development results, cut costs, and advance the Journey toSelf-Reliance strategy of exiting countries from aid. In December 2018, USAID
launched its first Acquisition and Assistance Strategy to streamline procurement
processes; introduce innovation into its programming; and diversify its partner
base away from large, expensive, and partisan implementers. The strategy counted
on local NGOs, including faith-based entities already on the ground, to provide
the agency with less costly and more effective alternatives to the aid giants. The
strategy also prioritized global partnerships with the private sector—corporations,investors, diasporas, and private philanthropies—the source of real capital investment, innovation, and efficiencies that can maximize the impact of taxpayer dollars.
Under the Biden Administration, despite rhetoric to the contrary, the aid industrial
complex has recaptured the agency and stifled further reforms.

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The next conservative Administration should immediately implement language
on key policy topics as standard provisions in all grants, cooperative agreements,
and contracts. These provisions should include language on implementing the
Policy on Protecting Life in Foreign Assistance, imposing conditions on funding
to multilateral organizations, and increasing accountability and transparency.
To ensure that USAID exercises its existing authorities to streamline procurement processes, the next conservative Administration should name a political
appointee as the agency’s Senior Procurement Executive and Director of the agency’s Office of Assistance and Acquisitions (OAA) in the Bureau of Management (M).
The head of M/OAA is one of the most important positions at USAID, as the office isground zero for controlling the disbursement of U.S. foreign aid. The White Houseshould empower the Administrator and his or her designees to make determinations concerning the scale and scope of awards and increase the transparency andaccountability of subawards, which can escape public scrutiny and promote progressive policies during conservative Administrations. USAID should use existing
authority to use program funds to expand its roster of contracting and agreement
officers to accelerate the delivery of funds for disaster responses to a more diverse
collection of implementers.
Accomplishing the next conservative Administration’s policy goals at USAID
will require that political appointees have knowledge of, responsibility for, andvisibility into the design and awarding of grants, contracts, and cooperative
agreements. The Administration should restore the Senior Official Accountability Review (SOAR) or create a similar process to ensure that proposed programs
above a certain dollar threshold in Total Estimated Cost/Total Estimated Amountreceive a close review by policymakers in each bureau and office and, for large
awards, in the agency’s front office.
“Localization” is a buzzword within the aid community but correctly assumes
that more funding through local organizations produces better aid outcomes. Shifting from giant U.S.-based implementers has proved difficult to achieve, however,given intense internal bureaucratic resistance; opposition from the aid industrial
complex; and foot-dragging from progressives, who view local NGOs—especiallyfaith-based NGOs prominent in Africa and Latin America—as obstacles to promoting abortion, gender radicalism, climate extremism, and other woke ideas.
The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has shown that
localization at scale is possible within a short time span. Over the four years of the
Trump Administration, the multibillion-dollar program increased the amountof funding disbursed to local entities from about 25 percent to nearly 70 percent
with positive overall results. This model should be replicated across all of USAID.
In addition, the next conservative Administration should expand use of the New
Partnership Initiative (NPI) to every bureau and office; reset the requirements for
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mission a minimum percentage of its portfolio that must go to new, underutilized,
and local partners. Crucial to the strategy will be increasing the use of open competition that lowers barriers to entry and fixed-amount awards that carry less ofa compliance burden along with eliminating cost-plus reimbursement contracts
that favor large companies. Before advancing a new program, the agency should
be required to assess existing local activities to avoid undercutting or duplicatingthem. At every opportunity, USAID should build on existing local initiatives.
Global Health. The United States is the world’s largest funder of global healthinitiatives. For more than 60 years, the American people have offered health assistance to the world and saved millions of lives. The USAID Bureau for Global Health(GH), the second largest within USAID, oversees a multibillion-dollar operation
to support maternal and child health; voluntary family planning; PEPFAR and
the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) (both started under President George W.
Bush); and other initiatives against other infectious and neglected tropical diseases.
Effective use of funds is essential to maximize care for the world’s neediest people.
Countries with strong health institutions and sound public health practices
responded quickly to and recovered more rapidly from the COVID-19 pandemic.
This demonstrates the importance of “localization,” by which USAID helps governments and the private sector in developing countries to strengthen theirown ability to address needed training, services, accountability, and organizational capacity.
Unfortunately, many USAID-funded global health activities remain rooted inpatterns that began decades ago and measure improvements in terms of inputs—
money spent—instead of outcomes achieved. From the 1950s to 1970s, the major
recognized threats to human health were infectious diseases such as polio andsmallpox, and USAID funded programs “in” a country, not “with” a country. Maternal and child health, food, water, and sanitation programs were often intermittent.
USAID consistently financed population control, contraception, and abortion as
essential to “development.” Most programs focused on one disease or condition
but had little integration with other global health activities. Chronic diseases
were ignored.
Consequently, the next conservative Administration should focus on updating
the Global Health Bureau’s portfolio, emphasizing a comprehensive approach tosupporting women, children, and families; building host-country institutional
capacity; increasing awards to local and faith-based partners (expanding what
occurred during the Trump Administration with the NPI); and improving USAID’s
ability to coordinate with local partners.
Updating Funding Priorities. The Bureau should identify and eliminate outdated and ineffective concepts and focus on funding innovation. A rigorous review
is necessary to ensure that current programs and funding streams avoid wastingtaxpayer dollars and prioritize what is needed now and what works.

