USAID’s Transparency and Accountability

As I read the interview with USAID’s Isobel Coleman ’87 (Princetonians, April 2025), I couldn’t help but question why this puff piece was included in the PAW. Alas, it became clear. Yet another platform to whine about unfair and shortsighted government spending cuts by the current administration, and the disasters we will face in their wake.

The interview would have been more interesting if the former McKinsey consultant was challenged on the agency’s lack of spending transparency to the U.S. Congress, the lack of accountability for results from their grants, and the myriad of controversial NGOs and programs funded by USAID. Ms. Coleman’s nonresponse to the interview question regarding the amount of aid making it to targeted recipients (“I take issue with that 10% figure”) says everything. Wow, if the real figure is 30%, should we be impressed?

No doubt, Ms. Coleman’s spending of $38 billion a year and employment of 10,000 was bound to do some good somewhere in the world. And facts show it has. However, the facts also show her agency clearly needed more oversight and transparency. It required a house-cleaning. Perhaps she could have been pressed on the real issues within her USAID spending machine that made it a prime target. That PAW interview would have been more informative!