The U.S. Agency for International Development plans to incorporate more “ex-post” evaluations into its program cycle and take steps to change the calculus around risk so field staff have more “latitude” to invest in local systems, according to the agency’s policy planning leadership.
USAID unveiled this week a new policy document — “Local systems: A framework for supporting sustained development” — after six months of public consultation to solicit feedback on how the agency can embed “local systems thinking” into every stage of its program cycle, from policy to project design to implementation to evaluation and learning.
Alex Thier, USAID assistant to the administrator in the Bureau for Policy, Planning and Learning, told Devex the framework is meant to help answer the question: “How do we think about the entirety of our development budget as being one that fundamentally supports the development and strengthening of local systems?”