Rice Reshaping USAID

Condoleezza Rice recently remarked on the creation of the position of director of Foreign Assistance within the State Department. This new director will also serve as the USAID administrator.

Rice believes this will allow for the better coordination of U.S. development efforts while others are concerned that this will allow State Department concerns to subsume USAID objectives.

The creation of the Department of Homeland Security was also heralded as an important effort to allow various government entities to work more closely with one another, yet the failure of the U.S. government to respond adequately to the Hurricane Katrina disaster called into question such logic. It remains to be seen whether aligning agencies into one organizational structure produces a more effective system.