The U.S. Agency for International Development began 2024 celebrating the correction of a four-decade separation of policy, strategy, and budget: Administrator Samantha Power swore in Michele Sumilas as head of the newly instituted Bureau for Planning, Learning and Resource Management on Jan. 10.
With the PLR bureau now fully functional, there are further steps to take for its full potential to be reached, including adequate staffing, ensuring the PLR bureau is led by a Senate-confirmed assistant administrator, and establishing productive workflows with USAID’s new independent Offices of Policy and the State Department’s Office of Foreign Assistance.
The rejoining of these critical and interdependent functions into a single bureau has been a key recommendation for improving USAID’s effectiveness for more than a decade.