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.