Understanding USAID’s Policy Framework

understanding usaid's policy framework really pleased to see all of you here today both in person and online I'm Tony Pippa I'm a senior fellow in the center for sustainable development here at the Brookings institution and a warm welcome just for what I'm sure will be a rich conversation today about usaid's policy framework those of us who are here at the center for sustainable development are really pleased to host this conversation um and I'm especially pleased to welcome our guests from usaid those will be participating in today's conversation and those of you who are um here in the audience and online and it's great to see old friends uh but before we get too far into the program I just want to start by offering my congratulations actually to our guests I know from first-hand experience how complex and how tricky it is to produce a policy framework for the agency having been part of producing a framework in a previous administration it has to balance many different things and it has to be informed by many different things including the experiences of usaid programming that's come before it by evidence about what's working what's not by analysis of the important Global Trends and where the world's going and the role of International Development in it and by the rule of the U.S and in particular the agency and the role that the agency can play in providing leadership and investment that matters uh leadership and investment that maximizes development impact while also advancing the interests of our country so comes with a lot of responsibility the document provides the roadmap and the guidance for everyone who works at the agency across so many different parts of the world but it's also important for helping others within the U.S government understand usaid's role in helping Advance the objectives of the National Security strategy and its perspective on the National Security Council it helps implementers of the agency's programs understand the goals and objectives that the agency has in mind the rationale behind them and it lays out the energies agency's priorities for its partner countries and spells out how it's going to contribute to their aspirations and to the globe as a whole on agreements like the sustainable development goals and the Paris climate Accords so no small task especially given that the U.S Remains the world's largest bilateral donor so really a warm and Hearty congratulations on producing this particular policy framework and really looking forward to today's conversation for today's program we're going to start by hearing from Ambassador Isabelle Coleman who's the Deputy Administrator at usaid she will kick us off with some opening remarks give us a broad outline of the policy framework the priorities that elevates and why and that's going to set the stage for a panel discussion co-moderated uh by my colleague here at the center for sustainable development George Ingram and Susan reichley who was my first boss at usaid now at the international Youth Foundation as they discuss the framework with Michelle similes and Sarah Rose and engage with questions and comments from you in the audience as we get underway on that discussion so to get started it's my pleasure to introduce Ambassador Isabelle Coleman who's USA's Deputy Administrator for policy and programming in that role she oversees the agency's regional and pillar bureaus and guides usaid's crisis response including all the National Security Council this role means that she's responsible for overseeing agency efforts to promote food security strengthen Education Health democracy and economic growth and her work Builds on more than 25 years worth of experience working in government the private sector and non-profits immediately prior to coming to USA she served as Chief Operating Officer of give directly and before that she was at the U.S mission to the U.N and served as the U ambassador to the United Nations for management reform and special political Affairs where I had the Good Fortune of working directly with her during my time at the U.S Mission so please welcome me in joining uh in welcoming ambassador Isabelle Coleman [Applause] thank you thank you everyone for joining us here today it's really a pleasure to be able to launch our policy framework with all of you here this afternoon and thank you Tony for that great opening and reminder of why all of the work that we put into something like a policy framework is is so important because it does really signal intent and priorities to so many different constituencies so thank you for that and thank you for all your great collaboration over the years and thank you to George who I know is going to moderate our panel discussion after this and George who is also no stranger to usaid having served as our principal Deputy assistant administrator for our Europe and Eurasia Bureau during um the early years of former Soviet states where uh believe it or not today I'm spending quite a bit of my time so uh for decades Brookings has hosted important policy discussions like this and I'm so happy that some of my colleagues are here to have the conversation this afternoon Michelle cinellas who heads our Bureau for policy planning and learning and Michelle really took a lead on this policy framework so thank you Michelle Sarah Rose who's our senior advisor for localization and Susan reichley who is also a longtime usaid person and a former counselor for usaid and now the president and CEO of the international Youth Foundation so you're going to have a great discussion with all of them um Brookings thought leadership over the decades has been really critical on the issues and challenges in International Development and has really helped usaid and the US government evaluate progress and develop strategies to strengthen our mission as stewards of democracy and Defenders of human dignity around the world it's fair to say that the document we're discussing today our policy framework has in one way or another been informed and strengthened by the expertise here at Brookings a Brookings report issued last month titled the second half of the sustainable development goals era ideas for doing things differently reaches important conclusions about a central dilemma that faces all of us that the world has not been doing enough differently to be on course for sdg success despite the incredible progress that's been made over the last few decades in reducing extreme poverty addressing hunger and malnutrition boosting lifespans cutting maternal and child mortality fueling democracies rise getting kids in school spurring Economic Development and growth we are now seeing reversals to many of these gains from day one of this Administration usaid has been very clear-eyed about the scope of today's challenges we know that covid-19 decimated Health Systems leading to Resurgence and diseases from measles to tuberculosis and to the first Global decline in life expectancy in decades we also see the devastating effects of the pandemic on global on the global economy and many many nations finances after a decade of heavy borrowing a more recently Rising inflation we are now increasingly concerned about the roughly 60 percent of the world's poorest countries facing debt distress moreover natural disasters are increasing in frequency and intensity leading to a sharp rise in humanitarian needs and democracy continues to face threats from all sides as authoritarian regimes engage in transnational corruption repress civil society and spread disinformation all to undermine freedom and consolidate power these are incredibly daunting challenges to be sure and beyond our own capacity to solve especially if we just rely on traditional strategies for development and growth frankly we don't have a choice but to do development differently than it's been done in the past and that's the spirit of usaid's new policy framework which we've called driving progress Beyond programs it's a document that outlines today's development challenges and brings them into Focus under a series of five agency priorities it brings together the interrelated components of our ambitious reform agenda and it guides us to use our expertise our convening power and advocacy to draw in more Partners leverage more resources spark new Innovations and Inspire broader movements for change priority the long-standing need for which is made urgent once again by the crisis in Sudan is to better link our humanitarian assistance and Recovery to our long-term development work when armed conflict and snares innocent civilians whether in the Sahel in Ukraine or even here in our own hemisphere more coordinated efforts in peace resilience and basic needs like food Security will help Foster more sustainable results the second priority is to support partner countries in to mitigate and adapt to climate change by Leading Partnerships and initiatives that reduce Global emissions and expand access to climate mitigation Finance usaid's Partners around the world are calling on us now more than ever to scale the impact of our climate assistance including through the Just Energy transition partnership the president's plan to conserve Global forests and power Africa through prepare the president's emergency plan for adaptation and resilience we will also do our part to make sure the U.S meets its goal of helping more than half a billion people in developing countries adapt to and manage the impacts of climate change by 2030. the third priority is in countries where Democratic reformers are pushing for change so-called bright spots we will rally to help democracies deliver concrete development results for their citizens we will not only provide investment in governance anti-corruption media freedom and the rule of law but we will also Marshal additional resources to support near-term economic dividends and quality of life improvements we will be nimble when Democratic openings arise mobilizing rapid support that is responsive to emerging local needs our fourth priority is to respond to the stresses felt in the health sector we will go beyond usaid's Flagship disease programs to expand our impact and investments in the Primary Health Care Systems we will improve integration across Global Health programming including in digital health and invest in a stronger Primary Health Workforce and community health workers capable of adapting to shifting needs and working towards universal health coverage and the fifth agency