The U.S. Global Development Lab is a new entity within USAID that brings together a diverse set of partners to discover, test, and scale breakthrough solutions to achieve what human progress has only now made possible -- the end of extreme poverty by 2030.

The Lab's focus is twofold:

• To produce breakthrough development innovations by sourcing, testing, and scaling proven solutions to reach hundreds of millions of people.
• To accelerate the transformation of the development enterprise by opening development to people everywhere with good ideas, promoting new and deepening existing partnerships, bringing data and evidence to bear, and harnessing scientific and technological advances.

Area of Focus

• Find new ideas for solving development challenges.
• Improve millions of lives by speeding up the adoption of the most promising proven breakthrough innovations.
• Foster catalytic networks and engage non-traditional stakeholders to identify, address, and propose solutions for development challenges and build evidence for better development.
• Proactively seek to build partnerships which leverage the combined skills, assets, technologies, and resources of the public, private, and nonprofit sectors to deliver sustainable development impact.
• Use science, technology, innovation, and partnerships as tools to accelerate USAID’s development objectives around the world.
• Strengthen USAID’s evidence base and build its capacity to apply cutting-edge data analysis and research to measure and improve development impacts.

Organization

The Lab is made up of five Centers and two Offices in support of its Mission. 

• The Center for Data, Analysis and Research (Lab/DAR) gathers and analyzes data, including geospatial analysis, data visualization, modeling, open data, and futures analysis. The Center advances collaborative research in the United States and abroad, to better understand development challenges, build more effective strategies and programs to address them, and measure impacts.
• The Center for Development Innovation (Lab/DI) develops new breakthroughs by harnessing the best in American and global scientific and innovation communities. The Center supports the discovery, incubation, and testing of solutions to specific problem areas, as well as open platforms for innovation.
• The Center for Global Solutions (Lab/GS) supports the Agency in driving widespread adoption and implementation of proven, transformative innovations that will benefit tens of millions of people across a broad geographic area (regionally or globally), including digital development.
• The Center for Transformational Partnerships develops global partnerships with a wide range of public and private sector stakeholders to extend the impact and sustainability of global development programming, and builds the capacity of the entire Agency to pursue partnerships of all types.
• The Center for Mission Engagement and Operations (Lab/MEO) develops and monitors implementation of the Global Development Lab’s overall strategy and budget, organizes and delivers Lab support for field Missions, builds operational innovations, and manages administrative functions for the Lab.
• The Office of Evaluation and Impact Assessment (Lab/EIA) conducts rigorous, evidence-based analysis to guide investment decisions and assess the Lab’s theory of change - that science, technology, innovation, and partnership approaches are delivering impact more quickly, cost-effectively, sustainably, and are reaching more beneficiaries.
• The Office of Engagement and Communications (Lab/EC) supports the goals of the Lab through effective engagement and communication to numerous audiences – USAID, the U.S. government, and donor, academic, business, philanthropic, entrepreneurial, research, scientific, and technical communities.