USAID Contracting

Is USAID's 'go local' strategy hurting US small business?

As USAID is making its big push to engage more with local partners, the process may be taking away opportunities for U.S. small businesses. Firms involved tell Devex that they are not being awarded many lesser-scale projects that instead go to either the "big guys" or non-U.S. local companies.

By John Alliage Morales // 08 July 2013

There was a time when U.S. small businesses used to get most of the smaller awards from U.S. Agency for International Development.

Now, more and more non-U.S. local partners are bagging those contracts, and as USAID is increasingly “going local,” American small businesses are feeling the pinch of the new policy.

This is just one of the unintended consequences of USAID’s local partnership strategy: Small businesses have to compete for awards in a changing yet small market where they are pitted against local partners.

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