At a town-hall meeting on the campus of the George
Washington University this afternoon, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah will lay out a broad plan for reforming the
organization, which has seen years of depleted resources and diminished morale.
In the speech, Shah will roll out the overarching
themes that will guide USAID reform under his tenure. The four "core areas"
that USAID will focus on going forward are: recommitting USAID to the Millennium Development Goals, investing in country-owned models of growth and development success, developing
and delivering scientific and technological breakthroughs, and utilizing USAID
expertise in conflict settings.
"Most of all, we need to change
internally," Shah will tell his employees, according to his prepared remarks. "We need to reform or eliminate
processes that inhibit our success, and truly treat development as a
discipline. We need to take risks, acknowledge mistakes, and harness the
passion that brought us to this field."
Shah will dole out some tough love for the agency,
pressing reform as an urgent priority:
Some of you may have
heard what Senator Leahy said at the hearing where I presented USAID's budget
request. He didn't mince words. He said that USAID was not living up to its potential. And he said, quote: "USAID needs to change
its culture, and change the way it does business." One of our biggest
champions, someone who has supported this agency throughout its history,
someone deeply committed to development made matters clear: either USAID
reforms itself, or USAID ceases to exist. So it's been made pretty clear to me --
our time to change is now, and our time to change is short.
Shah will also formally announce the restitution of
USAID's policy planning shop (though that has been ongoing for months and has
already been well
reported). Whether or not USAID will get its budget authority back as well
is not yet decided, part of the ongoing policy review led by USAID and the
State Department.
For a sneak peak of how the White House is thinking
about overall development reform, at least as of two weeks ago, read
this.
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