USAID should use the localization tools it has, says former official

In its quest to channel more funding to local organizations, the U.S. Agency for International Development should stop letting “the perfect be the enemy of the good enough,” according to a former procurement official who worked at USAID for two decades. “In a perfect world, 10,000 extra organizations would be getting direct awards, but that’s not going to happen due to AID’s staffing situation,” said Chuck Pope, who retired from USAID in April 2022 as a commissioned foreign service officer and senior contracting and agreement officer. The “good enough” approach, according to Pope, would be to issue larger awards to experienced organizations and then require them to disburse the majority of that funding to local subawardees while working to build their capacity as USAID implementing partners. “As the agency chases perfection, these awards are not being made,” Pope said during a Devex Pro Live event on Tuesday. Under Administrator Samantha Power, USAID has set a target of directing 25% of its funding to local organizations and to include local leadership in half of its programs. A progress report released in June showed that the agency provided $1.6 billion of direct funding to local organizations in the fiscal year that ended in September 2022 — around 10.2% of all eligible funding, and a 66% increase from the previous year in terms of actual funding. At the same time, USAID leaders including Power have acknowledged that the agency is currently facing a “staffing crisis,” particularly within the ranks of officials who oversee procurement. That shortage of people with the expertise and authority to design and issue grants and contracts is seen as one of the biggest impediments to reform. Pope said that while the 25% target is now widely viewed as an aspirational “moonshot,” the agency has plenty of existing tools at its disposal to make more rapid progress, but requires a culture shift to get it done. “AID doesn’t need another conference. They don’t need another policy. They just need to do it,” Pope said.