After a long period of broad support for U.S. economic assistance overseas, the geopolitical landscape is shifting. For two years in a row, President Donald Trump proposed a 30 percent cut to the International Affairs Budget, which a bipartisan coalition in Congress resisted. In a world beset by many crises and urgent development needs, questions of how aid is deployed and how it complements other sources of finance in achieving development impact are crucial.
The fifteenth Brookings Blum Roundtable will explore challenges to, and opportunities for, U.S. foreign assistance and global leadership. With U.S. government resources for global development now secured, the next steps on redesigning the State Department and USAID are looming, with legislation to create a new development finance agency well advanced.
Other reform options being considered by Congress and the Administration are how the U.S. can best reduce fragility, how it can best use and support multilateral institutions, and how it can compete or collaborate with China on promoting global development. In each of the sessions, participants will share ideas on specific opportunities for U.S. leadership in the development arena.
The agenda topics deal with live policy issues on which participants are engaged. Thus, the discussions could have a direct impact on policy.
Source: The Brookings Institute