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Focusing on Holistic Health Care and Support for Women, Children, andFamilies. The continued high rate of maternal and infant mortality is a persistentglobal tragedy. Contrary to current publicity, this problem is not solved by abortion.
Families genuinely cherish children. The next leadership at USAID must focus
attention on women and children’s health (including unborn children) as wellas health risks across life spans, including childhood infections, cervical cancer,
adolescent risks, and family stability, by utilizing a coordinated approach. The
Bureau should implement a “Request for Application for Resilient Families” thatharvests collaborative funds from siloed programs and makes individuals and thefamily, not diseases or conditions, the true focus of intervention.
Increasing USAID Collaboration with Faith-Based Organizations. FBOs
historically have been much more successful in outreach to remote and vulnerable
populations, based on trust built through decades of service. The value of collaborating with FBOs was demonstrated in the October 2020 Evidence Summit on
Religious Engagement. In sub-Saharan Africa, FBOs often provide more than 80
percent of health care, especially to the extremely poor. In contrast, the Global
Health Bureau historically has provided 85 percent of its funding to large U.S. NGOs
with significant overhead costs, as a result of which only 20 percent–30 percent offunding reaches people in need.15
Leveraging the Strength and Experience of Presidential Initiatives. Millions of people are alive today because of the American people’s investment in
PEPFAR and PMI. The training, laboratory, clinical intervention, health education, data collection, and organizational platforms of these programs became thebedrock for responding to the COVID pandemic. It is time for these programs tobecome part of an integrated, strong, and sustainable network of health care andpublic health in developing countries. A smooth transition to national ownershipand funding, however, will require better coordination of USAID’s own stovepiped
programs with PEPFAR and PMI.
Strengthening the Collection and Use of Data. Good decisions are based on
accurate data. For decades, global health programs have relied mostly on statistical modeling (rather than actual data) or survey data (the weakest type of data).
Poor data quality undermines both the evaluation and improvement of desired
outcomes achieved by our global health programs. The Trump Administration
implemented critical updates of PEPFAR’s systems for the collection and reportingof data to increase transparency and hold funded partners and overseas missions
accountable. The next conservative Administration should apply these reforms
to all of USAID’s global health programs.
Strengthening Private-Sector Engagement. The Bureau’s Center for Innovation and Impact (CII) should be empowered to expand networks of privateand faith-based health organizations that can develop projects using development-impact bonds, capital funds, and innovative technologies, including with the— 265 —

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Millennium Challenge Corporation and the new U.S. International Development
Finance Corporation. More flexible and agile CII funding will spur innovation
within the Bureau and help to enhance countries’ self-reliance in the provisionof health care.
Improving Bureau Hiring, Staffing, and Recruitment Practices. The
Global Health Bureau should address its own management challenges by modifying
the high ratio of contractors to direct hires, holding career leadership accountablefor effective management, and building more flexibility in emergency responses.
Bureau personnel suffer from “mission drift,” burnout, and a lack of vision. New
directives, social agendas, and extra layers of review have obscured core activities
and caused talent to leave the agency. Conservative leadership must return thefocus to development and improved workforce morale and focus on global outcomes and the efficient use of taxpayer dollars.
Holding the U.N., the World Health Organization (WHO), and Other Multilateral Organizations Accountable. Leadership should designate a political
appointee to help coordinate cross-agency efforts to hold the U.S. government’s
multilateral partners (U.N. and WHO agencies and other international organizations) to a higher level of financial and programmatic accountability, including
assurances that language promoting abortion will be removed from U.N. documents, policy statements, and technical literature. The United States must havemore prominent representation in international technical committees and regulation-setting organizations to ensure the proper execution of American resources,
the preservation of our values, the protection of innovation, and the vitality of ourbiomedical sector.
Global Humanitarian Assistance. The U.S. government is the world’s largest
humanitarian actor, annually disbursing billions of dollars in lifesaving assistance—
food, water, shelter, emergency health care, and related protection support—totens of millions of vulnerable people. Funded by the U.S. Congress through theInternational Disaster Assistance (IDA) account, USAID pays for nearly half of thebudget of the Nobel Prize–winning U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) as wellas dozens of simultaneous operations that range from responses to hurricanes inCentral America to tackling outbreaks of Ebola in Central Africa and caring formillions of people displaced by ongoing conflicts.
USAID’s emergency responses once were focused primarily on natural cataclysms such as hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes. Today, the agency spends morethan 80 percent of its humanitarian budget on chronic man-made crises. Most ofthese “emergency responses” began years ago and absorb billions of dollars annually with no end in sight. Every year sees financial demands grow in response to
new conflicts, most recently Ukraine. The budget of the Bureau for Humanitarian
Assistance (BHA) has doubled compared to just a few years ago, and BHA can nolonger manage its funds responsibly. A politically powerful foreign aid industry that

