In an innovative and daring proposal, Glenn Hubbard advocates a corporate approach to US foreign aid reflecting the Marshall Plan model. As Congress is considering dramatic reform to the institutional channels through which aid is directed, this plan does not offer a new mechanism for aid as much as a new direction that trusts markets and the motive force of private commerce.

The plan seeks to reform aid from government-to-government transfers to a business-centered framework that avoids dependence on the central government for aid delivery and efficacy. In short, the plan seeks to inspire an aid program that stimulates significant economic expansion in the poorest region of the world.

Hubbard's proposal focuses more on what has not worked than the specifics of his affirmative proposal. In a nearly full rejection of the conventional wisdom, the plan proposes direct loans from the US government to African businesses (the range of size and industry is not specified).  The plan predicts that the government-to-business loans will lead the domestic commercial sector to expand, building capacity for repayment.  Once repayment is possible, local businesses should repay their loans to the domestic government.  Repaid loans should then be earmarked for infrastructure projects that serve the business sector. Before any country's businesses are to receive aid, the country's must agree to a program that mandates open business practices within the recipient country. Hubbard does not, in this proposal, detail any possible critiques of his plan, nor does he outline how the US should provide aid after the businesses have repaid initial loans.

The plan would require new infrastructure that could deliver and monitor US aid given directly to foreign businesses. Moreover, the executive -- with Congressional approval -- would most likely initiate the prescribed philosophical reform.