priority is to help countries address the grueling economic headwinds that so many are facing in order to help them get back on a path of inclusive economic growth each of these priorities of course shares causes and effects with one or or more so some of the traditional siled approaches we've taken in the past will need to be reinvigorated the framework pushes us to build our existing efforts to make our work more effective we're experimenting and rigorously evaluating our work including through methods like cash benchmarking we're pioneering Studies by usaid found wide-ranging economic benefits of Direct Cash transfers while we have extensive experience using cash in humanitarian settings we're now seeing its value in development context as well in Rwanda for example cash benchmarking of a five-year Workforce Readiness program delivered results beyond the program's Core Business outcomes to include improvements in consumption income and wealth with this type of experimentation and evaluation we are honing our tools for cash and non-cash programming alike allowing us to invest in approaches that have the highest impact cross usaid programming and deep within its development toolkit we have hard-won expertise to bring to bear to make the most of our investments but just because we're growing our impact does not mean we can achieve sustainable results alone here we are Guided by the second part of the policy framework which highlights the importance of new Partnerships in responding to today's challenges the first line of effort to expand our Partnerships is a renewed commitment to development diplomacy through our convening power our standing in multilateral institutions are influenced as a global power and our considerable budget we will drive Collective action to solve shared challenges both globally and at the country level next is deeper engagement with the private sector here too is a path to achieving progress beyond the constraints of our budgets for example in October of last year usaid launched agri-ukraine to bolster Ukrainian agricultural production and exports to help alleviate the global food security crisis exacerbated by Russia's War earlier this year we joined forces with Bayer encouraging them to invest more than 35 million dollars to boost the capacity of the company's seed processing facility in Ukraine as part of its collaboration with our agri-ukraine initiative private sector buy-in is crucial and also underscores the reach of our development diplomacy and through an ambitious strategy to boost locally led development we are putting more local actors at the helm since they're the ones who know best how to drive effective change in their communities and sustain that change over the long term this localization effort is not exactly new many administrations have worked towards locally led development goals in the past and have fallen short so we're not any under any Illusions about how hard this is going to be but we're making real tangible progress by institutionalizing new ways to interact with the agency by simplifying our registration and awards processes by adjusting our appetite for risk and by setting forth a new strategy for the grant and contract award process that in that initiates the tools the cultural shifts and actionable steps needed to bring about our ambitious localization initiatives last year we obligated 10.2 percent of our funding to local partners up from 7.4 percent in fiscal year 2021. in dollar terms we obligated 600 million dollars more to local Partners in fiscal year 2022 then in fiscal year 21. 66 increase that is significant progress and it's progress we can build on finally and critically the policy framework focuses on empowering and supporting our Workforce as an investment in our impact and our Effectiveness as an organization by reducing burdens that needlessly trap staff behind desks and piles of paperwork instead of directly engaging them with partners by growing and investing in the workforce so they have the support they need to do the job they love without burning out by informing our work with the latest development thinking and data making it easier for staff to wield rigorous evidence make informed decisions and hone our tools for development impact to take those lessons forward by prioritizing diversity Equity inclusion and accessibility and reforming aspects of our Recruitment and Retention strategies that have traditionally sidelined underrepresented voices and limited our potential as a development partner and the framework underscores our commitment to making long-awaited investments in all parts of our Workforce including our local staff without whom none of our long-term development goals would be possible confronting today's biggest development challenges forcing and embracing new Partnerships and investing in usaid's strongest assets its people this is how we are going to be able to achieve progress beyond the scope of our budgets and our programs taken as a whole usaid's new policy framework is about a shift in our mindset recognizing that we are problem solvers first and foremost rather than simply assistance programmers and it's an encapsulation of our values our ambition and our ability to put those values to work in pursuit of a world that affords dignity for all I hope you've had a chance to look at the policy framework and that you'll feel free to share your feedback with us and as I said at the top for years so many of you online and in this room have really helped to lay the foundation for the work that is reflected in this policy framework and this Vision so thank you all again thank you [Applause] stupid for those of you who are young research assistants here elsewhere and are looking for a career model I learned before we came up here that paloma's first job in Washington was a both pre-doctorate research assistant here at Brookings so a nice career path Isabelle um my thanks to Tony and Isabelle for laying the framework today um we're going to have a moderated conversation for about 45 minutes and then invite you to engage in the conversation um you've already been introduced to the panel I'm George Ingram here at Brookings Michelle brings a very diverse experience in the privates in the Civil Society on the hill a prior engagement at Aid to what I think is sort of the Brookings of Aid the think tank and in a few months she not only will be head of a policy Bureau but ahead of policy and budget um which is very exciting for those of us who go back to the days when those two functions were in the same office Sarah Rose I know very well from her time before Aid uh with the center for Global development and the modernizing foreign assistance Network where she was a real thought leader on development Effectiveness and I'm sure that her colleagues at Aid are very pleased to have her there Susan reichley who had a 25-year career at Aid including this Council admission director recreated the office that Michelle is now head of um and her knowledge of policy development is so deep I've asked her to share the role with me of the moderator so she's playing a dual role of both panelists and moderators um and we're not going to worry exactly at what time she plays which role good to know George well let's start off Michelle at a broad level at the big picture and two aspects of that one is I think we all were got a little self-satisfied in the immediate post Cold War era in which development appeared to be on the ascendancy in and how it engaged in global development um that got cut short with 9 11. um and even more so now with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and with the challenge the global challenge of China so that development is now having to struggle for being heard for being valued in considerations of foreign policy and security secondly um I think it's notable that this framework that the subtext of it is progress Beyond programs and that there's discussion in there of new Partnerships and elevating the practice of development diplomacy and I know Aid forever has been more than just about the dollars uh but what does this subtext this theme of the policy framework imply for usaid on how it functions um and how do you maneuver in this context where security and foreign policy issues seem to be at the Forefront well um thanks George very much for hosting us here today and I have to admit it is a bit intimidating to be on the stage with people who've held my role in the past as well as people who've been thinking about these issues for a very long time so I just uh want to say thank you to all of you who've been my mentors over the years and uh for for coming here today I also just want to recognize my colleagues from usaid who were here today specifically Josh Kaufman Aaron Roche Julie lelik Kim bosswick many many many people in PPL who really were the heart and soul of this effort as well as many of our colleagues in the front office who really made this all come together we have been working on the policy framework with the administrator for about a year now and this really is an articulation of what she believes so let me just take um a little bit of a stab at your question and then others can ask further questions later first of all I would say that what the policy framework tries to really demonstrate is that development is actually more important than ever in this environment that you're talking about we at usaid are often seen as the affirmative side of what the U.S has to offer to a lot of our partners around the world whether it is the challenge of the PRC whether it is um issues around the Wagner group in Africa but we are providing resources that are telling a story different from what many of those who have a different world order are providing so I think we are very excited to be as as you all know part of the National Security Council with our administrator being on that panel we're very excited to be at the table we're very excited to be able to say you know there can be other options other ways of working we can do things like say you cannot use what uh yway as Congress has said to us in our in our bill but we are then going to countries and saying well let's talk about your digital transformation let's talk about what you can do let's give you the skills to do that and so we are very this tries to lay that out it tries to lay out our priorities and later we'll talk about inclusive economic growth which is a new priority that's laid out here and that