“Give it the resources and support it needs to become once again the world’s premier development organisation of the 21st century.” This was US President (then Vice- President) Joe Biden in 2011 on the 50th anniversary of the US Agency for International Development or USAID as it is widely known.

A decade on, an influential section of the US establishment now expects him to walk the talk. America’s soft power projection was the one aspect of US foreign policy which was probably the most severely undermined by President Donald Trump’s transactional behaviour and the very real benefits it provided to the USA and countries across the globe were entirely under-appreciated.

The US concept of national security resting on the troika of defence, diplomacy, and development is clearly making a comeback and the pressure is growing on President Biden to restore the primacy of USAID given that it can be the spearhead for this approach.

As economist and development expert George Ingram writes in a recent monograph: “The two challenges uppermost on the agenda of the Biden Administration, Covid- 19 and climate change, are issues of both domestic and international import. The international elements are, inherently, matters of global development.

Addressing the international aspects of these transnational crises must be grounded on sophisticated analysis and deployment of resources that strengthen countries long term while reducing the impact of the crises… but security considerations and diplomatic interests often hold sway, because the short-term political gains are more certain… and the bureaucratic structure works to their advantage. The capabilities of the lead development agency USAID must be strengthened.”

Scholars including Ingram make the argument that the whole point of President John F. Kennedy signing an executive order in 1961 consolidating US foreign assistance programmes in a new single agency, USAID, has been lost over the past three decades.

First, following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, President George HW Bush bypassed USAID to pump funds from various federal departments directly into Eastern European nations to ostensibly promote their “transition to democracy”. In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton gave in to an effort purportedly aimed at reducing government bureaucracy which ended up giving the Department of State budgetary control over USAID which the former was not averse to exercising.

The final blow came under President George W Bush when two new international aid programs were established outside the aegis of USAID and the State Department was given further responsibilities for USAID policies and budget.

The role of various soft power initiatives in strengthening national security and managing conflict internationally is vital for any country. For the world’s richest and most powerful nation, it is a categorical imperative. J. Brian Atwood, former Administrator USAID and Under Secretary of State, and Larry Garber, ex-Mission Director, West Bank and Gaza, USAID, too have lent their voice to the campaign for a greater role and more autonomy for USAID.

The good news is that the nomination of Samantha Power a couple of weeks ago to be the Administrator of USAID comes with a first ~ a seat at the US National Security Council principals’ table.