A Study On The Policy Evolution Of The US Government 's Supporting Non - Governmental Volunteer Organizations Since 1961

"Marshall Plan" opened the large-scale official foreign aid history, and is also the beginning of U.S. foreign aid globalization. After the "Marshall plan", the successive governments don’t always treat official foreign aid activities in a positive attitude,often adopting different position and measures along with the change of domestic and foreign environment.But in the implementation respect, the United States official foreign aid in general are carried out by two ways since 1961: First, United States Agency for international development(USAID) and other official agencies directly provide assistance to the recipient; Second, these official agencies fund private partners through funding,cooperation agreement and service purchase contract, and these private partners are responsible for the implementation of the foreign aid. Private partners include schools,religious organizations, enterprises, non-governmental organizations and so on many kinds. The most characteristic one is the private voluntary organization(PVO). In the field of foreign aid, compared with government, private voluntary organizations, have better organization imageand better organizational efficiency. But before the Kennedy administration, the U.S. government is lack of systemic institution and policy for funding private voluntary organization. Both factors led to the birth of the foreign assistance act of 1961.From 1961 to the present, the institution and policy of the United States government funding PVOs have carried out three major reforms and adjustments.According to these three adjustments, the evolution of the U.S. government funded civil voluntary policy evolution can be divided into four periods. The first period is the "institutionalized" period(1961-1977). This period consists of two phases: First,through” Foreign Assistance Act of 1961“and the establishment of USAID, Kennedy administration preliminary build up the institution of funding PVOs. On this basis, the United States government further promoted the diversification of the way funding private sector in the 1970 s. The second period is the "dependence" period(1977-1993). During this period, the Carter administration tried to to improve thestatus of USAID through the establishment of The International Development Cooperation Agency(IDCA), and actively supported PVOs to involve in foreign aid.And the Reagan administration influenced by Neoconservatism, endeavored to reduce the burden on foreign development aid. In this atmosphere, the U.S. government began to let PVOs take the majority of foreign development assistance tasks, reducing the role of the government’s foreign aid agencies. At the same time, the U.S.government also actively attracted private capital into the field of foreign development aid, and encouraged private capital to fund PVOs. The third period is the "commercialization" period(1993-2001). During this period, because of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the huge fiscal deficit and poor results in the past, the U.S. public opinion generally questioned the rationality of the survival of foreign aid. At the same time, USAID itself also appeared some problems in this period. In this context, under pressure from congress, the Clinton administrative began to greatly simplify USAID.USAID also began to transform into a pure aid contract supplier, adopting more commercial service purchase contracts way to fund PVOs. And the official foreign aid agencies’ status and role is weakened further in this period. The fourth period is the "efficiency" period(2001-2016). During this period, due to the persistent worry about the terrorist threat, the U.S. government willingness supporting foreign aid has significantly increased. At the same time, the institution of U.S. government’s funding PVOs itself also accumulated a lot of problems for many years. To strengthen the government dominant in foreign aid and improve the efficiency of the foreign aid,George W. Bush and Obama administration has carried on the policy adjustment in two aspects of the institutional framework and institutional process.