really is about saying to countries how can you LeapFrog how can you become the next manufacturing Hub of Africa what kind of enabling environment do you need what kind of skills do you need to be able to to do that we're doing a lot of work on many many of those issues in terms of how we're acting and being different I just want to say a lot of my Foreign Service colleagues will say we've been doing this all the time this is what we do at post all the time and actually Susan and I were recently talking about the 20-year transformation in Colombia and how people laid out a pathway to get there and what this policy framework though is trying to say to people is make this more important than it usually is we we get so focused on implementing programs what are the outcomes how do we Design This how does that happen we still need to do that but when you design that program how do you do it in a new way what kind of new questions do you ask you're not just doing an agriculture program in a rural part of Africa you're saying how does this agriculture program add to the economic growth capacity in this country how do we reach new and different populations whether it's women whether it's young people and trying to give them new skills so what this is trying to do is say let's think about those questions they're just as important as how your program is going to work and then finally what it's also about is bringing new partners to the table it's about bringing the private sector and understanding that if you're going to have the private sector come in there's going to be there it has to be about benefits to them as a company as an organization but also how do you help them benefit the people that they're serving in the community they're in how do you bring philanthropy to the table we're we are currently working on three new mousse with three different foundations to work on new different parts of the localization agenda how do you work with donor Partners in new and different ways and this is how we're working differently within usaid so just recently the president went to Ireland and as part of that he talked about what Irish Aid is doing on Global Food security that is work that we have been doing with Irish aid for probably two years now and that's no surprise to any of you right the administrators is of Irish descent she's very committed to that we see it as very important they joined with us last year at unga providing 50 million dollars for malnutrition they've now signed on to do new additional work in Africa but it's about saying how can we have joint goals joint ways of working bringing new partners to the table we brought Korea to the table to work with us on Ukraine agriculture when the president was just here last week so we're thinking about who are new we're still working with the UK we're still working with Germany but we're also thinking about who's bringing new money to the table so I'll stop there but thank you for the question so Susan in your role as a panelist okay put that hat on Michelle mentioned Colombia yeah a country you know well and you are involved in usaid's engagement there when it was playing a significant role in what was a national security agenda strategy so how does this framework and Beyond just the money and operating in a foreign policy may your how does that resonate with you and what was your experience yeah well thanks George well first congratulations and we only have about you know a few minutes I'll be very brave I know because you can talk about Colombia forever but first I want to say congratulations and Echo what Tony said at the start we know how hard this is to do a policy framework and for everybody who worked on this um congratulations it's so important it's so important to set that trajectory for the agency and I can say now pivoting to Colombia uh I had the honor of serving there from 2005 to 2009 when we didn't have a policy Bureau and we were developing strategies and I remember submitting it to Washington and being told well we don't have a policy Bureau any way to approve this there's no real overarching framework just keep going you know you're on the right path and I think Colombia is a great example of really what the agency has been doing for some time of you know the progress beyond the programs programs are important it is the bread and butter but it's about the overarching framework and strategy and getting to your point and question that you raised George about the geopolitical nature of the work we're doing now which is truly different than when I was in the agency obviously with the war in Ukraine and with the rise of China you know really thinking about this differently and obviously there may be a movement towards transactional as there was with Colombia at times but we were part of the longer term and really integrated as the Deputy Administrator talked about of development diplomacy and as Michelle just highlighted the importance of us being at the table as all Development actors to achieve that longer term goal and so Colombia it was started under President Clinton President Pastrana went several administrations bipartisan because there was the larger goal that all of us were working toward and I think that's the framing of thinking about this moment and what we do and how do we think about those larger term goals beyond the implementation of the programs and how do we knit that together and have leadership driving towards that and the policy framework provides that so it's an exciting time I think and Sarah not to pre-up what I'm going to ask you about later but it seems like to me that Aid has been trying to play that larger Global role on leading other donors and implementers into the localization space and back in the fall collect brought donors together to try to sign on to a statement uh committing them to Local to localization exactly and so you know we see the approach to localization is encompassing a number of things that we can do as an agency but one of the rules that we see being able to play is being able to use you know our voice our convening power our relationships our Partnerships to be able to have conversations and to be able to lead conversations about what locally led development can look like throughout sort of the broader ecosystem and so last fall Michelle and her team including Shireen faraj who is here in the audience today really LED an effort in partnership with the aid agency of Norway NORAD to pull together a bunch of bilateral donors to to sign on to a statement that commits the signatories to really pursuing sort of three things and one is Shifting power as much as possible to those whose lives are affected by the work that we do the second is to shift funding as directly as possible to the proximate organizations again who are who are living the challenges that we are seeking to support their efforts to address every single day and then the third is to sort of continue this sort of public advocacy around locally-led development I think as as Deputy Administrator Coleman put out at the beginning and George put out as well you know this isn't new the International Community has been talked talking about locally led development or country ownership as it was called sort of in the era of the Paris declaration 20 years ago but there is an opportunity to think about it in new and different ways now um really sort of underscored by this Groundswell around diversity Equity inclusion accessibility with new thinking about you know how can we think about grappling with some of the inequities that have been baked into the aid system for a long time and because of this there is renewed attention and different kinds of attention to the role that we as donors can play in terms of thinking about how to shift this system to really be more locally LED and so again we had 14 bilateral signatories to this this broad donor agreement on locally led development and are really excited about the signal that that sends in terms of sort of the direction that we see um things moving so great great example thanks Sarah Susan I'm sure you can seamlessly switch hats now yeah sure I was thinking about what Sarah was thinking again of this not being new and yet we have a moment now we really do have I think a unique moment in development where we're talking about inclusion we're talking about decolonization we're talking about issues many of you are members of the Coalition for racial and ethnic equity and development more than 100 development organizations have signed on that the administrator has leaned forward on inclusive development obviously as the Deputy Administrator talked about with inclusive growth and yet you know as we look at the issues and it does and we're so excited Michelle that budget and policy are coming together I mean again to reiterate that because it's wonderful to have policies but it really does come down to where's the money and how do we drive that forward and so as we look at that several questions came in online about inclusive development and you know questioning with the policy framework where you know whether it's gender and women's empowerment clearly the Administration has made a huge commitment in the FY 24 budget of you know an 180 percent increase but questioning by the community of you know is this still ticking the box of integrating it okay well count that as gender and women's empowerment or obviously youth as the head of the international Youth Foundation uh it's wonderful to have a youth policy but again how is that as well as the disabilities Community the indigenous populations lgbtqi all the things that are so important for inclusive development how do we actually have program dollars and most importantly how do we measure impact right I mean sir you this is your area and as well as Michelle's of being able to show we're actually making a difference as we drive towards the sustain animal development goals because again taking it all back to that higher level of why do we do what we do and not just obviously the us but all of us as a community we're not going to achieve or make progress against the sustainable development goals without these communities and so there was a sense within the policy framework that there was a bit of the ticking the Box each of the communities have said okay how many times was you know gender mentioned or you and how do we do that in order to drive towards also inclusive growth and and again I think the community is thrilled that