At one point Shah said, “We have spent a lot of time listening and learning about how we can do this work better, more effectively. And the number one thing we’ve learned is we need to be more capable of supporting country-owned efforts and building real capacity through our investments around the world.”
First up is the establishment, or reestablishment, of a Bureau for Policy, Planning and Learning at USAID. Announced in early June, this was one of the first major reforms Shah launched. In a statement, MFAN Co-Chairs David Beckmann and George Ingram said: “The Bureau will restore the ability of USAID’s world-class development professionals to plan and execute innovative, 21st-century programs that deliver better results for the people we are trying to empower and U.S. taxpayers, while also contributing expert input into important national security and foreign policy debates that have major development components.”
Last week, MFAN Partner the Center for American Progress teamed up with the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research to host a joint event: The Road to Better Aid: An Emerging Bipartisan Consensus? Daniel Yohannes, CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, gave the keynote address followed by a panel discussion with MFAN Principal John Norris, Executive Director of the Sustainable Security and Peacebuilding Initiative at CAP and Mauro De Lorenzo, Visiting Fellow at AEI. Philip I. Levy, Resident Scholar at AEI moderated the discussion.
In advance of USAID Administrator Raj Shah’s major speech tomorrow, hosted by MFAN Partner the Center for Global Development, we’re revisiting some of the agency’s major reforms over the past year. Be sure to check ModernizeAid throughout the coming days for complete coverage of the speech, including MFAN Partner reactions. Also, look for us on Twitter as we live-tweet the speech by following @modernizeaid and retweet often!
Since being sworn in as the 16th administrator of USAID on January 7th, Dr. Rajiv Shah has taken a number of steps to position U.S. development efforts as a critical and dynamic component of U.S. foreign policy. From taking the lead on the Feed the Future initiative to internal reforms within USAID, Dr. Shah has demonstrated his leadership in making the agency a cutting edge actor in development, one that puts renewed emphasis on partnerships, innovation and learning, and evidenced-based results. Over the last 12 months, Shah also co-chaired the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) and played an active role in the formulation of President Obama’s Presidential Policy Directive on U.S. Global Development Policy.
One year ago this week, a devastating earthquake leveled Haiti taking with it the lives of nearly 300,000 and leaving a capital city and a nation in ruins. President Obama has said that while “countless lives” have been saved with increased access to basic services, “too much rubble continues to clog the streets, too many people are still living in tents, and for so many Haitians progress has not come fast enough.” On Tuesday, Oxfam America with New Jersey Democrat, Representative Albio Sires, hosted a distinguished group of panelist on Capitol Hill on how the US government is promoting country ownership and building more effective institutions in Haiti 12 months later.
“In every sector and in every aspect of life in Haiti, the earthquake left behind a daunting task. How would this nation get back on its feet, and what could the U.S. government and the international community do to help shape that recovery in a sustainable way?”
“The Monitor will focus on aid effectiveness, transparency, and the efficient use of federal funds to support U.S. foreign policy. It will track new initiatives begun by Administrator Shah as embodied in USAID Forward. It will pay special attention to the agency’s new approach to evidence-based policy and planning and will monitor congressional activities that affect its authorities and capacity to achieve development objectives.”
“It democratises aid, removing the monopoly of information and power from governments and aid professionals. It inspires innovation and informs learning. It reduces bureaucracy. It also makes it possible for communities to collaborate, for citizens to hold governments to account and for the beneficiaries of aid to speak for themselves. With a new global standard for sharing information, aid in the information age will look very different from the past.”
The work of the RFK Center for Justice & Human Rights with Zanmi Lasante in Haiti over the last eight years has demonstrated that impacted communities tend to be the last to know critical details of planned international interventions.
