USAID: Some inefficiency 'tolerated' for localization in Afghanistan

Creating and maintaining a new government after over a decade of war comes with certain tradeoffs. In Afghanistan, finding the right balance between pushing money through government ministries and ensuring that foreign aid actually achieves important development objectives is “more art than science,” according to U.S. Agency for International Development Assistant Administrator Larry Sampler. In an exclusive interview with Devex, Sampler shared how his office has been compelled to permit some “degradation of pure effectiveness” that comes with host government capacity building. “Local solutions” — a move to drive more aid money to local organizations and host country governments — is a hallmark of USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah’s reform package, and most other aid donors have sought similar — or even more aggressive — “localization” goals. In many ways, Afghanistan and Pakistan have been at the forefront of this push, but that could change if U.S. funding for the Afghanistan reconstruction effort continues to decline. This is the third and last clip from our exclusive interview with Sampler. Watch out for the full version of the interview this 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.