In her first 100 days as administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development — a milestone she hit Wednesday — Samantha Power has lived up to her “star power” billing.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning genocide scholar and former United Nations ambassador has made headlines with high-profile trips in support of key pieces of President Joe Biden’s foreign policy and as the face of the White House’s global COVID-19 efforts — including on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” a first for the head of USAID.
Power has not shied from speaking out about human rights abuses, political persecution, and threats to democracy in her new role.
In June, she traveled to the Northern Triangle in support of Biden’s plan to address the root causes of migration, on the heels of Vice President Kamala Harris’ trip to the region. In the past two weeks, she visited a democratizing Sudan and then Ethiopia, where she sought — but did not get — a meeting with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and laid out the White House’s position on resolving the country’s political and humanitarian crisis.
By comparison, her plans for USAID’s own bureaucracy have flown under the radar. The most visible change she has made at the agency so far is the addition of a second deputy administrator position to her top management team — though both nominees are still stuck in Senate confirmation limbo.
But in the background, Power has repeatedly suggested she is not satisfied with the agency’s current mix of implementing partners and signaled to potential allies that she is interested in making changes. Power has kept up a steady and familiar drumbeat for the need to shift USAID’s funding to local partners.
“We … were encouraged that this is something she was looking at,” said Erin Collinson, director of policy outreach at the Center for Global Development. “The question is: What would be different about this?”
Power would hardly be the first USAID chief to push localization, and she would likely face perennial challenges around defining it, along with vested interests, staffing constraints, and a rigid regulatory environment.
"The push for localization is great but not new — our processes prevent us from localized development because we have contracting/administrative people who are responsive to corporate metrics and rules," a current USAID official — who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press — wrote to Devex.
However, Power’s political stature, as well as political and social shifts surrounding the agency’s work in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and racial justice movements, could give a boost to reform efforts if she chose to pursue them.
“To engage authentically with local partners and to move toward a more locally led development approach is staff-, time-, and resource-intensive — but it is also vital to our long-term success.”
— Samantha Power, administrator, U.S. Agency for International DevelopmentEven before she took office — but after she was nominated — Power went on the record about her desire to take a hard look at how USAID spends money.
“What’s in my mind is this idea of a much more bottom-up approach, of much more support for local actors,” Power said in a conversation with Kennedy Odede, CEO at the Kenyan grassroots organization Shining Hope for Communities, at the World Communities Forum in April.
On June 10, just over a month after taking the helm of USAID, Power addressed the agency’s annual Small Business Conference, where she took a harder line on the agency’s heavy reliance on large contractors to carry out its work.
“Throughout much of USAID’s history, a majority of projects have been awarded to the same select group of large contractors — a reality that holds back healthy competition, limits our exposure to new approaches, robs small businesses of the chance to gain valuable experience, and doesn’t make the best possible use of valuable taxpayer dollars,” she said.
Those comments struck a familiar tone. Former USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah battled with the agency’s U.S.-based implementing partners during former President Barack Obama’s administration, declaring in 2011, “This agency is no longer satisfied with writing big checks to big contractors and calling it development.”
Power has brought back a veteran of the localization fights that ensued from Shah’s effort to shift 30% of the agency’s funding to local organizations — Donald Steinberg, Shah’s former deputy, who is serving in Power’s office as “expert consultant.”
“In particular, he will support new and ongoing efforts to enhance our development localization agenda and expand strategic ties with foundations and major philanthropies,” Power wrote in an internal message that was shared with the USAID Alumni Association.
“Administrator Power came with a high profile to the agency, and I think that did help her recruit some impressive, well-versed individuals … that know the agency well and know the operating environment well,” Collinson said.
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Last month, in a pair of congressional hearings, Power came equipped with numbers to back up her concerns about USAID’s current funding recipients. She told lawmakers that in fiscal year 2020, USAID only obligated about 5.6% of its budget to local partners, despite efforts by the previous two administrations to broaden the agency’s partner base.
“To engage authentically with local partners and to move toward a more locally led development approach is staff-, time-, and resource-intensive — but it is also vital to our long-term success to sustainable development,” she told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Two prominent members of that committee, Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, and Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, have joined in the effort.
Last month, they introduced a bill to shore up USAID’s New Partnerships Initiative, created under former Administrator Mark Green in an attempt to knock down some of the hurdles for organizations interested in working with the agency.
A person with knowledge of the legislation told Devex the bill reflects the lawmakers’ interest in diversifying USAID’s partner base away from large legacy organizations and said that given Power’s interest in the issue, the bill could “serve as the foundation for larger changes to contracting at USAID.”
Those from the contracting community tend to argue that USAID ought to be agnostic about who implements its programs, so long as the implementer is chosen based on its ability to deliver the best possible results.
“Ultimately, the appropriate way to judge the success of capacity building is not to look at what country the implementing partner is registered in, or the nationalities of the employees, but rather, to look at the development results achieved for the partner country relative to the dollars spent on the project,” wrote David Snelbecker, CEO at the International Development Group, in a policy agenda for the new administration released by the Council of International Development Companies in June.
A source on the contractor side of the industry who asked not to be named told Devex, “The first months of the new USAID administration have been constructive and collegial.”
While much of this carries a sense of deja vu from past procurement reform debates, the context surrounding the conversation this time has changed.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced many foreign development workers to return to their home countries, and led some organizations and donors to shift more authority to local staff and community-based organizations that remain.
In addition, the Black Lives Matter protests that began in the U.S. and quickly spread around the world have driven unprecedented attention to structural racism within the humanitarian and development sectors.
The rise of this global conversation has forced organizations to scrutinize their own internal hiring and advancement practices. It has also forced a system-wide reckoning within a global aid industry that still replicates colonial-era power dynamics that privilege Western perspectives and institutions over the communities they purport to serve. Those concerns have now merged with long-standing arguments in favor of shifting funding and authority to local organizations and leaders.
They are captured in a report published by Peace Direct in May, which was based on consultations with 158 experts and practitioners from around the world.
“Following the Black Lives Matter protests that evolved into a global movement in the summer of 2020, those working in the aid sector have been forced to confront the reality that their own work is steeped in structural racism, something which has been barely discussed or acknowledged until very recently,” the report reads.
“The most widespread example cited in the consultation was funding opportunities for programmes and research which benefit a relatively small number of ‘usual suspects’ i.e. INGOs with pre-existing relationships with donors,” it says.
While former President Donald Trump’s administration vilified the Black Lives Matter movement and largely dismissed complaints about structural racism within government institutions and regulations, Biden, through executive order, has directed federal agencies to address these concerns.
“Because advancing equity requires a systematic approach to embedding fairness in decision-making processes, executive departments and agencies ... must recognize and work to redress inequities in their policies and programs that serve as barriers to equal opportunity,” it reads.
That mandate could give Power a clearer rationale for looking at USAID’s procurement policies and the funding relationships they foster — and it could put those opposed to such efforts in a difficult position.