This is an exciting time to be working global public health, with more attention and money going to the field in the last decade than perhaps ever before. In the past, the struggle has been to direct more money and attention to these issues, but recent efforts have focused more on maximizing funds’ impact—by strengthening health systems, focusing on prevention, and finishing so-called “unfinished agendas” in maternal health, child mortality, and family planning. In my remarks at a recent panel on foreign policy challenges facing the 111th Congress, I focused on four issues: infectious diseases, neglected health issues, funding, and capacity building.

There are two things we know for sure in Washington these days: First, the incoming Obama administration is likely to bring change on a wide variety of topics; and second, U.S. foreign assistance is in dire need of a change. You are probably already aware of the plethora of policy papers on how the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Department of State should be reorganized to increase their effectiveness. There are also multiple initiatives striving to boost the prominence of neglected issues like water. What is lacking is an integrated strategy addressing both our domestic and international goals that would in turn suggest organizational reforms for the federal government.

As you read this, the Obama transition team is planning how to tackle major international challenges, including the financial crisis, energy supply, climate change, food security, global health threats, institution-building and governance, and global poverty. International development, as part of an integrated strategic plan, is an important part of the solution to all of these issues. Unfortunately, the current system is dysfunctional. Existing development capacities are spread throughout the executive branch—across 12 government departments, 25 government agencies, and almost 60 government offices—and, in some cases, are outsourced to the private sector. No one person or office is charged with priority-setting, planning, budgeting, implementation, or evaluation.

Wilson Center Senior Scholar John Sewell and I spent this past spring meeting with a group of experts with a wide range of expertise to develop a memo that sets out how such a strategy should be developed and implemented. In A Memo to the Next President: Promoting American Interests Through Smarter, More Strategic Global Policies, we recommend the appointment of a high-level individual on the president’s staff to develop, implement, and monitor—in consultation with key members of Congress—a government-wide strategy to promote U.S. interests abroad. At some point, larger organizational questions will need to be addressed, but the first step toward effectively tackling these challenges is creating an overall strategy to meet the country’s goals and priorities.

Clearly, the sort of integrated planning we are recommending has great relevance for many of the topics discussed here on the New Security Beat. Whether we are talking about climate change as a national security threat or the relationship between conservation efforts and population, there is a need for a broader understanding of how these issues—and their potential solutions—affect one another. With dramatic changes in the White House and Congress and with a broad consensus that U.S. foreign policy efforts are insufficient, the time is ripe for an overhaul in our strategies.

To read more about reforming U.S. foreign assistance, check out these blogs:

• Center for Strategic and International Studies: Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project
  
• Global Development: Views from the Center
  
• Chasing the Flame: Building a Movement for a Smarter U.S. Foreign Policy

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When I tell people I have been working on a report about U.S. international water policy, they usually respond with the same sardonic question: “The United States has an international water policy?” The answer, of course, is complicated. Yes, we have localized approaches to water challenges in parts of the developing world, and we have more than 15 government agencies with capacities to address water and sanitation issues abroad. And yes, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development published a joint strategic framework this year for action on water issues in the developing world.

However, the U.S. government (USG) does not yet have an overarching strategy to guide our water programs abroad and maximize synergies among (and within) agencies. Furthermore, the 2005 Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act—which calls for increased water and sanitation assistance to developing countries—has yet to be funded and implemented in a fashion that satisfies lawmakers. In fact, just last week, legislation was introduced in both the House and the Senate to enhance the capacity of the USG to fully implement the Water for the Poor Act.

Why has implementation been so slow? An underlying problem is that water still has no institutional home in the USG, unlike other resources like agriculture and energy, which have entire departments devoted to them. In the current system, interagency water coordination falls on a small, under-resourced (yet incredibly talented and dedicated) team in the State Department comprised of individuals who must juggle competing priorities under the broad portfolio of Oceans, Environment, and Science. In part, it is water’s institutional homelessness that hinders interagency collaboration, as mandates and funding for addressing water issues are not always clearly delineated.

So, what should be done? For the last year and a half, the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ (CSIS) Global Strategy Institute has consulted with policy experts, advocates, scientists, and practitioners to answer this million-dollar question. In our report, Global Water Futures: A Roadmap for Future U.S. Policy, we conclude that if we are serious about achieving a range of our strategic national interests, water must be elevated as a priority in U.S. foreign policy. Water is paramount to human health, agricultural and energy production, education, economic development, post-conflict stabilization, and more—therefore, our government’s organizational structure and the resources it commits to water should reflect the strategic importance of this resource.

