Best Practices in U.S. Global Development Should Guide Effort to Redesign

The ability to identify best practices and adapt to changing realities is crucial for any organization or industry’s success. This is as true on Wall Street as it is in global development.

Right now in Washington, there’s growing interest in the redesign of U.S. foreign assistance architecture, and rightfully so, as it could in large part determine what the future of U.S. development looks like.

If the ultimate purpose of foreign assistance is to “end its need to exist,” as USAID’s new administrator Mark Green has articulated, then the Trump administration should start its redesign process by looking back on what we’ve learned from 60 years of U.S. global development. The new design should consider what is working across U.S. development efforts and build from there, scaling up best practices that have made our foreign assistance far more efficient and effective in recent years.

The redesign must keep real people and real lives as the top priority to ensure the U.S. appropriately adopts the range of proven best practices. This is why more than 150 organizations and prominent individuals, have endorsed MFAN’s Guiding Principles for Effective U.S. Assistance. These principles provide a roadmap for a sound approach to reform and redesign that involves Congress as an equal partner and embraces the successes and incorporates any missteps we have learned to date.