Toward the New USAID II : three years of reform progress

Chapter 1 describes the rationale behind the sweeping reforms, while Chapter 2 discusses USAID"s new strategic framework, which aligns development assistance with the national interests of promoting U.S. economic security, enhancing prospects for peace and stability, preventing humanitarian and other complex crises, and protecting the United States against specific global dangers. In formulating new processes for doing business, USAID was guided by five core values: customer focus, results orientation, empowerment/accountability, teamwork, and diversity. Chapter 3 briefly describes USAID"s engagement in the National Performance Review process. Chapter 4 reviews USAID"s structural reorganization efforts, which reflected the basic principles contained in the NPR, including streamlining management structure and procedures, and eliminating duplicative processes. The reorganization eliminated one high level layer of management and reduced the number of major organizational units by five. This was accompanied by a process of internal rightsizing achieved through the closure of several overseas missions and reductions in force. Overseeing implementation of the NPR recommendations was the USAID Administrator"s Quality Council, described in Chapter 5. Chapter 6 provides an overview of USAID"s business systems analyses and design, including program operations, accounting, procurement, budget, human resources, and property management, and the development of an automated data system that integrates these systems, known as the New Management System (NMS). Also streamlined were USAID"s internal management regulations, which deal with planning, achieving, and monitoring and evaluating Agency performance. Agency handbooks, consisting of 12,000 pages, were replaced by a computerized Automated Directives System (ADS), which is recounted in Chapter 7. Chapter 8 describes USAID"s customer service plan, which received praise from the NPR and the Administration. Chapter 9 discusses the Lessons Without Borders program, which has provided a forum for USAID development professionals to share practical techniques learned in 30 years of development work abroad with their counterparts in the United States. Efforts to institutionalize the new procedures and cultural changes throughout the Agency, e.g., by establishing Results Oriented Reengineering teams and providing training in reengineering theory, practices, and systems, are described in Chapter 10. The report concludes with a summary of USAID"s management improvement initiatives and projected outcomes.