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Posts Tagged ‘United States Agency for International Development’

USAID Announces New Personnel

Thursday, March 11th, 2010
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 11, 2010
Press Office: 202-712-4320
Public Information: 202-712-4810
www.usaid.gov

WASHINGTON, D.C. – USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah is pleased to announce that the following individuals recently joined the Agency:

  • Sean Carroll, Chief of Staff - In this role, Mr. Carroll will be part of the Agency’s leadership team, with responsibilities for managing the front office, interagency issues, core strategic and operational priorities, strategic internal and external communications and other Chief of Staff functions, working closely with the USAID Administrator. Mr. Carroll comes to USAID from the Club of Madrid, where he served as Program Director since 2004. Previously, Mr. Carroll was Senior Fellow and Director at the Inter-American Dialogue, as well as a Consultant to the United Nations/World Food Program. He has also served as Professional Staff and Subcommittee Director on the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on International Relations; and, over 13 years, held various positions at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI).
  • Amie Batson, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Global Health - As Deputy Assistant Administrator for Global Health, Ms. Batson will serve as USAID’s Deputy of the Global Health Initiative with responsibility for overall coordination of USAID’s work in support of this important endeavor. Ms. Batson joins USAID after a 20-year career in global health that has included positions in the WHO, UNICEF, and most recently, the World Bank as Assistant to the Managing Director. Notably, as one of the original drivers behind the creation of the Global Alliance for Vaccines & Immunization (GAVI), she led the World Bank’s efforts in vaccine financing.
  • Ruth Levine, Director of Evaluation, Policy Analysis & Learning - Ms. Levine will build a team to strengthen the Agency’s ability to learn from program implementation, and to link the best available evidence to decision-making for greater effectiveness and better informed policy. Ms. Levine was most recently Vice President for Programs and Operations and Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development. Ms. Levine is an internationally recognized health economist with over 15 years experience designing and assessing the effects of social sector programs in Latin America, Eastern Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.
  • Alex Dehgan, Science and Technology (S&T) Advisor – Dr. Dehgan will be the focal point for implementing the Administrator’s vision to restore science and technology to its rightful place within USAID and ensure that USAID is the global leader on employing science, technology, and research to help solve traditional and persistent development challenges. Prior to USAID, Dr. Dehgan was a Senior Scientist and Policy Advisor with the Science Advisor to the Secretary of State. Dr. Dehgan also served as a Senior Adviser to the Special Adviser for the Gulf and South West Asia, as well as the liaison to Ambassador Holbrooke and the Office of the Special Representative to the President for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
  • Tom Garwin, Senior Advisor on Impact Planning - Mr. Garwin will offer expertise and guidance on a variety of complex government programs, policies, management processes, and analytic methods of particular interest to the Administrator. Prior to coming to USAID, Mr. Garwin was the first Director of Impact Planning and Improvement at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He has also been an independent consultant in the areas of strategy, evaluation, measurement, and organizational performance.

What do you think about USAID’s role in the QDDR?

Thursday, March 11th, 2010
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Today, Alyssa Rosenberg at GovernmentExecutive.com posed two questions about the heightened media attention around the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in relation to the State Department’s Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), set to release mid-term findings by the end of the month.  See her post below:

“This may be an idle thought, but for those of you out there who keep a close eye on the State Department, I’d appreciate some insight into this question: are questions of USAID’s staffing and budget dominating the coverage of the strategy review under way there because they are the critical questions? Or because USAID has aggressive stakeholders and its roles is very much enhanced because of Haiti, etc.?”

Let us know how you would answer her questions by leaving a comment below.

Kenyan Ambassador to the U.S. Shares His Thoughts on Effective Foreign Assistance

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010
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Ambassador OgegoAs part of an ongoing dialogue with developing world voices, Kenya’s Ambassador to the U.S., Peter N.R.O. Ogego, recently spoke with MFAN on his experiences working with bilateral and multilateral donors and how to reform foreign assistance and aid programs to have a greater impact at fighting poverty and disease, promoting economic growth and innovation, and creating sustainable, accountable societies and governments.  Ambassador Ogego articulated six principles of aid effectiveness that should be considered when reforming foreign assistance:

  • Greater partnership between donors and recipients of aid. Ambassador Ogego spoke extensively of the problems in the 1970s and 80s in Africa when both bilateral and multilateral aid was provided on a conditional basis with little recipient country consultation, and how the conditionality of aid, as in the Millennium Challenge Corporation model, continues to impact effectiveness.
  • Better coordination among donors in country and inside the beltway. This synchronization of aid efforts needs to be transparent so as not to confuse the recipient country agents.
  • Emphasis on capacity-building. The Ambassador noted that it is not only a question of providing equipment and technicians to jump-start development efforts, but the level at which donors will transfer the technology and skills to local society.
  • Coherent and cohesive assistance policies and programs. Too often donors are unclear in describing their programs and aid packages, which results in wasted energy, resources, and ultimately money.  More fundamentally, he argued these policies should be based on recipient country needs and not donor interest.
  • Flexible time frame. Outstanding circumstances and shifting priorities may affect what kind of aid is needed and when.
  • Standard system of review of aid efforts (or Donor Performance Assessment). The Ambassador suggested that just as outside groups monitor how recipient countries handle aid, the donors themselves should be subject to self-review to determine best practices and streamline efforts.

