Today, USAID is fundamentally changing—becoming more efficient, effective, and businesslike—which ultimately helps our investment dollars go further.
Our effort to transform how development is delivered reflects the beliefs of the President and the Secretaries of State, Treasury and Defense: development is as critical to our economic prospects and our national security as diplomacy and defense.
We have an obligation to make sure our reform efforts go beyond building an updated version of an aid agency. We are seeking to build something greater—the world’s first modern development enterprise.
Executing a Clear and Focused Strategy. Like an enterprise, we are developing and executing innovative and focused strategies across our areas of excellence.
We recognize the enormous development progress the world has made in recent decades. But we also realize that more has to be done, and more of the same will not be enough. We must embrace a spirit of innovation to change the way we work.
- Food Security. Instead of merely providing food aid in times of emergency, we are helping countries develop their own agricultural sectors so they can feed themselves.
- Global Health. We will transition away from a scattered approach that fights individual diseases one at a time; we are pursuing an integrated approach that will generate efficiencies and strengthen health systems.
- Disaster and Crisis Response. Based on lessons learned in Haiti and Pakistan, we’re reforming our approach to disaster assistance to speed the time between response, recovery and long-term development.
- Economic Growth. We are rejecting the traditional assumption that a series of development projects alone will lead to growth and are instead developing partnerships for growth with countries committed to enabling private sector investment.
- Democracy & Governance. Instead of merely paying to hold elections, we are now funding new open government technologies to quickly and significantly increase transparency, so citizens can hold their own governments accountable.
We are bringing a similar spirit of innovation, science, technology and strategic thinking to areas such as education, water, and climate. In each of these core areas, we have already or will soon release comprehensive strategies that detail how we can achieve development gains faster, more sustainably, and at lower cost so more people can benefit.
Measuring and Evaluating Our Work. Like an enterprise, we are relentlessly focused on delivering results and learning from failures. USAID used to be the world leader in development evaluation, but we have fallen from that distinction.
We are working to ensure we’re spending American taxpayer money in the most responsible way possible. To help meet this goal, we’ve introduced an evaluation policy that will set a new standard in development. This policy includes:
- Independent third-party evaluation of major projects;
- Baseline data collection and study designs to measure our actual impact in the field; and
- Public release of evaluations within three months, whether they indicate success or failure.
Delivering Shareholder Value. Like an enterprise, we are focused on delivering the highest possible value to our shareholders—the American people and the Congressional leaders who represent them.
We have created a suspension and debarment taskforce to monitor, investigate, and respond to suspicious behavior among our contractors and partners.
We will also deliver savings by reducing our footprint in countries where development successes have created the conditions where American assistance is frankly no longer necessary. By 2015, we believe USAID can graduate away from assistance in at least seven countries, starting with Montenegro in 2012.
Serving Our Customers. Like an enterprise, we are listening to and improving the way we serve our customers—in our case, the people of the developing world.
We seek to do our work in a way that allows us to be replaced over time by efficient local governments, thriving civil societies and vibrant private sectors. We have launched aggressive procurement and contracting reforms, and to improve competition, we’ve announced that no contract extensions in excess of $5 million will be non-competitively granted without the personal clearance of the USAID Administrator.
As USAID approaches its 50th anniversary this year, we are reflecting upon about the ultimate benefits we’re delivering. We’re not only helping the people we serve, we’re creating jobs for Americans, helping keep us safe at home, and reflecting our core American values.
We create economic opportunity by helping develop strong trade partnerships in countries that will be the growing markets of tomorrow—relationships that create jobs here at home.
We keep America safe by playing a direct role in national security—working directly with the military to help stabilize volatile regions like Afghanistan and Pakistan, or preventing conflict in Southern Sudan.
And our work reflects our American values—working with students, families and communities of faith to address the needs of the developing world.
Ultimately, creating the modern development enterprise will help advance prosperity and security both in the developing countries that need it most, and within our own borders. This reflects the beliefs of both President Obama and Secretary Clinton—that together we have the power to create the world we seek if we have the courage to embrace the opportunity.
Now is the time to invest in USAID’s capabilities, so we see the day when our assistance is no longer necessary.
If you missed the speech, you can see it here.
1st i want to thanks usaid for ur gud work n effort in trying to help developing country out.but i want to plead about my hometown!jesse town in ethiope west local government area,delta state nigeria dat was erupted in a fire disaster since october 17 1997,claiming more than hundreds.of life n left us wit a huge sorrow n since then we,ve been.finding it hard to cope mostly those that lose both parents in the incident and we have been finding it hard to get education please try and asist and i beleive that God’ll uplift you in trillion n 1folds…best regards.
We applaud USAID Administrator Shah’s speech of January 19 and the reforms he has initiated. These reforms will help strengthen USAID as an institution and the projects they undertake. In particular, project evaluations and the use of cost/benefit analysis are very welcomed.
We have been using cost/benefit analysis beginning with our work on Korea’s development program in the 1950’s through today on infrastructure projects such as African corridors. In the 1980’s we had a five year contract to teach cost/benefit analysis to cooperating country nationals. Our approach to development assignments has always focused on transferring skill and technology in a sustainable way.
We are pleased to have worked ourselves out of a job as resident advisors to Korean policy makers, as investment and economic advisors to the Egypt’s Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Irrigation. On these and other assignments we have helped create the capacity not only to carry out necessary research and analysis but to train incoming staff in the same techniques we taught to our contemporary counterparts. That is nature of sustaining development, building an indigenous capacity to move a department, an agency, a government, an entire economy out of dead-end economic policies and lackluster performance and onto an upward path of development that lifts people out of poverty – this generation and the next.
When the problem is defined as capacity building, the needs are easily seen as larger than the resources immediately available. That is a reason for USAID and all development agencies to use cost-benefit analysis to better plan, design, and implement their initiatives and interventions. In June 2010, working together with USAID’s Bureau of Economic Growth, Trade and Agriculture we drafted an report on the effectiveness of development that noted that declining use of analytical tools such as cost benefit analysis within USAID along with reduced effort to collect the data necessary to use them http://www.countrycompass.com/_docs/policy_briefs/Briefing_Note_5_Effectiveness.pdf). More rigorous project design and decision-making up front will help avoid situations in which those performing services under a USAID contract are not delivering what the client expects. We can only hope that these reforms will take hold and are ready to help share our experiences to make this a reality.
James Wallar
Senior Vice President
Nathan Associates