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12/18/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 12/18/2024 11:30

Global Development Recommendations for the Next Administration

Global Development Recommendations for the Next Administration

A Report by the CSIS Global Development Department

December 18, 2024

Introduction

President-elect Trump will enter his second term as president amid a period of global tumult and geostrategic competition that touches every part of the world. This includes developing and emerging market countries where the United States has interests related to investments and business supply chains, countering transnational public health threats, containing and transforming conflicts, shoring up partnerships in the face of adversaries' advances, and promoting human freedoms and American values, among others. This report, by the newly formed Global Development Department at CSIS, constitutes an initial set of recommendations for the incoming Trump administration.

The first Trump Administration engaged on issues pertinent to assistance and the Global South by creating the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC); reorganizing the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), while further training its focus on helping countries build their self-reliance; and prioritizing women's global economic empowerment. The incoming administration will similarly have opportunities to effectively leverage various aspects of development support and economic engagement between the United States and developing countries worldwide. It will also likely bring new energy to perennial efforts to reform U.S. foreign assistance.

U.S. engagement with countries across the Global South-through commerce, foreign assistance, and cooperation on public commons issues such as health-serves a critical role in advancing American security, influence, and relevance. Yet in an era when China has strategically strengthened its economic interests and diplomatic ties across developing countries, when Africa is eyed by investors worldwide for being on the cusp of a demographic boom, and when debt-stressed low-income countries are still reeling from the impacts of a global pandemic, it makes sense to take a step back and think about new or different ways to approach global development.

Ideas for the new administration to consider, which are expanded upon in the essays below, include:

  • better leveraging the insurance industry to strengthen developing countries' resilience while enabling expanded private-sector investments and advancing U.S. economic security;
  • seizing national security opportunities presented by upcoming global health funding replenishments;
  • creating a fund that combats modern slavery while leveling the playing field for businesses and their supply chains;
  • rethinking surge capacity for humanitarian crisis response;
  • building further on the Women's Global Development and Prosperity Initiative;
  • promoting Ukraine's economic reconstruction and U.S. business investments simultaneously; and
  • embracing a more coordinated approach to global food and water security efforts.

To Bolster Resilience and Partnerships in the Global South, Launch a Development Insurance Facility

To bolster partnerships, investments, and resilience to extreme weather across the Global South, it can be geopolitically and economically strategic for the second Trump administration to design and launch a development insurance facility.

To Navigate Global Health Replenishments, Treat Them as U.S. National Security Tools

Navigating the complex cycle of global health replenishments poses early challenges for the next administration. Success will rest on forging a new, bipartisan, and reformist compact, placing global health commitments squarely in the U.S. national security strategy.

To Combat Modern Slavery, Incentivize Innovation by Funding the Development of Diverse Supply Chains

A Fair Labor Innovation Fund would help countries develop industries free from forced labor, ensuring alternatives exist for companies working to clean up their supply chains.

To Address Increasing Crises, Incentivize Locally Led Surge Capacity and Prepare for Multidimensional Crisis Response

The United States should incentivize national humanitarian surge capacity through committing to support the creation of nationally administered pooled funds across key countries facing conflict or recurrent crises.

To Ensure Effective Foreign Policy, Reengage on Women's Economic Empowerment

The United States' global leadership on women's economic empowerment demands strategic direction. The next administration must advance a comprehensive, whole-of-government approach that elevates gender economic inclusion as a core foreign policy and development objective.

To Promote U.S. Investment in Ukraine's Reconstruction, Appoint a Special Presidential Envoy to Coordinate U.S. Efforts

Appointing a U.S. envoy, ideally nestled in the DFC, that focuses on private sector investments into Ukraine would help the country rebuild and support U.S. businesses at the same time.

To Bolster Global Food and Water Security, Strengthen U.S. Policy Coordination

Clean water and nutritious food are vital to human welfare. They are also increasingly important to U.S. strategic interests. Strengthening U.S. policy coordination can maximize resources and capture multiple synergies across global food and water security goals.

Visit hereto read the full report, featuring expert insights from the CSIS Global Development Department.

iDeas Lab Story Production

Design, management & production by: Gina Kim
Development: Lindsay Allison
Copyediting support by: Phillip Meylan
PDF report design by: William H. Taylor
Project oversight by: Matthew Funaiole, Alex Kisling, and H. Andrew Schwartz

Photo Credits

(Top Left) People walk past smashed boats on September 16, 2017 at Marigot shipyard on the French Caribbean island of Saint Martin after the island was hit by Hurricane Irma. | Helene Valenzuela/AFP via Getty Images (Top Right) French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech next to Microsoft founder and Co-Chairman of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Bill Gates (2nd R) Irish rock band U2 singer Bono (3rd R) and Global Fund Executive Director Peter Sands (C) at the announcement of the final amount raised for the Global Fund to Fight HIV, Tuberculosis and Malaria on October 10, 2019, in Lyon, central eastern France. | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
(2nd Left) artit via Adobe Stock (2nd Right) Trucks loaded with humanitarian aid delivered from Jordan wait to cross into Gaza on the border between Israel and the northern Gaza Strip, through the Israeli-controlled Erez crossing on October 21, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the militant group Hamas. | Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images
(3rd Left) US President Donald Trump signs a presidential order during an event to launch the Women's Global Development and Prosperity Initiative in the Oval Office of the White House February 7, 2019 in Washington, DC.| Brendan Smialowski / AFP (3rd Right) Traffic across the Paton Bridge to the left-bank neighborhoods of the city on July 5, 2024 in Kyiv, Ukraine. | Valentyna Polishchuk/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
(Bottom) Manio, 15, sprays his family leek crop with a watering can with water that he took from a source in the mountain, close to the plantations, in Godet, in the commune of Kenskoff, in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, on March 31, 2016. | Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images

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