inclusive growth just as under the Obama Administration broad-based economic growth was a pillar of our policy framework but how do we make that happen without the money really being directed most importantly measuring impact yeah this is a a great question and I think that of course you know the Biden Harris Administration one of their key priorities is inclusion and so that is something that usaid has really embraced in terms of how we're thinking about what the path forward is and you know one of the ways that that we're thinking about inclusion is is in the institution of new offices to focus on this both internally and externally and so one of these new offices of course is the office of diversity Equity inclusion and accessibility and a new um Chief uh deia officer and Nana Diallo of course and the the Mandate of this office in particular is really to advance deia across the agency through coordination and through sharing of technical expertise and thinking about how we can make usaid a more safe respectful inclusive kind of environment to work it has to start with that angle to be able to think about how that applies to our programming and of course we also have the inclusive development Hub that we've set forth in the Bureau for development democracy and innovation in DDI and this Hub is really um you know framed around this understanding of inclusive development as an important angle to all of what we do and when we work and when we talk about inclusive development what we're talking about is really this approach that's built on the understanding that sort of all people in all communities with all of their diversity have a role to play in the development process and need to be able to bring all of those voices that diversity of voices to play in order to really have sustained results and I would just highlight too that there is a very strong linkage of course between inclusive development and localization right so localization in the absence of this inclusive development lens you know really risks sort of exacerbating or reinforcing some existing inequities that may exist in the countries in which we work and of course inclusive development without some of the tools and approaches and sort of impetus of localization you know maybe risks not having you know as much of a way to operationalize some of these approaches as well and so really together these offices provide some of the sort of you know agency infrastructure around some of these issues as well but I also want to reinforce that yeah inclusive development gender Equity women's empowerment you know these are all aspects of the policy framework and really integrated into the various aspects of the policy framework it's also captured these issues are also captured across a suite of policies that really sort of describe and elaborate on our commitment to inclusive development so we launched our updated gender equality and women's empowerment policy in late March we are anticipating a new lgbtqi plus policy later this year which will build on and expand upon the existing LGBT vision for Action we're also updating our Disability Policy and we've issued an updated Youth and development policy just just recently or just last year and then we're also we have our promoting the rights of indigenous peoples uh policy which really promotes sort of this thoughtful engagement on how to engage with indigenous people and so we're also providing in addition to the policy you know base which is important but in terms of how we bring that in into action what we are doing is providing these new tools and resources to really help enable our mission staff to be able to translate this policy into Praxis and this includes usaid's first guidance on inclusive development and this will highlight sort of the roles of equity of intersectionality of localization as part of our development efforts and we're also developing an inclusive development toolkit that will really help us Aid staff you know be able to again bring this to the fore um in terms of gender specifically because this was something that a measuring impact yeah you know you know like usaid continues to affirm right that you know gender equity and women's empowerment is is vital and important right and so the policy really underscores that you know that there are there are specific kinds of challenges that women face uh that gender diverse individuals might face that lgbtqi plus individuals face um and and specific challenges that are faced by by men and boys as well um and so lays out seven principles to think about how to think through some of these things um we are also bringing to bear um uh like Workforce capacity issues to try to address some of these as well and within the next three years we are going to ensure that there will be sort of a gender expertise at all of our missions and all of our bureaus across the board and are also working to strengthen our our operational policy our ads if you will to be able to bring these angles into it as well but the the the measuring results piece is also really important and thinking about the kinds of questions that bring in questions around your gender and how to think about ensuring that we're targeting some of our evaluation questions to look at some of these questions as well so and I think there will be a lot of interest in the community and how the community can help in framing those questions and how we actually measure impact because it's fabulous all the policies and toolkits and guidance you're providing I know having been in a mission you really depend upon those toolkits but ultimately we all have to be driving towards how are we actually measuring everything we're putting into this is having that impact and that's I think one of the questions when the agency puts out a policy on Dei and makes it a major issue what is the experience of that policy being picked up by implementers by Partners absolutely and I'm sure you know Michelle who's dialoguing so much um with uh our partner governments I was on the phone today with a big British uh private sector company and this is exactly what we were talking about and they were excited to learn about the work that's being done uh here in the U.S on advancing deia because they know it's important for this company which sorry I can't reveal it's a big Global partnership iyf is about to launch and it was so interesting to share the experience of everything we're doing here with them and how we can be one community so it has an impact right Michelle it does can I just have I this is such an issue that is really dear to my heart and there are a couple things that I think are just really important that I wanted to to pull out of the conversation one is that in addition to all the new offices that we're establishing the new policies we're putting in place we're also doing a ton of work and a lot of that is being done by our learning evaluation and research office and PPL on helping our staff Foreign Service officers civil servants Etc to show up at the table differently we're doing tons of trainings tons of sensitivity work around how do you moderate a meeting how do where do you sit at a table these are what words do you use in those conversations these seem like small things but they change the tenor of the conversation in addition to all that we're also working on changing how we're evaluating each other and our colleagues and our work and our peers so we're changing the way Foreign Service officers or officers are evaluated we're changing how civil servants are evaluated to make sure that we're taking into account their application of these things in terms of evidence building I want to also just flag that we've also just recently created a new office of the chief Economist and our chief Economist is Dean Carlin from Northwest turn he is fantastic but he's very focused on working with all of us to say are we asking the right questions in the right way to make sure that we're measuring the right results how do we tell our story how do we make that happen and then the final thing I also just want to highlight is we're also as part of our localization effort really thinking about not just implementing programs through local Partners not just having them weigh in on how we develop strategies and plans and projects but how we Monitor and evaluate those projects and we just recently signed a new mou with cgd and Hewlett Foundation to grow and to to build the capacity and strengthen local African monitoring and evaluation organizations so that they are actually evaluating our programs and telling us if they're working are we asking the right questions are we doing it in the right way so I think we're trying to think outside of your typical box of how to do these things and really apply new ways of working how did how did you create the transition to what I wanted to raise that was very nicely done Sarah localization which is something you know something about being the prime lead at Aid on that um it was notable and it's gotten a lot of attention the administration administrator's comment last week on the hill that localization is difficult um pretty practical statement but it's it's very honest and humbling for the head of the agency to admit that and to acknowledge that um a couple of things that for me have been missing from the conversation is what are we how much power are we willing to transfer particularly when transferring that power May conflict with U.S values human rights the conversation we just had about gender and the empowerment of women and I haven't seen that discussed in the policies in the conversations secondly I haven't seen a consideration of well what is the role of the international expertise what is the role of ingos and contractors who have Decades of experience in development and the third element that you know you're very much in the mix of is is the definition of what's a local entity um and a lot of controversy as to whether or not local affiliates of U.S organizations should be included um and what we do how you whether or not we include in that definition uh the several billion dollars a year that we put through International organizations and how you know publish what you fund has identified that that would add several billion dollars to a calculation of what we should be including in localization um so I'm curious as to how you're grappling with these issues you've been at age for a year now um you worked on the issue before you got there now you're