This morning, the Sustainable Security Program at the Center for American Progress released a proposal for a National Strategy for Global Development. This is only the latest in a raft of attempts to imagine a new architecture for U.S. foreign aid—several of which are reviewed in the latest Environmental Change and Security Program Report.

“Security By Other Means: Foreign Assistance, Global Poverty, and American Leadership, compiles the findings of the Brookings Institution-Center for Strategic and International Studies Task Force on Transforming Foreign Assistance in the 21st Century into a manual of sorts for reforming foreign assistance,” writes the Wilson Center’s Sean Peoples in ECSP Report 13. “Not shying away from the nitty-gritty of foreign assistance policy, the book’s contributors delve deep into the current development assistance framework and recommend valuable reforms, which include: integrating strategic security concerns; formulating clear objectives; understanding recipient country capacities; and building effective partnerships that exploit comparative advantages.”

“Trade, Aid and Security: An Agenda for Peace and Development undertakes the challenging task of assessing the interrelationships between trade and aid, as well as the complex causes of conflict within the poorest countries,” writes Wilson Center Senior Scholar John Sewell. “Several chapters in Trade, Aid and Security make the case that resources, whether derived from aid flows or legitimate trade, often are not equitably distributed or used to end poverty or promote sustainable development. Instead, they are captured by special interests or steered to political elites.”