Let's move fast and build things

What aid proponents (like me) might learn from the USAID chaos

The Trump/Musk/DOGE tornado blowing through the US aid industry has me thinking, weirdly, about Hillary Clinton. Let me explain.

I spent the weekend with a smart friend who works in business and knows pretty much nothing about global development. I explained what’s happening with USAID and how, in my bewilderment, that it makes no sense to just destroy something without thinking about the second-order consequences – or how it might actually be undermining your other aims. He laughed.

“‘Move fast and break things’ is not just a slogan in tech, it’s how hard stuff gets done. Quick and reckless is a feature not a bug. They don’t want people to have time to figure out what’s really happening, much less a window to organize to stop them.”

That seems like a pretty accurate description of the assault on USAID and even DFC. The incoming admin has changed things faster and further than I thought possible. They’ve fired federal workers, seemingly shuttered a federal agency, and grabbed constitutional control away from Congress. Even Republicans on the Hill seem to have been caught by surprise and slow to react.

Whatever you think of these changes – and, to be clear, I think they’re an epic blunder that will ultimately prove worse than the invasion of Iraq – they have happened. The aid system will never be the same.

DOGE vs QDDR

The contrast with 2009 is striking. On arrival as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton made one of her first big promises to elevate development and fix our broken aid system. She declared:

“Just as every business must get the most out of every dollar from its investors, State and USAID have to get the most out of every dollar from the American taxpayers… It’s ultimately about delivering results for the American people [and] protecting our interests.”

To achieve these goals, she launched the Quadrennial Development and Diplomacy Review, a sprawling lengthy exercise that led to… well, I’m sure some changes, but none that I can remember.

At the time, I was watching all this closely at the Center for Global Development, where I’d returned after a stint at the State Department. I’d been working as a senior official on Africa policy and saw first hand the possibilities and limitations of US foreign aid. Everyone I knew in the field (including inside USAID) was frustrated with the status quo and ideas for reform were everywhere. What I also recall:

• Hundreds of meetings for the QDDR consumed a lot of time for many, many top officials. (They did not hide their grumbling.)

• The White House had a parallel development review underway that was entirely disconnected from the effort at State. (Tensions between the two were also not hidden.)

• The 242-page QDDR report took nearly two years to produce, putting pretty much all reforms on hold until it was complete.

And the result… No real lasting changes.

I’m sure the QDDR had lots of good ideas. But by the time the report and all of the multiple rounds of consultations were completed, any early momentum was gone. Obama had won the White House and Dems controlled both houses, but they got nothing meaningful done on aid reform because they wasted too much time.

The status quo is hard to break.

Any meaningful changes to our government inevitably threaten someone’s turf. So the long tedious QDDR review allowed plenty of time to rally defense. In Washington, getting just one powerful Senator onside can usually save an agency from restructuring or a program from being cut. Despite all the ideas and high-level enthusiasm, the 2009-10 window for realigning American aid or reaping efficiencies was lost.

A few thoughts on getting sh*t done in Washington.

As much as I hate what’s happening today, I do see some DOGE lessons for aid proponents in the future. Here goes:

1. ‘As few as necessary’ is better than ‘as many as possible.’ I’ve noticed a tendency in some circles, especially among Democrats, to consult as widely as possible. I get the need to draw on different perspectives and that a small insular circle usually makes poor choices. But consultation can be overdone to the point of killing any possible changes. (Matt Yglesias’s reporting on ‘the groups’ comes to mind.) Yes, you need a range of voices for a healthy outcome, but not so many to the point of paralysis.

2. Fewer agencies are better. Clinton & Co embraced wholeheartedly a ‘whole of government’ approach. The term appears 32 times in the QDDR. In practice, this means getting as many agencies involved in solving development problems. I can understand why this seems attractive: more agencies means more resources means more results. But it also quickly gets ridiculous. Here’s a spaghetti bowl graphic of all our different aid mandates, objectives, and agencies.

Yes, it’s an unreadable mess. That’s the point.

And, yep, that’s 22 agencies involved in US assistance. Totally unworkable.

Is this call for rationalizing from the Heritage Foundation? Nope. The aid spaghetti bowl was created by Lael Brainard, then at Brookings, just before she joined the Obama Treasury (and later served at the Fed and Biden’s NEC).

3. Pick a few priorities. The center column of Brainard’s graphic lists all the different objectives for aid that she could identify. When you have too many priorities, you have none.

4. And, yes, move quickly. At some point, hopefully soon, US officials will realize they need to rebuild our aid agencies. Let’s draw lessons, debate options, and then get it done. Let’s not wait two years for an exhaustive study loaded with negotiated buzzwords, but which does not achieve anything.

I wish the tornado destroying USAID never happened. Yet I’m confident that we’ll soon realize that we need to start the hard work of rebuilding US development tools. When we do, let’s move fast and build things.