in the midst of it so give us a little bit of update on those well George you really hit the nail on the head in terms of some of these important questions that I think are really core to how we're thinking about localization and and I appreciate your commentary on on leadership but I just want to also acknowledge that leadership for localization really is across the agency as well um so the power question is a really good one right and so shifting power is really sort of core to the conceptualization of what it means to advance locally led development you can shift funding that's one thing but that's only part of the story you have to think about uh making sure that you are creating space for a local actors to really be able to exercise leadership over things like priorities uh design implementation and defining and measuring what results are um the power shift is really important right this is important because of thinking towards sustainability right in terms of owning the goals the processes for what you're uh for what you're trying to do and it's also important as I mentioned too for thinking about this Equity lens as well how do you think about grappling with some of these inequities um the policy foundations that we are putting in place to support localization and underpin these efforts really reflect this goal of Shifting power as well if you look at for instance the local capacity strengthening policy what this clearly reflects is a shift to from thinking about donor identified gaps and trying to address those gaps in capacity to Shifting the power to the local organizations with whom we are partnering to try to hear from them where they see opportunities where their priorities are for capacity strengthening and seeking to be able to support those as well it also shows up in our Acquisitions and assistance policy in our efforts to do more things like co-creation and co-design to be able to ensure local priorities are really brought into what it it is that we're doing decisions over how why and where we invest but I do want to just comment too because George the point you made is a very good one like when you talk about local priority is like you have to acknowledge that in every country in which we work priorities interests incentives are very heterogeneous right and so thinking about that like we have to make sure that any of everything that we do can respond to multiple different filters right and one of those filters are you know does this respond to local priorities local ideas um uh local Solutions right um but also to what extent does this actually comport with um a you know procurement laws that's one thing but also be our values as well and so ensuring that you know the projects and the programs that we would put forth are ones that do things like Advanced Democratic processes continue to advance diversity Equity inclusion and accessibility priorities work through things like climate change Etc and so I think that that's one sort of you know key answer to that is that there have to be multiple filters to how we think about our work the second question you ask George is about International expertise and the role of that and the the very short answer to that question is that there is a key role for everybody in terms of thinking about how we advance locally led development International implementing Partners have very key roles with their technical expertise that they bring they have key roles as mentors in capacity strengthening we talk to local Partners quite a bit who talk about the value that they get from their relationships with local with International implementers in that case when you think about local private sector as well you know they have you know strong connections Innovation Etc that and and relationships there and of course International faith-based groups have you know deep roots and good connections as well and so the key to this is really just in the relationships right how do those relationships exist that create that space for really creating the conditions for local actors to take the lead over some of these kinds of issues um the definition question George is a a great one and I want to use this opportunity to thank very much publish what you fund who's put forth some analysis and it has done a lot of thought leadership around you know different or alternative ways that you might measure what it means to be local and I just want to underscore too that this analysis actually highlights that there is a lot of ways that you could measure what it means to be local what it means to be local is a very complex it's an inherently nuanced kind of concept right and so any definition that you might choose will sort of inherently come with sort of Errors of inclusion or exclusion sort of depending on where you draw that line and so what we have put forth in terms of thinking about how we're measuring what it means to be local it's a proxy for a local leadership and we aim to sort of create this proxy with the understanding that another priority that the agency has is one of Burden reduction as well and so we wanted to be able to as much as possible draw data from our existing systems to be able to put forth a suggestive you know value in terms of the the the amount of funding that we're providing to local organizations and so I also want to underscore that we have a commitment to transparency through all of this too and again thanks to publish what you fund for for continuing their advocacy for transparency um we are aiming to put forward we are sorry we have a commitment to publish our data set of what organizations we are considering local as part of our progress report and so that those who wish to dive into that data set and apply different filters are absolutely welcome to do so Michelle Susan anything to add I'd love just to add it was wonderful to hear sir that you're reflecting on this isn't new right and we were talking beforehand uh when we created the policy planning and learning Bureau 13 years ago the previous heads of policy Bureau sent me policy documents from the time of the admin the Kennedy administration and it was about sustainability it was about locally led development and whether it's usaid Ford and local Solutions or journey to self-reliance and now it evolves and I guess my question related to that you don't need to answer it now but it's something of how do we ensure it's institutionalized because we get so stuck in in feeling like we're not making progress and again you know this is a unique moment and so having consistency and definitions having consistency in data so whoever's sitting in these chairs in the future we're actually seeing we're moving this direction because I think as we all know right they're not waiting for us it's a very different environment and again you know congratulations to the to the team for really taking this on in in a very bold way but I think we have a lot of work to do as a community okay now put your moderator hole okay I um so now in a constant wave one of the things that was emphasized in the policy framework and the Deputy Administrator uh mentioned was the importance of the private sector and again kudos for the private sector engagement modernize and all of the work uh clearly that this Administration has been doing building on previous administrations and yet we know agility and speed are absolutely critical to working with the private sector and at iif I have the privilege of working with a lot of companies um in in it's not in a transactional way and so I think it goes back to this larger theme that George put at the start of like how do we they're in for the long haul you know whether it's caterpillar who iyf has partnered with for 20 years maybe it's two to three year agreements or Hilton more than a decade it's and in this case it's about youth employment the the policy framework talks about the importance of the private sector but we often think about it as terms of resources but it's actually the commitment to sob development challenges whether it's youth employment climate change you know Health Systems and you know how we actually then think about this in terms of also local uh private sector and so we'd love to hear your thoughts on this and you know that there's just we need the agility to move quickly and while it's great the this Administration created The Edge fund it is only 50 million dollars right and there's huge potential to really uh you know grow that and how do we make sure the edge fund which for those of you who don't know it's a fund that very quickly hopefully they're going to make announcements any day of a private sector Partnerships often with International organizations and USA admissions to dive into an issue but how do we make sure it's not just the same organizations and we're really growing the partnership base which again is a priority for this Administration so your thoughts on some of those questions well let me let me say a couple of things one is this is another issue that we've been trying to do for a long time I think we all remember the global development Alliance and the work that's been done there so I think um I'm what I would say is I think the edge fund is our attempt to try to be agile and Nimble within a world where a lot of our funding is earmarked and so what we're trying to do is to say can we have a small pot of money 50 million dollars to demonstrate that we can do this to demonstrate that it will make a difference and demonstrate that we can bring new and different partners to the table and as soon as we get our 653a approved by Congress three we will make some announcements but I think it is it is the first attempt we are also working within some sectors that have traditionally been working with the private sector whether it's the agriculture sector or the education sector or the micro Enterprise sector we're also having them think differently about how they work so one of the things that's unique about the private sector modernization effort in this Administration is that oftentimes we centralize those um that that Outreach unit and we say that all has to be done within when we're doing that this with foundations or we're the hub for foundations in PPL but the way they have done this with the private sector engagement is that there are contacts for all of these private companies across the agency and so if you're working with caterpillar and you're an RFS you're the main lead for that company it doesn't have to be in