US push to make development aid more effective is paying off, says OECD
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) welcomes the report of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) 2016 Peer Review of United States’ development policies and programs, showing that the government’s “push to make its development aid more effective is paying off.”
As a member of the OECD DAC, the United States periodically undergoes a peer review to improve the quality and effectiveness of development cooperation policies and systems, and to promote good development partnerships for better impact on poverty reduction and sustainable development in developing countries.
The 2016 report highlights the leadership of the United States on global development and showcases how U.S. development cooperation has been modernized to be more evidence-driven and results-oriented, and is bringing an increasingly important voice to discussions on U.S. foreign policy and national security.
USAID, the lead development agency for the U.S. Government, has become more capable and strategic, having prioritized data-driven approaches to drive impact. It has helped to accelerate transformative development gains, such as those that promote global health, food security, good governance and stability:
*4.6 million children were saved through prevention and treatment of illnesses and diseases.
*9 million small-scale farmers and other producers used new technologies and practices to improve their harvests just last year through Feed the Future; these improvements have led to drops in poverty between 7 and 36 percent in the areas where Feed the Future works, and helped producers, many of them women, boost their incomes by a combined $800 million in 2015.
*11.5 million people are on life-saving treatment for HIV/AIDS through the interagency effort behind the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), up from 2.1 million when President Obama took office, and an AIDS-free generation is within sight.
U.S. development leadership has focused on sustainable development outcomes that place a premium on broad-based economic growth and democratic governance, game-changing innovations and sustainable systems for achieving high-impact development that helps people meet their basic needs; a new operational model that positions the United States to be a more effective partner; and a modern architecture that elevates development as a key pillar of U.S. foreign policy and harnesses development capabilities spread across the U.S. Government in support of common objectives.
Since the 2010 Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development (PPD-6), the U.S . whole-of-government approach to development has resulted in meaningful collaboration across agencies — including the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Departments of State and Treasury, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and helps foster the engagement of developing country leaders and development stakeholders including from the private sector, non-governmental organizations, multilateral institutions, and U.S. and global universities.
U.S. contributions to and involvement at the board level of the multilateral development banks, through the Treasury Department, complement our bilateral initiatives and further lever-up support from other countries for U.S. development priorities.
The U.S. Government (in particular USAID and MCC) increasingly conducts ex post evaluations of its programmatic efforts, to rigorously understand what works and what doesn’t. They directly align with the principles of the United States’ Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act, which emphasizes high standards in performance measurement and transparency.
To achieve more systemic results at scale, the U.S. Government has leveraged Official Development Assistance (ODA) as a catalyst to mobilize other sources of development finance, including from countries’ own domestic resources. It has championed global commitments, including those reflected in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, to promote transparency, accountability and meaningful contributions from a more diverse range of development actors. This includes the private sector. The private sector is crucial to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, with private investment flows to developing countries growing to roughly seven times that of ODA. A powerful example of this is the $7 billion commitment by the U.S. Government under Power Africa, which has leveraged more than $54 billion in additional commitments from public and private sector partners , including more than $40 billion from the private sector. In three years, Power Africa has helped transactions expected to generate more than 5,500 megawatts of electricity , which is helping to break down one of the biggest barriers to growth on the African continent. A Such public-private partnerships promote sustainable, inclusive growth and reduce reliance on U.S. foreign assistance.
The U.S. Government thanks the OECD DAC Peer Review committee for its recommendations. USAID will continue to improve its effort to help create a world with more prosperous and democratic states, able to meet the needs of their people and to be effective partners in addressing common threats, challenges and opportunities.