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benefits financially from extending and expanding these large-scale programs foryears, even decades, ensures little scrutiny of these ever-increasing appropriations.
The massive growth in “emergency” aid distorts humanitarian responses, worsens corruption in the countries we support, and exacerbates the misery of those
we intend to help. The permanence of this assistance, particularly in countries
where we have little to no in-country presence and must rely on U.N. agencies toself-monitor, has morphed into a co-governance scheme in which the U.S. government effectively finances the social services obligations of corrupt regimes thatthreaten the United States. These governments can then redirect scarce budget
resources away from costly health and education toward financing their wars, supporting terrorism, repressing their citizens, and enriching themselves. Examplesof this abuse are spread throughout the world.
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Over the past decade, the U.S. government has expended $14 billion in aid to
Syria where the bloody regime of Bashar al-Assad—a close ally of Iran andRussia—skims nearly half of foreign aid through inflated official exchange
rates, the diversion of food baskets to its military units, and procurement
arrangements with compromised local contractors.
Yemen, once the breadbasket of the Arabian Peninsula, is now dependent
on billions of dollars of aid as formerly productive Yemeni farmers cannot
compete against “free food” while irrigation systems remain in disrepair,leaving the country to suffer from water shortages during long summer
droughts and flooding during its rainy season. Iran-backed Houthi rebels
divert substantial amounts of aid to support their war efforts.
In Afghanistan, the aid infrastructure built over 20 years of American
military presence that three Presidents wanted to end collapsed with the
failure of U.S.-trained Afghan forces to repel the Taliban’s 2021 advances.
Yet the country has received nearly $1 billion more in U.S. humanitarian aid
since the Taliban’s takeover and absent a U.S. embassy to ensure that it is notdiverted to the Taliban and other terrorist groups.
In Burma, U.S. aid finances all of the food and medical care for hundreds ofthousands of persecuted Rohingya that the military regime forces to live in
open-air concentration camps.
In northern Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Yazidis—targeted for genocidal
extermination by ISIS—remain in miserable camps unable to return homebecause of the Iraqi government’s refusal to clear out Iran-backed militias
occupying their homeland.

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In effect, humanitarian aid is sustaining war economies, creating financial
incentives for warring parties to continue fighting, discouraging governmentsfrom reforming, and propping up malign regimes.
Nefarious actors reap billions of dollars in profits from diversions of our humanitarian assistance, but so do international organizations. The WFP charges 36
percent in overhead while Oxfam International’s overhead has reached 70 percent
in Yemen, reflecting the high costs of foreign staff, security, and logistics. With powerful lobbies in Washington, D.C., and in leadership positions throughout USAID
and the Department of State, the aid industry adroitly exploits Congress’s disposition to increase funding year on year to assist those in dire need but provides noevidence to justify the mounting budget requests.
In 2020, USAID’s leadership fused formerly bifurcated food and nonfood
emergency relief operations into a single Bureau for Humanitarian Assistanceto improve the management of the agency’s largest portfolio, but this reform was
not sufficient to address the problem. The next Administration should resize andrepurpose USAID’s humanitarian aid portfolio to restore its original purpose ofproviding emergency short-term relief, prepare vulnerable communities for transition, and do no harm in the following ways:
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Work with Congress to make deep cuts in the IDA budget by ending
programs that do more harm than good in places controlled by malignactors, such as in Yemen, Syria, and Afghanistan, where our aid is consumed
by fraud, diversion, and partner overhead costs.
Require USAID and the State Department to devise country-based exit
strategies that term-limit the duration of humanitarian responses andtransition funding from emergency to development projects. This will
require robust diplomacy to press host governments to integrate displaced
persons in lieu of keeping them in expensive and dehumanizing camps
financed by the international community.
Transition from large awards to expensive, inefficient, and corrupt U.N.
agencies, global NGOs, and contractors to local, especially faith-based,
entities that are already operating on the ground. This approach provides
a far less expensive and more effective alternative for aid delivery. Local
partners more ably navigate corrupt environments and are more likely
to steer vulnerable populations away from dependence on aid toward
self-sufficiency.
Require that BHA avail itself of existing IDA authorities that it fails to use,
including to dispense with the cost-reimbursement model that disqualifies— 268 —

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undercapitalized local NGOs; accept other donor vetting of local partners;
streamline the award-approval process; and expand the use of fixed-amountawards to rein in cost overruns.
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Direct USAID’s Bureau for Management to hire more procurement officers
for BHA to strengthen the Bureau’s award management capacity and reducethe incentives to issue large awards to aid industry giants.
Allow BHA to manage the process of hiring Personal Services Contractors.
Require BHA’s partners to adopt stricter vetting procedures to prevent aid
from being diverted to terrorists.
Increase efforts to obtain greater contributions, not just pledges, forhumanitarian operations from other donors and make this a condition forreceiving additional U.S. aid.

