Washington ? President Barack Obama faces increasing pressure to fill his administration’s vacant top foreign assistance post, but there’s no candidate in sight nine months into his term.

The U.S. Agency for International Development is in charge of America’s overseas aid, and Obama — as well as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton — have said they want the agency to play a bigger role in U.S. foreign policy. Obama and Clinton have said USAID is crucial to deploying their preferred “smart power” foreign policy strategy, which envisions more equal roles for diplomacy and development alongside defense.

But leaving the top job at USAID open for so long has some worried about the fate of Obama’s goals, from reshaping Afghanistan strategy to parceling out a foreign aid budget twice as large as the previous administration’s budget.