Podcast Summary: "Dashboard for a Dashboard? Sarah Jane Staats on CGD’s New Foreign Assistance Dashboard Tracker"

Podcast: The CGD Podcast
Host: Center for Global Development (Lawrence MacDonald)
Guest: Sarah Jane Staats, Director, Rethinking US Foreign Assistance Initiative
Date: June 11, 2013

Overview: Main Theme and Purpose

This episode focuses on transparency and accountability in U.S. foreign assistance spending, featuring a deep dive into the U.S. Foreign Assistance Dashboard—an Obama-era government tool for tracking aid data. Sarah Jane Staats discusses why the dashboard is important, the incremental progress in making aid information available, and how CGD’s own Dashboard Tracker aims to encourage and monitor that progress. The broader global context, challenges, and the role of different U.S. agencies in foreign assistance transparency are explored.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What is the U.S. Foreign Assistance Dashboard? (00:44–02:59)

• Purpose: Launched in 2010 under the Obama administration, intended as a “one-stop shop” for all U.S. foreign assistance budget and planning data.
  • Tracks aid activities from over 20 executive branch agencies.
  • Goals: Make it easier for policymakers, taxpayers, and recipients to see where aid goes, for what purposes, and with what results.
• Drivers: Reflects both domestic pushes for government transparency and international commitments from aid donors to disclose details and outcomes of development spending.
  • “There’s a really nice confluence of events and interests here.” (Sarah Jane Staats, 02:03)

2. Data Dimensions & Incremental Approach (02:59–05:51)

• Types of Data Provided:
  • Planning data: Future and approved budgets (like Congressional budget justifications).
  • Obligation data: Money formally committed for spending.
  • Spent data: Actual expenditures.
  • Implementation data: Program evaluation and results info—planned but not yet robustly available.
    • More granular details (by country and sector, e.g., water, power, education) are the goal.
• Temporal Challenge: Agencies set their own baseline years for reporting (some start 2006, others 2010); current quarterly publishing is a big improvement from previous year-long lags.

3. U.S. Foreign Assistance in Context (07:11–08:18)

• U.S. Budget Context:
  • Common misconception: Americans think foreign aid is ~26% of the budget; actually about 1%.
  • Amount: ~$30 billion in Official Development Assistance (ODA), about 1% of the U.S. budget.
  • “They usually think we spend about 26% of the federal budget on foreign assistance. We spend around 1%.” (SJS, 07:20)
• Global Context:
  • Total global ODA is about $130 billion. U.S. contributes $30 billion, making it the world’s largest donor—about 1 in every 4 development dollars.

4. Who Provides and Discloses U.S. Aid? (08:23–12:32)

• Key Agencies:
  • Department of State: Largest slice (~40%) of U.S. assistance; leads dashboard coordination but slow on releasing granular data.
  • USAID: 35%; second largest, moderate level of data disclosure.
  • Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC): 2%; “in the lead” for transparency, with full quarterly data and its own open data portal.
    • “It’s newer and it was founded on the same principles of transparency and sharing the information…they are certainly at the forefront.” (SJS, 10:36)
  • Treasury: 6%; oversees multilateral contributions (e.g., World Bank, IMF), also a surprise frontrunner in data reporting.
  • Department of Defense: 3%; recent improvement in data reporting but only covers recent years.
• Dashboard Tracker Role: CGD's tracker highlights which agencies are transparent, creates incentive and peer pressure for improvement.

5. The CGD Dashboard Tracker: Purpose and Value (13:38–16:20)

• Reason for Creation: To track progress, encourage transparency, and make the data more accessible for policymakers, researchers, and beneficiaries.
  • “We could do from the outside was show people care…to try and compel agencies to maybe have a little bit of competition and extra incentive…” (SJS, 13:38)
• Report Card Analogy: Not scoring agencies, but creating visibility on reporting progress, acknowledging complexity and incremental development.
• Technical & Cultural Challenges: Diverse systems, lack of unified standards, underfunded mandates, staffing shortages, and institutional reluctance create barriers.

6. Tensions and Legislative Efforts (16:20–19:11)

• Cultural Tensions: Long tradition of secrecy and variance in institutional culture, especially in agencies like State, hinders openness.
  • “There’s always going to be a tension between bureaucracy and openness and open data…” (SJS, 16:42)
• OMB Guidance: Office of Management and Budget (Oct 2012) set parameters and exceptions; important for setting reporting rules and accommodating national security exceptions.
• Legislation: Previous congressional efforts to codify transparency; general optimism about legislative reinforcement, with some caution about rigid mandating of metrics.

7. Impact and Feedback (19:11–20:41)

• Influence on Government: Feedback from inside the administration suggests CGD’s tracker has helped keep transparency on the agenda and led to concrete improvements/corrections in the data.
  • “We've certainly heard from folks inside the administration that the attention is welcome and helping to drive some attention and keep it on the agenda.” (SJS, 19:24)
• Looking Forward: Hope that both the government dashboard and the CGD tracker will serve as useful resources for policymakers and advocates; open invitation for public feedback on the tracker.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Explaining the Dashboard’s Purpose:
  • “It is meant to be the one stop shop for all US foreign assistance, both budget, financial planning data.” (SJS, 00:44)
• On American Misperceptions:
  • “They usually think we spend about 26% of the federal budget on foreign assistance. We spend around 1%.” (SJS, 07:20)
• About MCC’s Lead in Transparency:
  • “It’s newer and it was founded on the same principles of transparency and sharing the information…they are certainly at the forefront.” (SJS, 10:36)
• On Cultural Resistance:
  • “There’s always going to be a tension between bureaucracy and openness and open data.” (SJS, 16:42)
• The Tracker’s Impact:
  • “We've certainly heard from folks inside the administration that the attention is welcome and helping to drive some attention and keep it on the agenda.” (SJS, 19:24)
• Encouraging Feedback:
  • “If people have suggestions on the tracker that you're delighted to hear them.” (LM, 20:29)
  • “Absolutely.” (SJS, 20:38)

Noteworthy Timestamps

• 00:44 – What the U.S. Foreign Assistance Dashboard is and why it matters
• 02:03 – How domestic and international transparency pushes converge on aid
• 04:32 – Breakdown of planning, obligation, and spending categories
• 07:20 – U.S. foreign assistance in public perception and reality
• 09:06 – Pie chart: State Department as the largest source of U.S. foreign aid
• 10:36 – Why the MCC is modeling transparency best practice
• 13:38 – Rationale and influence of the CGD Dashboard Tracker
• 16:42 – The challenge of overcoming institutional reluctance to transparency
• 19:24 – Administrative response and the value of external scrutiny
• 20:38 – Invitation for public engagement and feedback

Conclusion

This episode underscores both the progress and ongoing challenges in making U.S. foreign assistance transparent, emphasizing the critical role played by both government and independent actors like CGD. The conversation highlights the incremental and at times difficult nature of aligning fragmented agencies around shared transparency goals, but ends on an optimistic note regarding the impact of public attention and feedback in pushing the field forward.