Leveraging Foreign Aid to Unleash the Power of America’s Private Sector.
During the 1960s, when USAID was launched, 80 percent of financial flows fromthe United States to the developing world was in the form of U.S. government
assistance. Today, that figure is under 10 percent, overtaken by private investment,
remittances, and private charities, all demonstrating the power of America’s private sector to promote wealth-generating economic development in poor countries.
Leaders in the developing world routinely press U.S. officials about their preference
for “trade and investment, not aid.”
Instead, the Biden Administration is leveraging private-sector financing topromote its climate and other progressive agendas worldwide. The next conservative Administration must return USAID to a foreign aid model that leverages
its resources to promote private-sector solutions to the world’s true development
problems and end the need for future foreign aid. Private capital investment inthese markets is the greatest enabler of job creation and sustainable economic
growth throughout the developing world.
A key tool of American soft-power leadership is the U.S. Development FinanceCorporation (DFC). Launched in December 2019, DFC sought to unleash the powerof America’s private sector to advance our interests by providing emerging markets
with blended financing opportunities to help end wretched poverty, create newmarkets for U.S.-made products, strengthen bilateral partnerships in strategicparts of the world, and offset China’s predatory loans and investments. The Trump
Administration launched a USAID–DFC Working Group to maximize development
outcomes and review individual investment projects through a counter-China lensand ensure a cohesive interagency development response.

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As development agencies, USAID and DFC must do a better job of aligning
their respective activities and closely integrate both structurally and operationally. The easiest way to foster this alignment is to “dual hat” the role of DFC’s
chief development officer so that he or she serves simultaneously in both institutions. Like all U.S. federal bodies, DFC should be restored to its original intent of
deploying its commercial risk-reducing financial services instead of its current
misuse as another global vehicle to promote economy-killing climate programs,
meet irrelevant diversity objectives, and overfocus on low-impact or misguided
gender-based activities.
Branding. A deeply embedded culture within the foreign aid bureaucracy
views public recognition of U.S. assistance as secondary to a larger philanthropic
mission and is embarrassed by the American flag. Citing vaguely defined security concerns, USAID’s implementers—U.N. agencies, international NGOs, andcontractors—often fail to credit the American people for the billions of dollars inassistance they provide the rest of the world even as they engage in self-promoting
public relations to raise other donor funds. This approach has negative foreign
policy implications as China relentlessly promotes its own self-serving efforts togain influence and resources. Worst of all, malign actors sometimes appropriate
credit for unbranded U.S. assistance: Houthi terrorists, for example, claim to provide for the people under their occupation with anonymous U.S. humanitarian aid.
The United States is in a struggle for influence with China, Russia, and othercompetitors, and American generosity must not go unacknowledged. The next
conservative Administration should build on the Trump Administration’s branding policy, which revamped ADS Chapter 320, to force the aid bureaucracy to fully
credit the American people for the aid they are providing. The Senior Advisor for
Brand Management in the Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs (LPA) (discussed infra) should be a political appointee who is responsible for maximizing thevisibility of U.S. assistance by enforcing branding policy on every grant, cooperative agreement, and contract. The LPA should liaise with counterparts at the U.S.
Agency for Global Media (USAGM) to ensure local media pickup of these activities.
OTHER OFFICES AND BUREAUS

Office of Administrator. The next conservative Administration should leavein place the current structure of two presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed
Deputy Administrators, one for Policy and one for Management. The Deputy
Administrators and the Chief of Staff must be individuals with extensive previous
service in the executive branch, ideally at foreign-affairs agencies, and be fluent in
the language and practice of federal procurement.
Bureau for Foreign Assistance. As noted above, the next conservative
Administration should name the USAID Administrator as Director of Foreign
Assistance (F) at the Department of State with the rank of Deputy Secretary. It— 270 —

