Aid for AID

Al Kamen has a smart look at the problems that have prevented the Obama administration from finding someone to head the U.S. Agency for International Development. While vetting challenges have been blamed for the failure to get Partners in Health founder Paul Farmer into the position, Kamen says that the problems go beyond one process and one individual:

But there's an increasing feeling in the foreign aid community that the leadership required to rescue a long-sinking ship is not going to be easy to find. As one observer noted: "Anyone smart enough to do the job is smart enough not to take it," especially when it's unclear whether USAID will be part of the State Department, as Clinton prefers, or whether it will be an independent, Cabinet-level agency, as many aid experts advocate.

If there's one area of private-sector corporate compensation that really makes sense to me, it's the large rewards for people who genuinely turn around failing companies. I'd be curious as to how management reform in the federal government can best be incentivized. I've long thought this was a significant problem for political leadership at agencies, but I can't think of a good solution anyone's proposed for rewarding political leaders differently. Most of the discussion about pay and other incentives focuses on rank-and-file federal employees and stops around the level of the Senior Executive Service, but that conversation may need to extend upwards.