We propose the creation of a new bureau or “one-stop shop” for water policy in the State Department to lead in strategic planning, implementation, and evaluation of international water programs; mobilize resources in support of water programming overseas; provide outreach to Congress and important stakeholders; and serve as a research and information clearinghouse. This would require significant support from the highest levels of government, increased funding, and greater collaboration with the private and independent sectors.

The current economic crisis means we are likely to face even greater competition for scarce foreign aid resources. But I would argue—paraphrasing Congressman Earl Blumenauer at our report rollout—that relatively little funding toward water and sanitation can have a significant impact around the world. As we tighten our belts during this period of financial instability, it is even more important that we invest in cross-cutting issues that yield the highest returns across defense, development, and diplomacy. Water is an excellent place to start.

Rachel Posner is a research associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Global Strategy Institute.

Photo: Environmental Change and Security Program Director Geoff Dabelko and Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) at the launch of Global Water Futures: A Roadmap for Future U.S. Policy. Courtesy of CSIS.

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In a rare display of bipartisan unity, the U.S. Senate voted 80-16 Wednesday to reauthorize the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Originally passed in 2003 and set to expire this September, the White House credits PEPFAR with delivering antiretroviral drug treatment to 1.7 million people worldwide.

Reflecting the bipartisan support of the program, the top two members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee heaped praise on the program and the president. Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE), chairman of the committee, said the program is “the single most significant thing the president has done.” Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), the committee’s ranking member, argued eloquently that PEPFAR benefits U.S. national security and foreign policy. During the floor debate, he made the following statement:

We should understand that our investments in disease prevention programs have yielded enormous foreign policy benefits during the last five years. PEPFAR has helped to prevent instability and societal collapse in a number of at-risk countries; it has stimulated contributions from other wealthy nations to fight AIDS; it has facilitated deep partnerships with a new generation of African leaders; and it has improved attitudes toward the United States in Africa and other regions.

In my judgment, the dollars spent on this program can be justified purely on the basis of the humanitarian results that we have achieved. But the value of this investment clearly extends to our national security and to our national reputation.

The Senate legislation extends the program five years and triples its funding to $48 billion. The bill met with initial opposition from several conservatives, and the Democratic-controlled Senate defeated several Republican amendments earlier this week. The House passed a slightly different version of the legislation in April; differences between the two bills will be resolved in a conference committee.

The cost of taking no action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would be “equivalent to a 3.6% loss of the U.S. GDP in 2100,” said Sir Nicholas Stern in his written testimony to the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality last week (archived webcast). “We should emphasize, however, that there are many likely, larger, and deeply damaging, effects which will occur after 2100 and these calculations take no account of the effects on the USA of the damages and devastation which occur outside the USA.”

Stern, who authored the 2006 Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, discussed the non-economic costs of climate change, as well. Extreme climate change scenarios “involve movements of population, and we know that movement of population means not only the hardship around the movements themselves, but also conflict,” he said at the hearing.

Sherri Goodman, general counsel of the Center for Naval Analysis (CNA) Corporation, asserted the interdependence of climate change, national security, and energy dependence. “Numerous DoD studies have concluded that high fuel demand by combat forces detracts from combat capability, makes our forces more vulnerable, diverts combat assets from offense to supply line protection, and increases operating costs,” said Goodman’s testimony.

Energy is also a security issue at home. “The Defense Department is almost completely dependent on electricity from the national grid to power critical missions at fixed installations,” explained Goodman. “The national electric grid is fragile and can be easily disrupted, as happened in the Northeast Blackout of 2003, caused by trees falling onto power lines in Ohio. It affected 50 million people in eight states and Canada, took days to restore and caused a financial loss in the U.S. estimated to be between $4 billion and $10 billion. As extreme weather events become more common [due to climate change], so do the threats to our national electricity supply.”

A day earlier, two other House committees discussed the newly completed—and still classified—National Intelligence Assessment on the U.S. national security implications of climate change.

“Climate change alone is unlikely to trigger state failure in any state out to 2030, but the impacts will worsen existing problems—such as poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership, and weak political institutions,” said National Intelligence Council Chairman Thomas Fingar at yesterday’s joint hearing of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming and the House Subcommittee on Intelligence Community Management.

The hearing allowed Democrats and Republicans alike to question Fingar and other witnesses on the newly completed, classified National Intelligence Assessment (NIA) on the national security implications of global climate change through 2030. The NIA relies on the mid-range projections in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report, as well as the expert opinions of scientists from the U.S. government and U.S. universities.