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should reorient the bulk of F staff from focusing on the formulation of the annual
President’s budget proposal to the execution of already appropriated resources.
This should include eliminating the duplicative Mission and Bureau Resource
Requests; speeding up the availability of appropriations by delivering to Congresswithin 60 days the report required by Section 653(a) of the Foreign Assistance Act(FAA); and fast-tracking the approval of Congressional Notifications (CNs) andother pre-obligation requirements.
Management Bureau. As indicated previously, the next conservative Administration should name a political appointee as USAID’s Senior Procurement
Executive and Director of the agency’s Office of Acquisition and Assistance (M/
OAA). Political appointees with the appropriate credentials (including warrants)
should be placed within M/OAA, and the agency should exercise its authority toengage qualified experts from other federal departments and agencies and outsideof government (if they are free of conflicts of interest) on the Technical Committees that review applications for USAID’s contract and grant competitions. The
Administration should change the designation of USAID’s Competition Advocate
to an individual favorable to innovative types of contracts that can reduce the aid
oligopoly’s grip on the agency.
Office of Human Capital and Talent Management. As soon as possible after
Inauguration Day, the next conservative Administration should name a political
appointee as USAID’s Chief Human Capital Officer (CHCO) and Director of the
Office of Human Capital and Talent Management. USAID’s White House Liaisonmust be an individual with substantial experience with federal personnel systems. The White House Office of Presidential Personnel should allow the USAID
Administrator to explore with counterparts at the Office of Personnel Management
whether the agency could hire personnel under both the Administratively Determined authority and Schedule C of the Excepted Service of the Federal Civil Service.
USAID should be one of the agencies to pilot-test a reinstated Executive Order
13957,16 which created a Schedule F within the Excepted Service, and should aggressively recruit and place candidates into term-limited positions under Schedule Aof the Excepted Service (especially veterans). The new CHCO should examine how
the existing members of the Senior Executive Service (SES) at USAID should be
reworked throughout the agency and should institute an SES Mobility Program toencourage the regular rotation of senior career leaders, including through details
to other departments and agencies.
Bureau for Policy, Planning, and Learning. The next conservative Administration should shift the policy functions of the Bureau for Policy, Planning, andLearning (PPL) to the Office of Budget and Resource Management (BRM), locatedin the Office of the Administrator. It should rename BRM the Office of Budget,
Policy, and Resource Management (BPRM) and staff the policy team with political
appointees. The Administration should also move the responsibility for reviewing— 271 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promiseand processing proposed changes in USAID’s policy bible, the Automated Directives System (ADS), from the Management Bureau to the new BPRM.
Even before these changes, the Assistant Administrator for PPL should decree
an immediate freeze on changes in the ADS and agencywide policy documents toallow for the priority publication of amendments to reflect the new Administration’s viewpoint. All major agency policies should be reviewed and amended orwithdrawn within the new Administration’s first calendar year in office.
Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs. The next conservative Administration should invest no more than 10 percent of USAID’s allocation of
Administratively Determined politically appointed positions in the Bureau forLegislative and Public Affairs. A priority for these positions (combined with hires
under Schedule A) should be the review and editing of the agency’s public-facing
web pages and social media accounts to eliminate material that does not conform to
the new Administration’s policies. The agency should accelerate the review of Congressional Notifications within LPA and publish all CNs and congressional reports.
To ensure consistency and clarity of public messaging, LPA should gain direct
authority over the communications staff scattered through USAID’s various
Bureaus and Offices. LPA should expand its public-facing efforts to include conservative allies that are active in global development and humanitarian aid work,
including industry groups, nonprofits, trade associations, foundations, and advocacy organizations, and correspondingly reduce the aid industrial complex’s grip
on USAID’s corporate relationships.
Office of General Counsel. Along with the Director of M/OAA, the GeneralCounsel is one of the two or three most important positions at USAID and should
be a priority for immediate appointments. Because proper legal interpretationof executive orders and internal USAID policy is crucial, the next conservative
Administration should recruit and appoint a commanding team of Schedule Cattorneys in the Office of the General Counsel (OGC). Within weeks of Inauguration Day, OGC should issue clear guidance on the eligibility of faith-basedorganizations for USAID funding.
Office of Budget Resources and Management. The Director of Budget
Resources and Management should be a political appointee empowered as part of
the Administrator’s senior management team. BRM’s highest priorities should be
to prepare the report required by Section 653(a) according to the Administrator’s
guidance, institute a fast-track process for the submission of Congressional Notifications, and identify already appropriated resources to reprogram immediately to fundthe new Administration’s priorities. The next conservative Administration should
consider prioritizing the placing of young political appointees in BRM over LPA.
Bureau for Democracy, Development, and Innovation. A key outcome of
the transformation of USAID undertaken during the Trump Administration, theBureau for Democracy, Development, and Innovation (DDI) is the home for most— 272 —

2025 Presidential Transition Projectof the agency’s non-health, nonhumanitarian funding as well as almost all of its
sectoral appropriations directives, including those that reflect the pet projects ofindividual Members of Congress. The Bureau is the policy and financial nexus at
USAID for most of the Biden Administration’s radical priorities in foreign assistance, including gender, climate change, and the promotion of identity-based
politics. On the positive side, DDI is also the Bureau in charge of areas that willbe crucial to a reorientation of USAID, including trade, economic growth, innovation, partnerships with the private sector, and the agency’s relationship with
communities of faith.
The next conservative Administration should make the rapid staffing of key DDI
positions a high priority. Besides the Senate-confirmed Assistant Administrator,
the Directors of each of the Centers and Hubs in the Bureau will need politicalleadership. Almost every one of the agencywide policies that cover DDI’s areas of
responsibility will need to be edited or rewritten entirely as soon as possible. The
next conservative Administration should harvest DDI’s central appropriations tofund new priorities, especially working with ethnic and religious minorities andfaith-based organizations and joint ventures with the private sector in educationand energy. All DDI programs should issue funding opportunities restricted to
new and underutilized partners modeled on the NPI.
REGIONS

