Taking USAID's 'local solutions' beyond 30 percent

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?” More “ex-post” evaluations — which are meant to determine the impact of a project after it is completed, sometimes years later — and a new risk tolerance mindset among agency staff are needed to design and implement projects according to this framework, Thier and other USAID officials involved in the effort suggested. Even though the agency plans to use ex-post evaluations to measure whether development projects are successful or not, these evaluations will not focus on “specific contractor performance” but instead consider the “types of approaches that contribute to more sustainable outcomes,” the assistant to the administrator explained, adding that the goal is to inform USAID’s country strategies and project design. The agency’s implementing partners won’t be required to conduct ex-post evaluations as part of their projects. Instead, funding for such activities will come from USAID’s Bureau for Policy, Planning and Learning’s “budget for priority evaluations,” and the agency will use “high quality evaluation partners to work with staff” to conduct such evaluations, Thier added. Go (more) local The new framework is part of Administrator Rajiv Shah’s ongoing USAID Forward and meant, in part, to reorient the agency’s programs away from funding the delivery of goods and services, and toward partnering with organizations and governments in developing countries so they can sustain service delivery without foreign aid. The framework describes principles that agency staff and implementers should apply at each stage of the USAID program cycle. USAID established a goal of directing 30 percent of its funding to “local solutions” — mostly local organizations and host-country governments — as part of the Implementation and Procurement Reform initiative, one of the first steps in the USAID Forward agenda. But now, Thier said, the objective is to get beyond the 30 percent local solutions target to the point where USAID is using all of its resources to support local systems. In other words: While 70 percent of USAID’s funding might still go to “non-local” implementers once the agency reaches its 30 percent target, all of the agency’s programs should be designed to support and strengthen local systems. When USAID opened the draft framework up for feedback, many in the international development community wanted more specifics. “For almost every audience, it was this question: This all sounds really interesting, but how is this going to affect contracting,” Tjip Walker, senior advisor in USAID’s Bureau for Policy, Planning and Learning, told Devex. “Those are all valid questions, but we came to the conclusion that it was best served trying to address those separately than in here.” USAID plans to build out the specific operational guidelines in a variety of ways, Walker said, including through public “how to notes” and ongoing revisions to the agency’s ADS operational policy, while Thier pointed out that local systems guidance will also be a focus at USAID’s biennial mission director conference next week. Read more on U.S. aid reform online, and subscribe to The Development Newswire to receive top international development headlines from the world’s leading donors, news sources and opinion leaders — emailed to you FREE every business day. See more: Afghanistan, Pakistan programs skew USAID's progress on 'local solutions' USAID: Some inefficiency 'tolerated' for localization in Afghanistan US Congress sending mixed messages on aid 'localization' Local ownership: Who, what and how Is USAID's 'go local' strategy hurting US small business?