For the most effective foreign assistance, Ambassador Ogego called on Washington to listen to officials on the ground – including Ambassadors like himself and country directors – and to have the understanding and ability to be flexible in their mission.  To garner more public support for U.S. aid efforts, the Ambassador suggested that the U.S. recognize it’s part of a “global village” and use its abundance of resources and technology to lead a proactive and conscious delivery effort, offering our best to those parts of the world struggling to reach their potential.  After all, a growing, peaceful Kenya is good for the world.

MFAN Statement: Obama Administration International Affairs Budget Request Further Strengthens Development

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
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February 1, 2010 (WASHINGTON)This statement is delivered on behalf of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network (MFAN) by Co-Chairs David Beckmann and George Ingram:

MFAN strongly supports President Obama’s FY 2011 International Affairs budget blueprint, which reinforces the President’s commitment to ensuring that “development is established and endures as a key pillar of U.S. foreign policy”  by requesting  increases for foreign assistance programs.  Even at this challenging time, we believe robust funding for development is critical, because the complex problems we are trying to solve in Haiti, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere cannot be addressed solely with military firepower or diplomatic outreach.  We must continue to focus on alleviating poverty, fighting disease, and creating economic opportunity in the developing world, in order to improve people’s lives and help set them on a path towards self-sufficiency.

The challenging atmosphere surrounding this budget demands that policymakers do everything possible to make U.S. foreign assistance more effective and accountable.  Building on the unprecedented momentum created at all levels of government in 2009, we urge the Obama Administration to drive foreign assistance reform to a successful conclusion so that we are getting the best results possible for the people in developing countries we are working with, as well as U.S. taxpayers.

We eagerly await the findings and recommendations from two major Administration reviews – the White House’s Presidential Study Directive on Global Development Policy (PSD) and the State Department’s Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR).  We call on the Administration to work closely with Congress on House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Berman’s (D-CA) anticipated rewrite of the outdated Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s bipartisan effort to pass the Foreign Assistance Revitalization and Accountability Act of 2009 (S.1524), which would strengthen the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under Dr. Rajiv Shah’s leadership and create new transparency and accountability measures for foreign assistance.  We stand ready to work with both branches on this important and transformative drive towards reform.

For more information, contact Sam Hiersteiner at shiersteiner@gpgdc.com or visitwww.modernizingforeignassistance.net.

Noteworthy News – 1.29

Friday, January 29th, 2010
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This weekly posting includes key news stories and opinion pieces related to foreign assistance reform and the larger development community.

News on Haiti:

  • Agreement on Effort to Help Haiti Rebuild (The New York Times, January 26) Concerned about corruption and wobbly Haitian leadership, international donors agreed Monday during a meeting in Montreal on a 10-year rebuilding effort for earthquake-damaged Haiti, one that would create an even better capital city and that the government said would cost $3 billion.  [Clinton]: “Sometimes people have pledging conferences and pledge money, and they don’t have any idea what they’re going to do with it. We actually think it’s a novel idea to do the needs assessment first and then the planning and then the pledging.”
  • Clinton: Critics of US Haiti Relief Misguided (AP, January 26) ”Some of the international press either misunderstood or deliberately misconstrued what was a civilian and military response, both of them necessary in order to be able to deliver aid to the Haitians who desperately needed it,” Clinton told a gathering of State Department employees.
  • MFAN-related: A Better Week for Haiti – And With These Reforms, a Far Better Future (Huffington Post-Charles MacCormack, January 29) Drawing on Save the Children’s recent study Insights from the Field: Haiti, I believe four key reforms are needed to fulfill the promises of the Montreal commitment to rebuild Haiti:  1) Invest in Haitian institutions. Rebuilding infrastructure matters, but promoting human development matters even more. 2) Encourage the private sector’s role in development. 3) Empower one U.S. agency to oversee all development work in Haiti. 4) Increase accountability through transparency.

Other News:

  • Congress weighs in on foreign-aid reform (FP Blog-Josh Rogin, January 29) Senate Foreign Relations Committee leaders John Kerry, D-MA, and Richard Lugar, R-IN, introduced a State Department policy bill for both fiscal 2010 and fiscal 2011 today.  “This is the first time in eight years that the Foreign Relations Committee will pass a State Department authorization bill, and we do so at a critical moment,” Kerry said in a statement. “This is precisely the moment when our investment in diplomacy is most needed and this bill provides our diplomatic corps with essential tools, authorities and resources to succeed in the tough jobs we continually require of them.”
  • Audit deems Pakistan aid program a failure (FP Blog-Colum Lynch, January 28) The two year-old development program for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) was designed to help improve living standards in one of Pakistan’s poorest and most politically unstable territories. So far, only $15.5 million has been spent on the initiative.  “It has not achieved the goal of improving the capacity of FATA governmental institutions to govern,” according to the audit, which was produced by the inspector general’s office in Manila, the Philippines. And it “did not increase the capacities of [local] NGOs to promote good governance, although some progress was made.”