Asia. Asia is the most populous continent and ground zero in the battle against
Communist China’s efforts to exploit the development needs of poor countries forgeopolitical gain. America’s Indo-Pacific Strategy should guide USAID’s approaches
to disbursing foreign aid in the region.
USAID should intensify its bilateral relationships with pro–free market Japan,
Australia, South Korea, and India so that they can jointly advance private-sector
solutions to secure financing for power generation, infrastructure, digital connectivity, investment and trade expansion, and other economic activities. USAID
enjoys a strong in-country presence in India, buttressed by recent coordinationon the global response to COVID-19 as India is a global leader in vaccine production. Those ties should be expanded. So too should development cooperation with
Taiwan, which boasts effective pandemic response capacity that should be sharedwith developing countries.
China’s island-hopping efforts to capture vulnerable Pacific states is a direct
strategic threat to U.S. maritime supremacy and homeland security, and USAID
and its allied donors should neutralize these efforts through the deployment oftargeted assistance such as helping countries combat the effects of China’s illegal fishing. While China outpaces the ability of the democratic alliance to deploy
state-backed financing to developing countries, it is unable to compete with ourcollective private-sector capacity to deploy trillions of dollars of capital.

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Pakistan is a prime example of foreign aid policies disconnected from U.S.
national interests. The country has been the recipient of more than $12 billion in
U.S. foreign aid since 2010, yet it remains intensely anti-American and corrupt, hasbacked the Taliban continuously since 2001, jump-started North Korea’s nuclear
bomb program, brutalizes its religious minorities, and is a willing client of China
while taking on unrepayable loans from the U.S. taxpayer-funded International
Monetary Fund and World Bank.
Middle East. The Middle East is far more vulnerable today than it was in 2020
because the Biden Administration’s strategy for the region is adrift. Tunisia has
slid into autocracy, Iraq is plummeting further into Iran’s orbit, and U.S. soldierscontinue to risk their lives for unclear ends amid the ruins of Syria. Meanwhile,
billions of dollars in U.S. foreign aid props up regimes allied with Iran.
President Trump’s Abraham Accords signaled the end of the centrality of the
Arab–Israeli conflict, which paralyzed U.S. approaches to the region, and focusedinstead on Iran as the principal threat to America from this region. During the
Trump Administration, USAID’s allocations reflected the new opportunities
created by the Accords and sought to strengthen regional alliances against Iranthrough expanded regional trade and investment and to promote genuine political stability tethered to strong American leadership. USAID formally partneredwith the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Morocco, Qatar, and Kuwait to catalyze
regional partnerships in Africa. Under the Biden Administration, however, USAID
has returned to a model that deepens the region’s dependence on aid.
A new conservative President should reset USAID’s programming in the Middle
East in line with our national security interests and committed to the goal of ending
the need for foreign aid through development that is led by the private sector.
Specifically:llForeign aid must advance the Abraham Accords. Increased trade andinvestment between Israel and its Arab neighbors represent the mosteffective path toward reducing poverty, fostering the emergence of a middle
class, and solidifying peace. USAID should therefore focus its development
assistance on countries such as Morocco and Sudan through joint
investment collaboration with the more economically advanced economies
such as the UAE and Israel.
USAID should consider cutting aid to states allied to Iran, limiting
assistance in these countries to the advancement of narrow strategic
priorities and support for basic American values, such as aid to persecuted
religious minorities. USAID continues to expend hundreds of millions ofdollars in nonhumanitarian aid to antagonistic regimes in Iraq, Lebanon,
and the Palestinian territories. After billions of dollars of aid and many

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2025 Presidential Transition Projectyears of effort, these countries remain hopelessly dysfunctional—a factthat exposes the failure of a foreign aid model that is disconnected to ournational security and without exit strategies to promote self-reliance. We
must admit that USAID’s investments in the education sector, for example,
serve no other purpose than to subsidize corrupt, incompetent, andhostile regimes.
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USAID should undergo operational changes to secure better development
outcomes by reducing its missions’ footprints in the Middle East given thatmost personnel in the region are unable to leave their highly protected andexpensive compounds and carry out their oversight functions. It should
redirect program funding away from expensive and poorly performinginternational partners to more cost-effective local entities that require aminimal USAID field presence.