our democracy development and Innovation private sector team and so what we're trying to do is is institutionalize this across and make everybody have some ownership of it one of the concerns that you mentioned is really the focus on big Corporation and look there's always going to be a focus on big corporations whether it's bear going to Ukraine as she had mentioned or others but we're also working with different ways of working so the Aspen Network worked with young people in Guatemala and has worked with 60 corporations to bring a pot of money together about 60 million dollars for them to get seed funding for for young small organ small private sector companies in Guatemala so we're also trying to think about how do we kind of build from the bottom up which is about the inclusive economic growth model so we're a couple of minutes from moving to the audience participation before we do that and because I'm a member of the center for sustainable development and I've got Tony Pippa sitting here Michelle I have to ask you the sustainable development goals the framework has a upfront commitment but then it's not mentioned again in the framework and unlike all other major donors the U.S has not really embraced and brought the sdgs into the policy into your policies and programs and projects and you know what you're doing is in pursuit of a lot of the specific 17 goals but you're not using that as a frame and why is that so I have some really good talking points here on them let me say a couple of Cups one is that we are very proud to be supporters of the sustainable development goals the National Security strategy talks about it our strategy talks about it and we are working uh very carefully with the interagency as we lead up to the sdg summit in September to really put forward some real commitments around the sdgs as you said we everything that we do is in those 17 goals every project that we have every policy and strategy we put house out has goals and outcomes attached to those and so it is true we we do not outline in the policy framework this is about sdg this this is about sdg that but we are very focused on achieving the sdgs and we're very focused in this policy framework on integrating all of those projects together whether it's gender whether it's our new democracy delivers project which says we're all about supporting Democratic countries that are trying to make a difference address corruption and then in those countries we're going to show that that by we're going to show that there is the progress has been made and that the communities can see it by bringing in more Health money more education money so we are very committed to it but um but it is true it is not integrated here by calling it out by sdg but I wouldn't read that as us stepping up stepping back from it this policy framework steps very forward into Meeting those SD these those sdgs and as someone previously said we are the biggest provider of Oda and we're not stepping back from that and we will continue to apply that in ways that get us towards achieving the sdgs okay over to you there's a microphone uh uh please introduce yourself up front there's a question here up front introduce yourself and be brief and end your comments with a question mark thank you very much my name is Matthew Murray and a former Commerce former usaid and currently teach at Columbia and do usaid Project work in in Ukraine in Egypt and Armenia so congratulations on this incredibly um broad-based and and deeply thought out policy as well as other leadership initiatives that usaid has shown on on anti-corruption and other similar important policy areas the question that I have goes to as you look at broad-based inclusive economic growth that leverages U.S private sector in different countries there are at least two challenges and there are many but through the traditional local challenges but there's also a a strategic competition challenge arising from the from Russia to some extent from China pushing a model of capitalism which is antithetical to Broad inclusive growth and that is based in in certain ways on oligarchic rules of the game right so that's a challenge that you face the other challenge is actually in some respects here at home because you know the United States is as you know changing the way it approaches free trade generally it's adopting industrial policies that some of our traditional trade partners are not very happy with at the moment and so I'm just curious how the the economic component of what you're doing addresses those two particular challenges thanks Matt Michelle wow these are hard questions that's not an easy question but um so I think um that goes back to kind of the theme that we started with which is the world has changed um and that it is important for us to change and to think differently about the work we're doing and so what I would say is I think that the partnership for growth um pgii is actually the best example of um of our new way of working so under pgii it's an interagency project where we are thinking about how do we build infrastructure in countries where we're all working and how do we use the different tools that we have across the interagency how does DFC go in with certain tools how do we go in with tools we probably go in before DFC goes in because we're creating the enabling environment then DFC comes in MCC comes in and the countries where they're working State Department is doing a ton of work to try to bring private sector to the table and for the first time in my career at usaid we're working very carefully and closely with Commerce to think about how do we really but what does the private sector need to be able and willing to go into those countries if our private sector doesn't go in if we don't go in then countries like China and Russia who do have a different model for development who do have a different way of supporting infrastructure and other investments will be there and the issue is also I mean the other issue that makes this really hard is that we have to do all of this while maintaining our values as the United States for transparency for sustainability for falling environmental and social policies that we care about but we do feel like we're making a difference we're finding countries are saying you know we really do want to create projects with you and not using those other models because they're seeing how things work and don't work so I would say that pgii is probably our best example of how we're working differently which is very consistent with both the National Security strategy as well as with you know driving progress Beyond programs and working across the interagency the final thing I'll say is the this is not just a U.S initiative it's a G7 effort it's taken a while to get off the ground as the G7 I will admit that but in the next G7 leader Summit you're going to see real commitments by each of the partners to this initiative and to us working together into projects that we're working together on and Matthew I'm going to play a dual role like Susan and the latter part of your question has been something that's troubled me for some time and that is conflict the conflict between what we know the benefits of open trade is with the growing industrial policy and I think somewhere down the road there has to be a new set of rules for the game um and at some point we've got to bring China into this game and we've got to set some rules that protect promote advance trade and open trade in the context of knowing that governments are going to play a role in favoring particular sectors in their economy I don't know how that's going to come out but somebody's smarter than I am needs to deal with that issue yes young man up here in the purple shirt thanks so much hey I'm Sam I'm just a recent college grad but long admirer of both work usaid and in Brookings um so I just had a question you were talking a lot at the beginning of the conversation about the need to center a lot of this policy on promoting you know women and girls uh initiatives there and I could not agree more you know everything from education to you know access to menstrual products but from what I understand a lot of um organizations uh throughout the world have found it difficult to partner with the US given you know with each uh turnover in party leadership in the executive branch we've flip-flopped on you know the Mexico City policy or like AG Rule and that's made certain organizations on the ground hesitant to work with U.S funding at all because there's this lack of long-term commitment so given the sort of flux in in U.S politics and how that can affect our funding and the particular projects we're willing to engage with how do you instill you know you joked about going back to the Kennedy administration we're sort of stuck in this cycle so how do you say all right we are going to be there in the long term in these particular projects which require long-term funding are going to see continued funding when we know certain administrations are more or less willing to actually um feed funding particularly for um you know the issues of you know gender Equity that you're discussing Susan do you want to tackle that because you've had to deal with that both as aid but now thanks so much Susan heads up an organization which Partners is created to partner with local organizations for the long term yeah and and it's so important what you're uh pointing out of there are changes of administrations and our partners are extremely Savvy sometimes more savvy than we are about the intricacies whether it's the Mexico City policy or where we are on locally led development and whatnot uh and I think what I learned under serving in in under five administrations actually with usaid and now running a non-profit is uh it goes back to I think what Isabella and Michelle and Sarah have pointed out and we all feel is this is the largest development agency in the world you know it is and it's been 60 years and so how do you sustain those relationships even during the tough times and and I really applaud our missions on the ground the way iyf works we only have local offices local teams work through local Partners who can really navigate that those uncertain times and we shouldn't take it for granted because again getting back to we're in a different environment now so they might have been with us in the past and they kind of got it and and you know I I did start around the time of the Cold War ending and that shifted