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A United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) roundtable discussion at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace discussed the future role of the United States in the global development process.

“We...can improve and strengthen our own interests as a country by helping to improve the lives of others all around the world,” said Reuben Brigety, Director of the Sustainable Security Program at the Center for American Progress. This is “quite revolutionary in the eyes of some people who consider themselves proper foreign policy experts or security experts.” Brigety spoke of the need for the United States to lead a multilateral effort with the UNDP in developing countries, avoiding natural disasters and strengthening national security. “I think that...there are enormous security challenges in many parts of the world, but I also think we are at a stage where we have the greatest political opportunity to address them,” said Brigety.

“There are thousands of people interested in this [foreign aid reform], and it’s not just the development community, it’s the foreign policy community, its the national security community that are not just supporting foreign aid reform and modernizing, they’re demanding it,” said George Ingram, Vice President & Executive Director of the Education Policy and Data Center at the Academy for Educational Development. “Obama has called for doubling the foreign assistance budget by 2021,” said Ingram, referring to the role the incoming administration has promised to embrace as a multilateral leader of global development.

“Multilateralism is...merged into some vague evil concept of supernationalism,” said Bruce Jenks, UN Assistant Secretary-General & Director of Partnership Bureau of the UNDP, “to me the irony is...it’s the opposite.” Jenks described that there was an enormous opportunity for the United States to lead a multilateral coalition. “Multilateralism needs to be seen as an instrument of choice in the national interest,” said Jenks. There’s “a myth...that multilateralism is an alternative to leadership...There’s no such thing as un-lead multilateralism or blind multilateralism, multilateralism must be lead.”