Africa. Since its inception, USAID has had a strong presence in Africa, saving
millions of lives through its pandemic and infectious disease responses, especiallyfor malaria and HIV-AIDS. It has led global efforts to provide lifesaving emergency
assistance to those who are fleeing conflict and suffering from devastating natural
disasters. American generosity knows no equal.
Yet the agency’s efforts to reduce poverty and hunger have failed as it spends
ever-higher amounts of aid partnering with a costly and ineffective aid industrial complex that has little interest in “working itself out of a job.” Long-term,
multibillion-dollar humanitarian responses lack exit strategies, while numerous development projects lead neither to measurable results nor to government
reforms. Despite the tens of billions of dollars spent, the continent remains poor,
unstable, and riven with conflict, corruption, and Islamic terrorism. This situation
has also resulted in vast illegal migration from the continent.
Failure to generate wealth has provided opportunities for China to step in andbecome the continent’s leader in trade, loans, and investment. As a result, Beijing
controls most of the continent’s strategic minerals that are critical to advanced
technology. Moreover, USAID is criticized by Africans for exporting cultural values
that are anathema to their traditional norms, further abetting Chinese continental supremacy.
The Biden Administration’s radical global climate policies have cut off billions
in investment to develop clean fossil fuels, denying Africa’s billion-plus people
access to cheap energy to further their own development and finance their own
social services in health, water, education, and agriculture, while increasing its
dependence on China’s renewables industry. It has exacerbated hunger by increasing the costs of fertilizers to levels that many African farmers can no longer afford.
Poverty-inducing dependence on aid grows daily.

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USAID efforts in Africa require a rethink. In 2025, USAID will update its fiveyear Country Development and Cooperation Strategies. This will give the next
Administration an opportunity to pursue a new development course for Africa
that promotes economic self-reliance, catalyzes private-sector solutions for job
creation through increased trade and investment, terminates legacy and nonperforming programs, and supports diversified energy approaches. Critically, it must
hold China accountable for its extractive investments that violate international
labor, environmental, and anticorruption norms and practices; undercut business
opportunities for U.S. companies; and sabotage Africa’s development.
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USAID, in collaboration with the U.S. International Development FinanceCorporation, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of the Treasury,and U.S. Department of Commerce’s Foreign Commercial Service, should
use its convening power, diplomatic heft, and risk-reducing instruments
to facilitate U.S.–African business relationships and expand Prosper Africa,
launched by the Trump Administration to “bring[] together services fromacross the U.S. Government to help companies and investors do business in
U.S. and African markets.”17
The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA)18 provides Africa dutyfree access to U.S. markets. The next Administration should extend AGOA
beyond its 2025 term but within a strategic framework that rewards good
governance and pro–free market economic policies. There is no point in
wasting massive sums of aid to countries whose governments fail to keep
their promises to reform.
USAID should build on, not compete with, private-sector initiatives
launched by global churches, corporate philanthropists, and diaspora
groups that have already invested billions of dollars in self-reliance–
based projects.

Japan has committed $30 billion in aid to Africa over three years to stem China’s
economic and political grip on the continent. Gulf-based sovereign funds also areinvesting billions in African energy, infrastructure, mining, water, food production,
information and communications technology, and other strategic industries. Other
allied donors are promoting investment-based aid. There is no lack of funding tosupport Africa’s economic rise. What is lacking is strategic direction among U.S.
government foreign aid agencies.
PEPFAR has saved countless lives over the years and constitutes America’s mostsuccessful aid program. During the Trump Administration, PEPFAR increased theshare of funding to local entities from about 20 percent to nearly 70 percent with— 276 —

2025 Presidential Transition Projectcommensurate improvements that have had lasting impact. The next Administration should extend that localization model to all global health and humanitarianassistance in view of how local African entities have strengthened their capacity fordirect management of U.S. programs. Correspondingly, USAID should aggressively
ramp down its partnerships with wasteful, costly, and politicized U.N. agencies,
international NGOs, and Beltway contractors. All new programs in Africa should
build on existing local initiatives that enjoy the support of the African people.
Latin America. U.S. foreign assistance throughout the Western Hemisphereis designed to respond to national security threats that emanate from the region,such as illicit drug and arms trafficking; illegal immigration flows; terrorism;
pandemics; and strategic threats from China, Russia, and Iran. Over the past
decade, the United States has provided billions of dollars in security, humanitarian, and development assistance in Central America and the Andes, including$1 billion in food and non-food emergency aid to millions of Venezuelan refugees who have fled the Maduro dictatorship. USAID is always first to respond tonatural disasters in Central America and the Caribbean and employs a networkof dedicated experts in the region to deliver this assistance. During the COVID
pandemic, the United States provided millions of doses of vaccines and otheremergency health support.
Yet years of foreign aid have failed to bring peace, prosperity, and stability to
the hemisphere. Poverty, joblessness, and social unrest have led to leftist electoral
victories from Mexico to Chile. These regimes are hostile to American interests andprivate enterprise, breed corruption, implement radical policies that will further
impoverish their people and threaten their democracies, and are more open to
striking partnerships with Communist China. Left-wing authoritarian kleptocracies in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela deny their people basic freedoms, violently
and ruthlessly suppress any dissent, repress communities of faith, and generatesuch misery that hundreds of thousands of their citizens have attempted to crossour southern border over the past two years. No recent Administration has madeany progress in reducing the chaos and desperation in Haiti.
Conversely, Latin America is a major global source of energy and food, which
generates substantial income that can finance internal social and economic development. The nations of the hemisphere share a natural and massive geographic
trade and investment advantage through their proximity to the United States,
supplemented by free-trade agreements. The United States remains the favoreddestination for higher education and business opportunities for Latin Americans.
Successful diasporas in the United States serve as powerful economic, cultural,and political bridges to every country in the region.
The Trump Administration focused on promoting trade and investment,
especially in infrastructure, through an interagency effort called América Crece(America Grows), by which USAID played a key role in providing technical— 277 —

