usaid

USAID

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) serves as the principal U.S. agency to extend assistance to countries recovering from disaster, trying to escape poverty, and engaging in democratic reforms.

In its response letter, USAID cites the internal reform effort at the agency, USAID Forward, as well as the USAID Policy Framework 2011-2015, as the blueprint for how the agency has begun to operationalize the principles in the Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development (PPD). The categories below respond to three pillars of MFAN’s foreign assistance reform agenda.

Maximize Efficiencies

  • USAID contributes to interagency coordination in both the field and at headquarters in DC, particularly in developing policy on key issues like transparency. USAID is also an active participant in the Global Development Interagency Policy Committee (IPC) led by the National Security Staff.
  • The agency is responsible for leading the whole-of-government approach to food security through President Obama’s Feed the Future initiative. USAID also works in partnership with PEPFAR and the CDC to fight disease as part of the Global Health Initiative and the Department of Energy and the Foreign Agricultural Service on the Global Climate Change Initiative.
  • With the establishment of the Office of Science and Technology within the Bureau for Policy, Planning, and Learning, USAID has supported cost-effective technologies and approaches to expand access to scientific knowledge for citizens in developing countries—ultimately creating greater development outcomes for the U.S.

Prioritize Accountability

  • The agency’s new Evaluation Policy “demonstrates a renewed emphasis on evaluation, measuring and documenting program achievements and shortcomings, and generating data to drive decision-making.” The policy also sets expectations for public resources in order to promote sustainable development outcomes in countries worldwide. As a testament to the priority placed on evaluation at USAID, over 295 evaluation reports were submitted in 2011—up from 89 in 2010.
  • Activities across sectors and programs have become more integrated, both internally and externally with partners, to identify holistic solutions to development problems. To reduce child mortality, for example, USAID coordinated programming in health, education, sanitation infrastructure, and governance.

Driven by Local Priorities

  • USAID’s Country Development Cooperation Strategies (CDCS)—five-year strategies that set forth goals and objectives for the agency’s work in country—are designed in consultation with host-country governments and citizens, civil society, the private sector, and other donors. CDCS are a positive example of how development is increasingly being driven by local priorities. The agency hopes to have all missions prepare a CDCS by the end of 2013.
  • Under USAID Forward, implementation and procurement reform have strengthened local civil-society and private-sector capacity and increased direct implementation through local organizations. For example, in the months following last year’s revolution in Egypt, USAID held ten informational sessions for local civil society organizations to understand USAID’s funding processes that were attended by approximately 2,500 people.

Click here to read the full response letter.