The nonprofit International Relief and Development is hiring staff and preparing to resume projects after a seven-month ordeal in which it was investigated, suspended, nearly debarred, then unsuspended by the U.S. Agency for International Development when a district judge ruled that the suspension was illegal.
One of the projects is a USAID-funded $9 million anti-opium project that will help Afghan farmers replace poppy production with commodity crops. On returning to normal operations, IRD President and CEO Roger Ervin told Devex, “We are very excited about the path forward. Our enhanced program delivery platform fully integrates technology and will set new standards for transparency and impact.”
After months of covering the debacle, we take a look back at the nonprofit’s troubled recent history and the evolution from the government’s once-largest nonprofit contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan to one of the agency’s best-known pariahs, and the legal battle and reforms that IRD hopes will bring the organization back from the brink.
About the author
Molly Andersmollyanders_dev
Molly Anders is a former U.K. correspondent for Devex. Based in London, she reports on development finance trends with a focus on British and European institutions. She is especially interested in evidence-based development and women’s economic empowerment, as well as innovative financing for the protection of migrants and refugees. Molly is a former Fulbright Scholar and studied Arabic in Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Morocco.
