Policy and Program Coordination
The Development Challenge: In the 21st century, the principal aim of American foreign assistance is to contribute to global peace, prosperity, and security by promoting political, economic, and social progress in developing and transition
countries, while addressing humanitarian issues as they arise. The world is changing more rapidly today than ever before. The complex and daunting challenges facing lesser-developed countries in the context of ever-increasing globalization require knowledge and understanding that empower donor agencies such as USAID to make effective policy and program decisions. The evolving global environment poses new challenges to development, and USAID is reforming its program and administrative structures to meet these challenges head-on. In the past two years, USAID has undergone significant agency restructuring, implementing necessary reforms to maintain its position at the forefront of the development community. USAID has built upon its previous successes and has positioned itself to better respond to U.S. national interests, foreign policy objectives, and values. In FY 2003 and beyond, USAID will continue this process of evolution in order to adapt to changing global conditions. This vision of change will be essential to maintaining and promoting USAID's position as a leader in the international development community.
The USAID Program: USAID's Bureau for Policy and Program Coordination (PPC) addresses the above development challenge by concentrating its program activities in three critical areas: 1) shaping the policy debate on development and humanitarian assistance; 2) aligning ends and means by ensuring that budgets reflect strategic priorities; and 3) developing and disseminating timely, policy-relevant knowledge and analysis of critical development issues. PPC provides quick, experience-based policy analysis as well as longer-term in-depth evaluations to share lessons learned and to inform the global development policy debate. Current evaluations address topics such as investments in agriculture, support of education in the Islamic world, and the role of transition assistance. In FY 2002, PPC played a key role in bringing together the international donor community by helping to create and organize the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) held in South Africa and supporting other development-related conferences around the world. In FY 2003, PPC will sponsor workshops to discuss the development of freedom, opportunity and knowledge in non-Arab countries with large Muslim populations. PPC will also complete a policy document on new directions in development assistance to supplement the recently published U.S. National Security Strategy and USAID's recently released report on Foreign Aid in the National Interest.
In the area of strategic budgeting, USAID is changing its planning and resource allocation processes to better meet U.S. strategic priorities and better inform its decisions by emphasizing performance. PPC is carrying out an extensive development process for a new joint USAID strategic plan with the Department of State and for the implementation of a new strategic budgeting model. These two efforts focus on meeting the requirements of the Presidential Management Agenda (PMA) for better integrating performance and budgeting. Once completed, these new elements will enable USAID to better contribute to national security objectives by addressing the global development challenge more efficiently and more effectively, thereby maximizing the impact of U.S. development assistance and humanitarian aid resources.
"Knowledge management" is the systematic process of finding, selecting, organizing, distilling and presenting information in a way that improves comprehension in a specific area of interest. It involves acquiring, storing and utilizing knowledge for problem solving, dynamic learning, strategic planning and decision making, protecting intellectual assets from decay, adding to Agency intelligence and providing increased flexibility. Knowledge management helps USAID gain insight and understanding from its own experience. PPC is responsible for ensuring that relevant and timely information is made available to USAID's administrative and program managers as well as to the broader U.S. foreign affairs community. USAID's new approach to knowledge management will utilize modern electronic management systems for information collection, storage, retrieval, dissemination and sharing. These improved systems will enable USAID to make better and more informed decisions on policy priorities and program design, and to greater influence the U.S. foreign affairs and international development community.
OTHER PROGRAM ELEMENTS: N/A
OTHER DONORS: PPC represents USAID in various Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) fora, including the DAC Expert Groups on Evaluation, Poverty and Conflict. PPC works
in collaboration with multi-lateral and bilateral donors, such as the World Bank, the European Union, the G-8 members, the United Nations, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the African Development Bank, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Germany on current and future development activities, and on evaluation of past development programs.
For a printable version of this section, that includes the charts and graphs from the Congressional Budget Justification FY 2004, please click here. (Note: This file is in pdf format.)
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