Where do US implementers fit in USAID's (hyper)local push in the Philippines?

For years, the U.S. Agency for International Development has turned to private contractors and nongovernmental organizations in the United States to carry out much of its development work around the world. One of the biggest in Asia-Pacific, USAID’s mission in the Philippines has been no exception to this trend. Under Mission Director Gloria Steele’s leadership, however, USAID Philippines is changing the way it does business — much further and faster it seems than nearly anywhere else in USAID’s global portfolio. One-upping USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah’s 30 percent local spending target for USAID globally, Steele has set the even loftier goal of channeling 40 percent of her mission’s budget to local partners by the end of fiscal 2015. As USAID Philippines makes a final push to meet its ambitious local spending target, U.S. implementers in the Philippines are understandably wary about what this might mean for their bottom line. In this final installment of our interview with USAID Philippines’ mission director, Steele reassures U.S. implementers that there’s no reason to worry. She hinted that the lion’s share of USAID Philippines’ business will almost certainly remain in American hands for the foreseeable future. “It’s not 100 percent,” Steele said of USAID Philippines’ local spending target. “They should not feel threatened. And I think they know that we’ve continued to work with them and that opportunities remain for them to be partners to us.” Our in-depth Philippine case study of USAID’s localization strategy earlier this week revealed that the bulk of USAID Philippines’ local spending is going to a fairly narrow base of civil society partners. Strikingly, we found that a small portion of this is actually then subawarded to at least one implementer from the United States. At the same time, Steele was quick to point out that USAID’s American partners in the Philippines have in many ways already been going local — for instance, hiring local staff and tapping local groups as subpartners. In fact, several U.S. implementers we spoke to for our Philippine case study stressed that the vast majority of their senior staff in the Philippines are Filipino nationals. “I mean most of our chiefs of party are Filipinos. And the best chiefs of party that we have are Filipinos,” said Steele, who cited two of USAID’s largest contractors in the Philippines, DAI and Chemonics. Calling a 100 percent local spending target an “aspiration,” Steele did leave the door open to the possibility that USAID Philippines could go fully local eventually. She is slated to leave her post next year, however, so it will likely be up to her successor to carry that aspiration forward. For more of our video interview with USAID Philippines Mission Director Gloria Steele, check out our in-depth and on-the-ground Philippine case study of USAID’s localization strategy. Check out more practical business and development advice online, and subscribe to Money Matters to receive the latest contract award and shortlist announcements, and procurement and fundraising news.