On July 10th, before a town hall meeting at the U.S. Department of State, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced her intent to undertake a Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) to ensure the United States is exercising effective global leadership utilizing the “smart power” tools of diplomacy and development in addressing the global challenges of the 21st century.
 
The QDDR will be led by Deputy Secretary Jack Lew, and co-chaired by Policy and Planning Director Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter and the USAID Administrator (Acting Administrator will participate until someone is named and confirmed). Senior representatives from State, USAID, and MCC will be a part of a leadership team responsible for the QDDR. The overarching goal of the QDDR is to provide a short-, medium- and long-term blueprint for U.S. diplomatic and development efforts to ensure an agile, responsive and effective process for developing policies, allocating resources, deploying staff and how the agencies exercise their foreign policy authorities.
 
The USGLC issued a statement commending Secretary Clinton on the QDDR review. As part of the USGLC’s Impact ’08 initiative, we called on the Presidential candidates to elevate and strengthen the smart power tools of diplomacy and development, including calling for a review and overall strategy of these programs. We are pleased to see this step and look forward to participating in the review process.