According to Lew, State’s approach to development will be both “top-down”—strengthening “the ability of governments to support just and capable institutions that meet the basic needs of their populations”—and “bottom-up”—partnering with civic groups to build human capacity to innovate, cooperate, and solve problems.

Lew indicated that State should coordinate multiple agencies’ efforts to address challenging, cross-sectoral problems. He said, “We must be able to look at a country, a function or an objective and be able to identify everything that the U.S. government is doing in that area—not just State.” For instance, he wants the State Department to lead “a whole-of-government process to design and implement a new food strategy.”

Lew’s testimony seems to indicate that State wants to oversee all of development policy, with no apparent role for the National Security Council (NSC). But it is not at all clear that State has the human and financial resources to coordinate all the other agencies involved in development. If State were granted this authority, the organizational implications would be immense.

At the NSC, development issues fall under the purview of Deputy National Security Adviser for International Economic Affairs Michael Froman, but he has many other issues on his agenda, including the G20 and the G8. I would be surprised if the NSC does not see this kind of overall coordination as part of its mandate. But there have been no public reactions to State’s grab for power.

At the same time, both Kerry and Congressman Howard Berman (D-CA), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, see development reform as a major part of their portfolios. The State Department has strongly opposed Berman’s bill mandating that the administration produce a government-wide “National Development Strategy,” on the grounds that the responsibility for drafting such a document should be given to the State Department, and not (as it is now written) to the President. The future of Berman’s legislation is not clear, but Kerry also has indicated his desire for an overall strategy paper.

USAID Still Seeking Chief

Finally, USAID still lacks a director. The latest rumors in the blogosphere revolve around Dr. Paul Farmer, the renowned physician who founded Partners in Health, a major NGO focusing on global health. Farmer would be the first USAID administrator in recent years with extensive on-the-ground development experience, but I understand he has no experience with Washington bureaucracy (outside, perhaps, of the health arena). Furthermore, he is known more as a charismatic leader than as a manager.

Farmer would be an unconventional choice for running USAID, though there are conflicting opinions on whether he even wants the job. But if he does want it, he should ensure he had a deputy secretary rank, as well as authority over the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, and other independent development programs. He also would need the funds and staff to completely revamp USAID to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

John W. Sewell is a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center and the former president of the Overseas Development Council. ECSP published Sewell’s review of Trade, Aid and Security: An Agenda for Peace and Development in ECSP Report 13.

1. People who wanted to make drip-irrigation work we were already funding fit the Water for the Poor Act definition;
2. People who thought the funds should be spent on a narrow set of water and sanitation interventions, such as borehole/latrine construction and water purification tablets; and
3. People who thought the funds should be spent on the larger-scale water and sanitation infrastructure that Ghana so desperately needs.

Demographic experts certainly agree with the basic argument that population aging will have significant economic and social consequences. Human societies have had little experience addressing aging populations, and governments have so far proven largely unsuccessful at spurring higher fertility levels. However, the claim that aging will create social and economic implosion across most of the developed world crosses the line into pure speculation. Population aging is not a shock or a catastrophe; it occurs over a period of decades, allowing governments to plan and develop appropriate policy responses. While some protests over reductions in entitlement benefits such as pensions are likely, the repercussions of aging may not be entirely negative. Older adults in developed countries, whose life expectancies have lengthened, may be economically productive into their sixties and beyond, rather than simply decimating national health care budgets. In addition, governments may adjust to aging by modifying their labor force and outsourcing work to the developing world, where the need for jobs is plentiful.

Although no one can predict the future, we can accurately describe the present. Yet alarmists often present a skewed picture of current population trends and minimize the world’s demographic divide. The world still gains 78 million people per year, and 57 percent of the world’s people live in countries with growing populations. More than 95 percent of population growth through mid-century is projected to occur in the developing world. The huge challenge of addressing developing-country population growth by providing sufficient educational and employment opportunities despite high poverty rates is likely to be much more difficult to resolve than the challenge of population aging faced by wealthy developed countries with a high degree of human capital.

Motivated by such complex factors as access to basic health services, the social status and education levels of women, and migration patterns, demographic trends are far from static. Many countries have witnessed dramatic progress through the demographic transition—the shift from high mortality and fertility rates to longer lives and smaller family size—and these countries are now generally the most peaceful, the most democratic, and the wealthiest on the planet. The sustained declines in fertility that these countries have experienced are largely due to the availability of voluntary, rights-based family planning and reproductive health care. The impact of these programs is visible in the lower fertility rates of countries as diverse as Mexico, Indonesia, Iran, the Philippines, and Tunisia. In contrast, countries with extremely young populations—including many in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa—face a significantly higher risk of civil conflict than countries with more balanced age structures. Senior intelligence officials such as CIA Director Michael Hayden have recently highlighted population’s key role in security and development.

Howe and Jackson conclude by citing Abraham Lincoln’s description of the United States as “the world’s last best hope”—in this case, because its relatively constant population may leave it as the only stable democracy while the rest of the world faces demography-induced mayhem. Although this vision may be overstated, U.S. leadership is indeed critical to moving global demographic trends in a positive direction. Even as the policy debate surrounding population aging continues, the United States must remain a staunch supporter of development assistance programs, including family planning and reproductive health, for countries on the other side of the demographic divide.

Elizabeth Leahy is a research associate at Population Action International (PAI). She is the primary author of the 2007 PAI report The Shape of Things to Come: Why Age Structure Matters to a Safer, More Equitable World.