Secretary Clinton and Administrator Shah have embraced a set of foreign assistance effec- tiveness principles to ensure that all U.S. assistance adheres to the highest standards and achieves the best results. The principles are based on the Paris Declaration on Aid Effective- ness and the Accra Agenda for Action and formulated to address the shared challenges of the State Department and USAID.
1. Partnership: Foreign assistance is most effective when we partner with the countries and people receiving our assistance. To advance this principle, the United States will focus on:
• Country ownership, with partner countries taking the lead in developing and imple-
menting evidence-based strategies, as appropriate. In those countries where govern- ments are strongly committed to development and democracy, country ownership means working much more closely with and through those governments; in all coun- tries it means working closely and consulting with organizations and the people most directly affected by programs and activities.
• Mutual accountability, creating mechanisms for meaningful commitments for action
and resource allocation by both partner governments and donors.
2. Sustainability: To be effective over time, assistance must be sustainable and build the capacity of host nations to create the conditions that make assistance is no longer neces- sary. The United States will focus on:
• Moving from a primary emphasis on service-delivery to promoting self-sustaining
development progress, including improving regulatory environments, institutional capacity, and the responsiveness of governments to their people.
• Strengthening country systems and capacity by investing in host country systems
and implementing partners to the extent practicable and incorporating sustainability into project design.
3. Cooperation: Effective assistance requires cooperation between donors and host nations and among donors and other partners. The United States will focus on:
• Strategic coordination with other donors, including non-governmental donors, private
businesses and other partners to coordinate objectives, programs and projects, and to the extent possible, reporting processes.
• Multilateral mechanisms, using multilateral institutions and facilities whenever appro-
priate, and working to strengthen multilateral capabilities.
• Strengthening cooperation across the U.S. government, to take advantage of the
specialized expertise and skills of all U.S. departments and agencies.
4. Investing for results: Investments must be focused to achieve measurable results. The United States will promote results-based, focused investments through:
• Adaptable approaches, tailoring strategies to fit country contexts.
• Sustained commitments, taking a long-term planning horizon with multi-year funding
guidance to sustain commitments over time.
• Focus on outcomes and impact rather than inputs and outputs, and ensure that the
best available evidence informs program design and execution.
5. Transparency: State and USAID will provide timely, quality information about commit- ments, programs, and results to promote accountability and help governments, civil soci- ety and the public in the United States and abroad better understand our investments. 6. Gender equality: State and USAID will ensure that gender equality and analyses of
impact by gender are incorporated and operationalized throughout our programs at all stages in the program cycle.
health, and climate, have all placed additional planning and reporting burdens on the field. To gain efficiencies in executing the budget and give our people the time they need to implement programs in the field, State and USAID began reviewing these and other planning and reporting obligations in September 2010 to elimi- nate instances of multiple annual operating plans, as well as to identify ways to streamline other aspects of these processes. This streamlining effort, which will be completed by February 2011, will give our personnel back the time they need while improving monitoring and evaluation by consolidating planning processes, revising the MSRP and Performance Plan and Report (PPR), and reducing duplicative processes in a single funding cycle.
In developing its strategic goals and spending plans, State and USAID will con- tinue to reach out to leaders and members of Congress to ensure that their intent and priorities in authorization and appropriations language is fully reflected in our programs and activities. Such prior understanding is essential to maintaining consistent funding for vital initiatives and avoiding excessive earmarks that hamper needed flexibility and rational use of scarce resources.
• Strengthen USAID’s budget and resource management. Effective development depends on the strategic deployment of resources that advance particular programs and align with overall policy goals. USAID must have sufficient control of its budget to systematically deploy its resources where they will have the greatest impact. To ensure this essential role in budget preparation and funding requests, USAID has created a new Office of Budget and Resource Management (BRM), charged with developing USAID’s annual budget proposal and overseeing budget execution. Beginning with FY 2013, the USAID Administrator will propose to the Secretary of State and the Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources a comprehensive development and humanitarian assistance budget for USAID-managed programs that aligns programs and resources with overall priorities. These recommendations will be based on input from the field via the MSRP and the CDCS, as well as the State and USAID regional bureaus’ consideration of regional priorities and tradeoffs during their reviews of the MSRPs.
The Deputy Secretary, supported by the Director of the Office of U.S. Foreign Assistance Resources (F) (see discussion in Part IV, below), will consolidate and review the USAID and State budget components to make an overall recommenda- tion to the Secretary with regard to State and USAID foreign assistance resources.
CHAPTER 3