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assistance to create a more enabling environment to attract private investment.
The Biden Administration canceled the program.
The next conservative Administration should reassess all programs of U.S. foreign aid to Latin America and terminate those that have failed to achieve results
after years of effort. Instead, USAID should:lll

Focus its resources on strengthening the fundamentals of free markets, suchas clear property rights and a functioning judiciary, and on promoting laborand pension reforms, lower taxes, and deregulation in order to increase
trade and investment within the region and with the United States as thegenuine path to economic and political stability.
Challenge the socialist ideas that have captured too many of the region’s
governments and their nations’ youth.
Fund partnerships with the private sector and support civil-society groups,
including university centers and think tanks that advocate for pro–freemarket and democratic ideas.

Finally, Latin America is the perfect proving ground for reducing USAID’s reliance on large U.S.-based implementers, and the agency should commit to shifting
all of its portfolio in the region to local organizations by 2030.
PERSONNEL

The Trump Administration agenda for USAID was undercut from the outset
both by recalcitrant career personnel and by inexperienced political personnel.
The next conservative Administration should implement personnel policies fromthe beginning so that the agency can be effectively managed according to high standards. The rapid deployment of reforms will require key experienced personnel
installed quickly at USAID’s headquarters and missions. Delay will only impede
progress. In general, areas of focus should be appointing effective lawyers in key
positions, reforming career hiring/firing mechanisms, and getting a grip on the
grantmaking process.
The Administration should staff the Office of the General Counsel with at least
four politically appointed attorneys (besides the General Counsel). The GeneralCounsel should have two political deputies, one of whom should cover Human
Capital and Talent Management (HCTM) and the other the Office of Acquisition
and Assistance (OAA).
The Administration should name a political appointee with long experience infederal personnel systems as USAID’s Chief Human Capital Officer and Directorof HCTM. This appointee would help to scope and shepherd position descriptions,— 278 —

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clearances, and other components of the hiring process that are necessary for
immediate onboarding while coordinating with the White House to bring in new
appointees and make internal career employee changes. On Day One, USAID
should halt all agencywide training and replace it with training modules to advancethe President’s agenda.
The Administration should appoint a Senior Accountable Official (SAO) toreport on the agency’s adherence to Administration policy priorities, including on
Protecting Life in Foreign Assistance, critical race theory, climate change, gender,and diversity and inclusion. It should also create a program to staff hard-to-fillpositions overseas.
Finally, the Administration should create a recruiting program for veteransand other groups to participate in career job opportunities at USAID. Former missionaries, veterans, members of diasporas, and faith community stakeholders withoverseas experience should be recruited to work at USAID on Schedule A appointments, as Institutional Services Contractors, as Personal Services Contractors, andas Foreign Service Officers.
CONCLUSION

The next conservative Administration will have a unique opportunity to realignU.S. foreign assistance with American national interests and the principles of good
governance and more accurately reflect the U.S. taxpayer’s unmatched charitable desire to help those in need. It can build on a strong baseline of conservativereforms undertaken by the Trump Administration to counter Communist China’s
strategy of world domination. However, this will require that bold steps are taken
on Day One to undo the gross misuse of foreign aid by the current Administration
to promote a radical ideology that is politically divisive at home and harms ourglobal standing.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The preparation of this chapter was a collective enterprise of individuals involved in

the 2025 Presidential Transition Project. All contributors to this chapter are listed at the front of this volume,
but Dr. William Steiger, Bethany Kozma, and Dr. Alma Golden deserve special mention. The author assumes
full responsibility for the content of this chapter, and no views expressed therein should be attributed to any
other individual.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise
ENDNOTES

1.
2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.
8.

9.
10.

11.

12.

13.

14.
15.

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Contributor’s notes from internal USAID meetings.

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2025 Presidential Transition Project
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