Pledge Guarantee for Health: Working Better, Faster and Smarter

By: Staff Person
July 17, 2013

USAID, in partnership with Swedish SIDA, is proud to help support and scale up PGH by providing a $50 million credit guarantee using USAID’s Development Credit Authority (DCA). This co- guarantee will allow PGH to access up to $100 million of credit from commercial banks. This $100 million of credit can “revolve” up to 10 times, meaning it has the potential to generate up to $1 billion of transaction over the five year guarantee period.

USGLC Report Finds Consensus on U.S. Development Policy

By: Staff Person
June 5, 2013

The elevation of development alongside diplomacy and defense, the continuing implementation of the USAID Forward agenda, the introduction of legislation like the Rep. Gerry Connolly’s (D-VA) Global Partnerships Act and the Rep. Ted Poe’s (R-TX) Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act, and President Obama’s proposal to reform U.S. food aid are all positive signs that the reform agenda is making headway. However, the Administration and Congress must work together to institutionalize these important reforms so that progress is not lost as political winds shift in Washington.

Get the Facts on Food Aid Reform

By: Staff Person
May 1, 2013

vPresident Obama’s FY2014 budget request proposal to reform food aid has sparked renewed debate on whether the current system could provide food to those in need more effectively and efficiently. The President’s proposal aims to improve the Food for Peace program that distributes emergency food assistance by providing more flexibility to purchase food locally and regionally in addition to shipping commodities from the U.S. Moreover, the proposal would eliminate inefficient practices such as the “monetization” of food aid that occurs when NGOs are provided commodities to sell in local markets in order to fund development projects, rather than funding these projects directly.

Why Congress Should Care About the International Aid Transparency Initiative

By: Staff Person
April 18, 2013

Congress needs to understand that the dashboard and IATI are the tools it has been searching for. Members continuously complain about the opaqueness of foreign assistance – how much assistance is the U.S. providing, to what countries, for what purposes, in cooperation with whom, to what effect? Where is the information to explain to constituents how their tax dollars are being spent? Together the dashboard and IATI will provide this information.

Transforming foreign assistance

By: Staff Person
April 15, 2013

ompleting the transformation of U.S. foreign assistance will reposition the U.S. as not just the most generous, but also the most strategic, innovative, and effective player in global development. We have saved and improved millions of lives over the last ten years and our efforts have helped strengthen our image abroad: a new field survey of aid recipient countries by Oxfam America finds that 83 percent of respondents believe the U.S. is a better development partner now than five years ago. The opportunity at hand for the next ten years is to turn progress into lasting change by helping those people take control of their own lives.

From day one: Transparency at the heart

By: Staff Person
April 8, 2013

The principles the President championed the first day of his Presidency are reflected in the reform and evaluation processes undertaken by key US development agencies – new and better data enables citizens to hold their governments to account, and transparency helps to make programs more efficient. But the commitments the US has made to aid transparency are stifled by the approach it has chosen to meet them. US development agencies need to be encouraged to publish what they can, as soon as they can.

From Better “Stuff” To More “Power”: Why transparency matters

By: Staff Person
March 27, 2013

Please see below for a post from Paul O’Brien, Vice President for Policy and Campaigns at Oxfam America. This piece originally appeared on Oxfam’s blog, Politics of Poverty. Will Raj Shah commit USAID to joining the top 10% most transparent donors by the time he leaves his USAID Administrator post? He might do so, but looking at his … Continue reading From Better “Stuff” To More “Power”: Why transparency matters

MFAN Statement: USAID Offers Evidence of Reform Progress

By: Staff Person
March 20, 2013

This progress could not have come at a better time; budget pressures demand better results, and the Agency will bear greater responsibility at the leading edge of U.S. foreign policy as our military leverage decreases in places like Afghanistan and the greater Middle East.