U.S. Agency for International Development: Background, Operations, and Issues

Agency for International Development (USAID) is the leading international humanitarian and development arm of the U.S. government. The agency provides assistance to a range of countries, with 125 countries receiving aid in FY2013. Of those, 23 countries received under $1 million, mostly small island nations or countries receiving one-time funds for humanitarian purposes. In FY2013, nearly 40% of funds attributable to countries and regions went to sub-Saharan Africa and more than 19% went to Afghanistan and Pakistan. USAID maintains more than 60 country and regional missions that design and implement development projects, most intended to meet specific development objectives as formulated in a Country Development Cooperation Strategy. These projects are implemented through grants, cooperative agreements, or contracts by various development partners, including nonprofit private voluntary organizations, non-governmental organizations, for-profit contractors, universities, international organizations, and foreign governments, and civil society organizations. The agency has undergone numerous reforms since 2010, under its USAID Forward agenda, to address challenges in budgeting, evaluation, human resources, use of the private sector, and the application of science and technology to development issues. These reforms aim to improve the agency's ability to provide effective assistance to partner countries and to address the needs of the U.S. government. USAID faces several challenges in the course of fulfilling its mission, including providing assistance to local entities, which incurs the risk of loss of taxpayer dollars. Efforts to mitigate this risk require more personnel and funding to monitor local entities and build their capacities. Sustainability is another challenge, as the agency seeks to ensure that project efforts are maintained by local governments and organizations after financial and technical support is ended. The agency has sought to address sustainability through "country ownership" and domestic resource mobilization efforts, but a clear path to sustainability remains a work in progress. The agency also faces human resource shortages, particularly in specific skill sets required to work with local partners and meet the needs of the Food Security Initiative. Additionally, the agency's ability to program project activities in accordance with development professional and partner country expectations is restricted by congressional funding and presidential funding. Scaling up successful ideas from pilot projects to maturity and making them work at the country, regional, and international level requires a long-term funding horizon, program flexibility, and the ability to spread ideas throughout the agency. Security concerns in non-permissive environments, such as South Sudan and Afghanistan, raise obstacles to successful project implementation. The agency's ability to address these challenges is critical to its success in fulfilling its mission.