The Global Development Elections?
John Edwards wants to establish a 10,000-strong civilian Marshall Corps, he says in a new foreign policy manifesto in Foreign Affairs. Rudy Giuliani, writing in the same issue, sees the need for a civilian-military Stabilization and Reconstruction Corps to build states that can “serve as bulwarks against barbarism.”
Sen. Barack Obama calls for launching a $2 billion Global Education Fund to “ensure that every child everywhere is taught to build and not destroy.” For Mitt Romney, what’s needed is a Partnership for Prosperity and Progress with the struggling states of the Muslim world, heavily weighted toward development and education aid. Sen. Hillary Clinton has repeatedly talked of the need to support public schools in developing countries and has “put forth an aggressive plan” to provide universal primary education to 77 million of the world’s poorest children.
It may come as a surprise as partisanship roils Washington over the war in Iraq but these campaign soundings from Republicans and Democrats alike indicate a budding consensus on the centrality of development aid in U.S. foreign policy. Some of this, of course, is electioneering and a bid for a touchstone cause like President Kennedy’s Peace Corps. But the proposals also reflect some serious thinking about the world’s fragile states and the role of U.S. soft power. The Bush administration has already taken major, under-appreciated steps in boosting aid, including the creation of the Millennium Challenge Corporation and the Global Aids Fund. However, it has done little to try to tackle the massive, confusing overlap in federal aid programs, has attempted a choppy effort at establishing a State Department Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, and has given mixed support to provincial reconstruction teams in Iraq and Afghanistan. More focus on refining, or redesigning, U.S. development and reconstruction aid should be welcome, even at the level of campaign rhetoric.