“Climate change could threaten domestic stability in some states, potentially contributing to intra- or, less likely, interstate conflict, particularly over access to increasingly scarce water resources. We judge that economic migrants will perceive additional reasons to migrate because of harsh climates, both within nations and from disadvantaged to richer countries,” said Fingar, adding that the United States should be prepared to assist people fleeing flooded coastal areas in the Caribbean.

Domestically, Fingar warned the representatives to expect severe water scarcity in the Southwest, increasingly frequent wildfires, and powerful storms on the East and Gulf Coasts, which could threaten nuclear power plants, oil refineries, and U.S. military installations. The military could also find its capacity overstretched abroad: AFRICOM will be tasked with responding to more frequent disease outbreaks, food scarcity, and land clashes in sub-Saharan Africa, and the U.S. military in general will be called upon to alleviate increasingly common humanitarian emergencies around the world.

According to Fingar, the NIC plans to analyze three subtopics in greater detail: climate change’s security implications for individual countries; its implications for cooperation and competition among the world’s great powers, including the United States, Russia, China, and India; and the security implications of possible climate change mitigation strategies.

Democrats and Republicans butted heads over whether the NIA was a commendable achievement or a distraction from more important security issues, such as terrorism. At one point, Representative Edward Markey (D-MA), chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, asked Fingar whether he thought climate change could worsen the drivers of terrorism, and Fingar responded that yes, he thought climate change would probably increase the pool of recruits for terrorist activity, which was cause for concern.

Virtually the only issue on which Democrats and Republicans could agree—although for differing reasons—was that the NIA should be declassified. Democrats believed declassification was important so that government agencies and private businesses could begin to prepare for climate change’s impacts, while Republicans argued the NIA should be declassified because they believed the NIC’s analysts, having based their analysis entirely on open-source information, hadn’t contributed anything new to the existing body of knowledge on climate change. Fingar disagreed that secret intelligence is more valuable than open-source information: “Information is information; knowledge is knowledge.”

For her part, Representative Anna Eshoo (D-CA), chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Intelligence Community Management, seemed content to ignore the misgivings of some of her colleagues regarding the NIA. “From this day forward, the words ‘climate change’ and ‘international security’ will be forever linked,” she proclaimed.

Selected news coverage:

Wall Street Journal: Global Warming as Security Issue: Intelligence Report Sees Threat
Reuters: Climate change may strain U.S. forces
MSNBC: Climate change could threaten U.S. security
CNN: Global warming could increase terrorism, official says

The June 2008 Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act (WfP Act) Report to Congress from the U.S. Department of State demonstrates a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the role the U.S. government (USG) can play in addressing the global water crisis. Signed into law in 2005, the WfP Act calls for the development and implementation of a strategy by the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development “to provide affordable and equitable access to safe water and sanitation in developing countries.”

“Domestic policy alone is not enough; a new U.S. foreign policy to tackle climate change is also essential,” argues a Council on Foreign Relations Independent Task Force in Confronting Climate Change: A Strategy for U.S. Foreign Policy. “Unchecked climate change,” the authors write, “is poised to have wide-ranging and potentially disastrous effects on…human welfare, sensitive ecosystems, and international security.”

The Independent Task Force report comes on the heels of CFR’s widely publicized November 2007 report, “Climate Change and National Security.” ECSP Director Geoff Dabelko spoke with author Joshua Busby in a January podcast examining the links between climate and security.

In an interview, Task Force Director Michael A. Levi said, “climate change is a global problem that requires a global solution.” Rather than remaining “mired in domestic discussions,” as Levi argues the Bush administration has been, the task force calls for a shift in the way policymakers frame the issue of carbon emissions. “The point of this task force,” said Levi, “was to pull back and put this back where it belongs, in the context of American foreign policy.”

The United States, uniquely positioned to “steer international efforts to confront climate change,” must take a leadership role in advancing global policies, Levi said. Unchecked, American emissions will overwhelm any reductions made by other countries. U.S. policymakers have a valuable opportunity to show that environmental responsibility is consistent with robust economic performance, a concern in both developed and developing countries and a leading impediment to addressing climate change.

However, the report strongly cautions against the United States entering into any global framework to which other large emitters, like China and India, are not willing to adhere. The authors argue that the United States should lead through its domestic policies but use a “wide range of levers” to compel other countries to move in the right direction. The challenge of global climate change calls for a multi-pronged solution. “[J]ust like scientists tell us that no one technology is going to solve the problem, there’s no one diplomatic solution that’s going to solve it,” warned Levi. The challenge, then, is translating broad global concern over climate change into collective, and productive, action.