F

It seems to me that something like the the F process – the effective merging of USAID funding with foreign policy priorities- was probably an inevitable result of USAID’s growth. The agency could stay autonomous when it was small, but this is an unrealistic expectation for a large government agency. More to the point, USAID needs to answer why it should be large and autonomous. I get the point that from an operational perspective, independence from US foreign policy is something that USAID desires. Why US taxpayers ought to fund such an agency is a different question. The argument that if USAID wants to be big, it needs to justify its budgets through US foreign policy priorities is a strong one. I understand why USAID doesn’t like F. USAID needs to make a better case for why the US government should get rid of it.