Increasing transparency in U.S. foreign assistance is a key goal of MFAN’s “Reform Within Reach” campaign, which centers on an Open Letter to President Obama that has already been signed by more than 90 organizations and 45 high-level individuals.  The Open Letter has two key asks of President Obama that have real transparency implications:

 1.            Create America’s first-ever Global Development Strategy, to provide the U.S. with a clear roadmap for reducing global poverty and drive a transparent, national conversation about the importance of foreign assistance to our national interests.  Release the strategy publicly by the time of the Millennium Development Goals Summit in September, to show the world how the U.S. intends to play a re-energized role in battling extreme poverty.

2.            Partner with Congress to rewrite the existing, Cold War-era Foreign Assistance Act, a 500-page piece of legislation that is opaque and inaccessible to the public, our partners, and the countries that receive our foreign assistance.  We need a more transparent foundation for our foreign assistance efforts.

As the letter states: “We currently rely on an inefficient, dispersed system that has grown in a disjointed, haphazard manner without any coherent strategy as to how the parts work together to achieve our goals.  It is time to bring our tools for delivering foreign aid into the 21st Century so that we can do more with precious taxpayer dollars to help those in need.”