USAID and the State Strategy Review
This may be an idle thought, but for those of you out there who keep a close eye on the State Department, I'd appreciate some insight into this question: are questions of USAID's staffing and budget dominating the coverage of the strategy review under way there because they are the critical questions? Or because USAID has aggressive stakeholders and its roles is very much enhanced because of Haiti, etc.?
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Haiti worked because the military took over the operations in the early days. AID is a back bench organization who's only role is coming in after all the heavy lifting is done. Unfortunately the number of politicians that need to have their picture taken took time and effort away from the relief operation.
dan ketter Posted Thursday, March 11, 2010 1:14 PMNext time bill and hilary stay home you bring nothing to the party
Dan Ketter, USAID was and remains the lead agency in Haiti relief. While the military helped, it was the NGO and multilateral organizations with USAID funding that did the job. The military was marginal in impact relative to the private market. In fact, the military harmed relief in some early moves. As for the budget question, USAID is a spending organization -- what would be MORE important than control of budget? Planning and personnel are the 2nd and 3rd most important aspects of an organization.
veteran USAID employee Posted Monday, March 15, 2010 8:01 AMUSAID could have used the support from the "aggressive stakeholders" to permit USAID to keep up with attrition over the last 10 years. But the agency needs serious reform to continue to be relevant with the renewed emphasis on foreign assistance. USAID is hiring almost an entire workforce of dedicated development professionals. It will be a shame to constrain them with policies and procedures from an earlier era. Development is too important to mire it in the 1980s.
Former USAID Foreign Service Officer Posted Monday, March 15, 2010 9:50 AMdear vet usaid was secondary in the relief efforts and got in the way of the military. you had 24 year olds running around trying to take control with no experience.
dan ketter Posted Monday, March 15, 2010 3:15 PMBy default what should have been AIDs mission was turned over to the military to control the airport, ports and roads and security as well as med evac. Aid's only role was to provide my tax $$