September 27, 2005     

NYU Wagner's Light and Morduch Testify Before House Committees

NYU Wagner professor Paul Light testified today before the House Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on Federal Workforce and Agency Organization.

"Having watched the slow but steady fragmentation of government over the past twenty-five years, I have been drawn to the importance of reorganization authority as a tool for tightening executive performance," said Light.

"As we have seen in the case of homeland security, reorganization offers a significant opportunity to align agencies by mission rather than constituencies. If done well, which I believe will eventually be the judgment is the case in the homeland security arena, it can strengthen accountability, reduce wasteful duplication and overlap, tighten administrative efficiency, improve employee motivation, and provide the kind of integration that leads to impact."

Light is the second Wagner professor to testify before Congress in the past week. Jonathan Morduch, associate professor of public policy and economics, testified before the House International Relations Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations on Sept. 20 on microfinance.

"Advocates of various stripes have brought passion, new evidence, and new ways of thinking to make microfinance a global phenomenon. In the process, decades of pessimism and misinformation have been pushed back. Microfinance stands as one of the most promising and cost-effective tools in the fight against global poverty," said Morduch.

"Microbanks like the Jamii Bora Trust now give hope to residents of the sprawling slum of Kibera, Kenya, one of world's largest and bleakest slums. I have visited successful microfinance customers living in make-shift huts built on stilts over fetid water in the slums of Bangladesh, and heard customers excitedly tell of their new businesses in poor villages in South India. Thanks to hard-fought campaigns, microbanks now serve tens of millions of poor and low-income customers in Kosovo, in Afghanistan, throughout sub- Saharan Africa, and in many other parts of the world. Accion New York even serves over 6,000 customers in the New York metropolitan area."

Click here to read Paul Light's full testimony (PDF).

Click here to read Jonathan Morduch's full testimony (PDF).