development dramatically I'm sure there are many people online among my former colleagues who know how development was during a cold war period And I think we have to rethink this so you're raising an important point that I hope will really take and we will think about this new environment we're working in and how do we keep those Partnerships because it's so important for the long term can I just say one thing um because I've been a women's health advocate for a very very long time and and working on gender issues off and on over my career I think a couple things I would say one is it is true that um every Administration there will be hot button issues we've all worked on them we've all seen them happen they'll they'll raise their heads but what I've seen through various administrations as well is that usaid and the state department and many other agencies are full of professionals who figure out how to keep those relationships as Susan said going and working in the way they they need to and the last thing I'll just close on is the importance of evidence and going back to that we have demonstrated over the years that women are the kind of engine of the world right if you give money to women they're going to spend it on their children their kids are going to be better educated I don't have the statistics right on the tip of my tongue but we all know them and that evidence is actually what kept a lot of the gender work that we started in the Obama Administration and had started in Clinton and other Administrations going through the Bush Administration the Bush Administration did great things on gender and women's issues their women were the center of pepfar and really were part of that even in the Trump Administration um there they continued to work on gender issues on gender women's economic growth issues maybe they did it slightly differently than we did and we might have come in and shifted the different ways of working but because the evidence is so strong of the importance of women to making economies grow Administration through Administration will will still continue to work on it so I would encourage all of us to really think about how do we keep building evidence out of our programs of the importance of focusing on women good um I forgot to mention earlier that we had about 18 questions submitted with the registration and Susan and I have folded probably about six of those into the questions we've asked so thank you all for buying item not doing questions for the record though good ideas I like that um have we had any uh since we started any online to that you want to bring to the foreign we have one question along that line of evidence the policy framework appropriately references the use of experimental methods and cache benchmarking to improve the cost effectiveness of programming however a study usaid did in 2020 found that owning 10 percent of usaid evaluations are impact evaluations and have if usaid impact evaluations don't meet the agency's own definition of an impact evaluation owning three percent were very high quality it would seem that to improve cost Effectiveness usaid you should do many more impact evaluations the question is is usaid taking any steps to expand the number and quality of impact evaluations with cost analysis First Community that or no it sounds like a question Sarah would have asked when she was at cgd but go ahead start I can start and then Michelle please because this is this is your this is how you do it did you plant that question Sarah that's a great question great data so of course so so the answer to that the short answer again is that yes usaid is taking a lot of steps to to you know think about how to do more impact evaluations and more cost analysis so many of you are familiar with the evaluation policy that was instituted in 2011 which really highlighted the importance or the need to do impact evaluations for Pilots or for programs that you are testing um and in 2020 we've sort of re-upped that policy and made some additions to it to really emphasize the importance of conducting an impact evaluation when the question that you are trying to answer is about attribution right in terms of what usaid contributed to the to the outcomes that you see at the same time we also added new requirements that all Impact evaluation should be accompanied with cost analysis to be able to get build this data bank if you will of sort of the cost effectiveness of different kinds of interventions so we haven't seen the full effect of these these changes yet and actually I would just note that the kovid pandemic of course led to lockdown down so trilly put a damper on some of our evaluations a number of them were delayed or canceled and actually you can see this in the data that we have on our development experience Clearinghouse we've gone from an average of about 150 evaluations per year to only 68 in fiscal year 2021 and 76 and FY 2022 but I would note that despite the sort of overall declining Trend impact evaluations have stayed steady and they've actually increased to 24 percent of the total and they were 18 of them published in FY 21 and 17 in FY 22. so uh so the commitment to impact evaluations is certainly there and strong and I know Michelle mentioned earlier too that you know beyond our own commitment to thinking about impact evaluation you know usaid is partnering with the Hewlett Foundation as well as the center for Global development and an initiative to think about how can you strengthen local policy makers in particular in Africa to think about how to engage with evidence how to produce engage with evidence um in a stronger and a different kind of way that can help inform policy making more broadly as well as our own programming and I would also just note too that you know with the leadership that we have in place at USA there is really strong commitment to this both from administrator power to Deputy Administrator Coleman of course the new Chief Economist Dean Carlin has been a leader in in this kind of thinking for many years and and Michelle of course as the leader of PPL bringing these efforts forward as well but what would you add to that the only other thing I would add is just I I would focus on the fact that Dean Carlin our new Chief Economist is very very focused on this and he's been working with us we're actually looking at the program cycle and new rules to a new way this is so bureaucratic but it's the way USA Works which is that we're putting in new requirements around impact evaluation what what and are not on evidence to make sure that we are doing what you what you just described so there will be some new things coming out probably in the next six months on this and then we're also looking at the evaluation policy and thinking about is there or need to look at it and think about the use of evidence not just you know how we evaluate and how you do it and what it looks like but then how do we use that evaluate that evaluation evidence in the budget cycle in the project design to make sure it's being applied so some of that will really come out in the next couple months good great um passive right behind you Sally thank you George thanks everybody first of all congratulations again for getting your policy framework out I know that's been uh that's a big lift also wanted to just congratulate the administration administrator also on having a very ambitious goal on localization we know it's hard we appreciate her kind of referencing referencing that last week and we look very much forward to seeing the progress report coming out and appreciate the um the point that you will make all your data we promised to look at it we'll make we promise to get back to you on that um so just um two quick questions on localization one is that something George alluded to and that is I what we look at as an opportunity to drive more funding to local organizations and that is looking at that pot of money that is U.N money that is projectized so not that kind of the assessed contributions that we make but the money that is set aside for technical cooperation and other local other projects that are country-based we've heard from some of our infant Southern voices that that is a huge opportunity and we we estimate it's about 840 plus million dollars a year that could be open to the possibility of being more local so we just kind of would be interested in your comments on that in terms of being another opportunity and then second I'd be really interested to hear on the other donors the commitment that you got from the 11 or 17 or whatever other donors in terms of they're pushing the localization goal what's next in that com I mean usaid has been the leader in terms of setting a pretty tough goal for itself so what are the other donors doing what do we think the next steps are for that so I could yeah let me let me tackle the first ones because Sally that's a really important point and I and I want to just um underscore that the point that you made highlights you know again we have a definition of local partner there's a lot of other ways that you can advance locally led development that is not just tied to that that definition that we are using to capture progress towards this target for a direct local funding and so and again we're capturing some of these things separately like we're capturing government to government assistance separately we're capturing like Regional organizations separately acknowledging that those are also very important as well but the the category that you particularly call that and George you did as well and I apologize for just blazing right through that um is about sort of U.N organizations and pios because you know we do recognize that a lot of those kinds of modalities and and this and beyond that it could be things like you know trust funds managed by the World Bank et cetera as well a lot of these do end up being you know almost just pass-throughs to local organizations and can be um really useful vehicles for empowering local organizations and getting funding to local organizations the trick for us though is that um there is a there's a range of the way that these organizations report to usaid and a range of the way that our systems capture these relationships as well so it's not an easy thing for us to capture right now that said we are in exploratory phases right now of how we can capture that better because the point you made is exactly right that these in some cases can be really important vehicles for