Sarah Jane Staats, director of the Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance Program at the Center for Global Development (CGD), reflects on “some happy news for foreign aid in the new year” in a post in the CGD’s “Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance Blog.” She notes “the White House appointed nine members to the President’s Global Development Council, the U.S. House of Representatives passed an aid transparency bill 390-0, and the fiscal cliff deal postpone[d] across-the-board budget cuts,” and she expands on each of these developments (1/2).