The U.S. Agency for International Development’s new acquisition and assistance strategy emphasizes increased spending with new, underutilized, or local entities and locally established partners. Its goals are to diversify the agency’s partner base from a “relatively small circle of large organizations” and catalyze partner countries’ “journey to self-reliance” by working more directly with groups on the ground.
This new strategy is provoking reevaluations by many current and prospective USAID partners.
Current U.S.-based partners may view it as a threat or possibly as a competitive differentiator for those with stronger networks of local subcontractors. Those without these networks will likely start building them — the new strategy will track subawards to local entities and encourage prime awardees to incorporate local capacity development into their plans.