advancing liquid development um thank you that is a very important uh focus of ours and I know for BHA which your number seems a little low to me because BHA gives tons of resources to the world food program who then does subsequently sometimes do go to ingos but also sometimes to local organizations so we are also working with them to try to figure out how we can count that and think about that in terms of the other donors we're super excited we got 14 other donors to join with us and we are now in the process of working through with them what the next steps look like and so some of the next steps are things like we're working with the oecd DAC they have a working group on localization and they're looking at kind of trying to come to a common definition for the DAC members we're looking at potentially a new metric on localization you know we all work towards numbers right we've done that since we were little in school in our grades and as adults we work towards those numbers so the DAC is thinking about a new metric on localization they're also collecting best practices what works across different organizations and agencies we're working on sharing with each other our playbooks on vocalization Australia has an incredible Playbook on working with local organizations so we're trying to share that information and then finally some organ some of the entities that signed on will probably never give 20 of their 25 percent of their resources to local Partners it's just not the modalities that they work on but some countries are doing things like saying if we give money to our national ngos in our country then those ngos can only keep a portion of those resources in our country the resources have to flow to the countries where we're working so we're trying to think about every country will have a different way of playing in this space but how can we work with them a little differently we're also working with foundations to get them to make commitments to localization and so our fuel at mou is our first foray into that where we're working with local monitoring evaluation organizations but we're really trying to move this throughout the ecosystem and I want to I just also say one of the differences for localization in this Administration from past administrations has been the support we've received from the NGO Community the Contracting community and others I have scars still as does Don Steinberg who worked on this and Susan does too from the hearing questions that we received over the years from the concern that this would mean that we wouldn't be funding ingos or contractors here in Washington it is an ecosystem everyone will continue to be funded it just the shift there'll be power ships money shifts so I just want to say thank you to the community that has been so thoughtful you've put a lot of pressure on us and we appreciate that to be also to reach as high as we can okay we're approaching the witching hour so we need to wrap up everybody gets a few Min a minute to conclude I'm going to start with you Susan oh wow and and what is what is your takeaway and also what are you grappling with that that the community needs to be grappling with and that the agency or we here at Brookings or whoever yeah I think one of the things I'm grappling with maybe I mean so the takeaway is this is a big step forward and again kudos to everyone who worked on it but what I think many of us are grappling with everything we talked about today requires people and if we're going to achieve you know localization mfan the modernizing foreign assistance Network a long time push for how do we have enough people at usaid in order to deliver on more effective development or innovation right we just had fig to launched last week unlocked Aid big group part of this all this comes down to people and I guess we can't do questions but I just would sit this with something Michelle testified to is we need a new way of thinking about this so she put out there you know maybe 15 of all program funding actually is used for people who can actually help Advance this because if you're going to do Innovation locally-led development a development that really requires it require requires more people in usaid more resources and George and I have the numbers we'll put it out in a blog it'll tempt you of what you'll see what what but the people within usaid are managing and as the program resources have come up people are managing more and more challenges within the agency and we've got to fix this because just to end it coming back to where we started we're in a whole new world right now and our development architecture has not kept up with the challenges that we need to meet today I can't resist picking up on that in the last 10 years Aid's program money has doubled and it's Staffing money has barely gone up at all exactly and you're asking Aid people to do more and more and more without adding to their staff you know their training um and I think Beyond you know 15 of program money being allocated to Staffing which Michelle you suggested on the hill a few weeks ago um I think the agency the appropriators need to get rid of the OE account like most government agencies and beyond that I think the agency really needs to engage somebody like the National Academy of public administrations to rethink the whole Personnel system in the 21st century minor minor project Sarah what are your thoughts so thank you and I I will frame my thoughts just around localization just because that's the focus that I I bring to my work primarily um and I think the first thing that I would just note too is just like sort of the clear sort of um sort of cross-cutting nature of a lot of these things like when we think about localization um it's not an initiative right it's a how we work and it's sort of how we do all of these other pieces that we're trying to bring forth both in the the policy framework as well as um as well as just the broader work that we do and the other um thing I notice as part of our conversation today is that there was a number of different um times that we talked about why this is a different moment right so um I was talking about how the focus on power is different Michelle talked about the consensus uh the new kind of consensus and support for localization that we see now as well but I also just want to highlight that this is a different moment for this too because of all the we have a rich base of Lessons Learned now we've been doing this for some time so we have lessons from from prior leadership um we have lessons from our staff who have been doing this for a long time we have lessons from our implementing partner Community uh we have lessons from Advocates as well and so I just want to say that this is a process and we are open and willing and very eager to continue to continue to learn those lessons as we move this forward localization is not a short-term Endeavor um it is something that we are pushing forward over the over the long term as well um so I have a couple things I'm grappling with first of all climate change we have not talked a lot here about climate change it is one of our core priorities um and with the new world Bank president just approved today um it'll be one of his priorities but I think that a lot of the progress we've made over the years is being um whittled Away by climate change and so how do we incorp how do we you know development has often seen climate change as something over there and it's really important that we really integrate climate change and the administrator often says that we're a climate agency so we're trying to really as we think about integration how do we how do we own that and feel that the second thing I'm grappling with is what you talked about which is there's a whole section of the policy framework and I actually have a printed one which is kind of new in this world um about what we're doing to strengthen the agency and people is very important we have a global development partnership initiative which the administrator launched we have hired more people I think we've hired 400 new people in the since 2022 so we're working really hard we're focusing those hirings in areas like contractors and climate change experts and deia those areas that are new and that are different so I would also just say that we also have are focused on our Foreign Service National staff which is a huge portion of our staff that does not turn over every three years as our Foreign Service officers do and it is a big part of our deia initiative our localization initiative so those are other issues that we're grappling with and I'll just close by saying thank you to George to Susan to Tony to everybody who commented on the policy framework when it was circulated we have a Excel spreadsheet with every comment and every how we addressed every single one but we wanted I just want to close by saying please continue to engage with us we are happy to come to small groups to large groups we want to Grapple with these issues we want reports to come out that challenge us as publish what you funded but that's what this is all about because we want to get better so thank you for having us thanks for the hard questions and please continue to engage well I wish we had another hour because there are some important questions I wanted to pose I really wanted to Grapple with the burden reduction effort which I think is so important to the Staffing issue so the staffing has time to do what they should be doing um and there are other issues I think you know threaded through here was the theme which I don't think we're adequately grappling with sort of a dual theme Matthew raised the issue of how should we be movering in the in an international climate and framework which is changing and is challenging the traditional thought of how public policy supports Enterprise free enterprise private sector um and how we how we make the case for development and a Geo in a frame that's being dominated by a geopolitical concerns um particularly at a time when there's such political divide in this country um and I don't think any of us are adequately dealing with that issue and we we need to address it and my thanks to you all for coming today for everybody online um Susan Sarah Michelle thank you very much for being with us today thank you George thank you

Channel: Brookings Institution

Views: 2,041

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Id: 8jb49-IablU

Length: 98min 0sec (5880 seconds)

Published: Thu May 04 2023