What Does America Want From Its Foreign Assistance Program?

U.S. foreign assistance programs have recently come under increased scrutiny and pressure to adapt to new American national security, foreign policy, and economic priorities. The previous broad consensus on the purpose of U.S. foreign assistance, and what it should prioritize, has eroded in the face of these challenges, with partisan disagreement on how to resolve them.

This study examines how U.S. foreign assistance can be reformulated around unifying strategic objectives, consistent with current global realities. The authors postulate concrete alternative models for how U.S. foreign assistance programs can be updated and then test these models through a series of interviews with Republican- and Democrat-leaning experts. What results is a set of rigorously validated conclusions about the state of the U.S. foreign assistance enterprise, most notably that a bipartisan approach is feasible.

Read the report to learn about the study’s findings on an emerging strategic consensus around U.S. foreign assistance, based on making America “safer, stronger, and more prosperous,” while accounting for contemporary international realities, along with recommendations for how these conclusions can be considered and implemented through congressional action.

What-Does-America-Want-From-Its-Foreign-Assistance-Program