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This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
INSIDE DEVELOPMENT
In this section:
Increase in Aid Evaluations Improves Ability
to Get Results
Aid That Helped Cut Red Tape Spurred Business
Growth
Increase in Aid Evaluations Improves Ability to Get Results
USAID missions are evaluating their programs more often,
enabling program managers to better understand how well USAID
programs are working. The increased number of evaluations
also improves efficiency, accountability, and results.
Some 87 percent of missions worldwide have evaluated their
programs this year, according to the Bureau for Policy and
Program Coordination (PPC). Nearly three-quarters of the missions
reported that they draw on evaluations to design new activities
and strategies and make changes in ongoing work. Most missions—88
percent of them—now have an onsite monitoring and evaluations
officer.
Mission staff are in touch with PPC more frequently, as
they share information, undergo training, and receive technical
assistance from that bureau—facts that should improve
USAID’s performance, said David Adams, director of PPC’s
Center for Development Information and Evaluation (CDIE).
CDIE began reforming evaluation policies, setting new standards
for the studies, and training evaluation officers after Administrator
Andrew S. Natsios launched an evaluation revitalization initiative
in January.
The center has held seven intensive evaluation training
sessions in the past two years, attracting a growing number
of evaluation officers. Foreign service nationals (FSNs) are
now also partaking in these trainings.
“You want to get some of the younger, newer employees,”
Adams said. “This is a long-term thing. We want to work
with the people who are going to be here 10, 20 years from
now.”
A recent CDIE survey found many ways in which missions benefited
from evaluations this year.
In Rwanda, a midterm evaluation of a project funding the
Genocide Survivors Fund was shown to the British government
aid agency, which then joined USAID in funding the project.
And in Tanzania, an evaluation of a democracy and governance
project found that it could not be very effective in the absence
of a more organized parliament. So the project added a component
to work with parliament.
After the Asian tsunami last year, missions in the region
looked through evaluations of programs run in places devastated
by national disasters so they could make their programs as
effective as possible.
“Evaluations look retrospectively at what has been
accomplished with these projects: Did they have the impact
we wanted them to have?” Adams said. “It gets to
the issue of being able to prove results and impact.”
Evaluations were a required practice for each USAID program
until 1994. New Agency regulations then dropped that requirement,
and over the years fewer programs have been assessed for results.
In 1994, 528 evaluations were submitted to the Agency’s
evaluations bank, the Development Experience Clearinghouse;
that number fell to 79 in 2001. But this year, PPC projects
that it will receive more than 200 evaluations.
“To make our role in development effective, good management
practices are necessary,” Natsios said in the March 2005
FrontLines. “Evaluation is at the heart of three
of the nine principles of development that guide Agency operations:
the principle of accountability, the principle of assessment,
and the principle of results.”
Aid That Helped Cut Red Tape Spurred Business Growth
Nearly 60 percent of the reforms in three developing countries
that became more business friendly this year—Serbia,
Georgia, and Vietnam—are the result of USAID projects,
says the World Bank’s latest Doing Business report.
An annual exercise, the report looks at the business conditions
within developing countries and examines how easy or difficult
it is to start, own, or run a business. Countries with thriving
business environments tend to have growing economies, so donors
like USAID and the World Bank work on improving business conditions
in poor countries.
U.S. assistance to Serbia (see story page 3), Georgia, and
Vietnam has—among other things—shortened the process
of getting a business license, given entrepreneurs access
to credit and business services, and reformed laws so that
businesses could prosper.
“Given the strong relationships that our missions develop
with both private and public sector leaders, USAID is uniquely
positioned to support business environment reforms,”
said James Smith, senior deputy assistant administrator for
the Bureau of Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade.
In Georgia, for instance, a new law cuts the number of required
licenses to do business from 909 to 159 and eliminates 12
of 21 taxes in a new simplified tax code. It now takes 75
percent less time to register property, at a 70 percent lower
cost.
USAID has been helping the Georgian government with analysis
and comments by technical advisors. The Agency has also assisted
the government to improve the system of property rights. It
helped with the registration of agricultural land, reorganization
of the department in charge of land reform, and improvement
of the registration service. Recently, Georgia developed and
adopted a law on public registry, further streamlining the
process.
Similarly, U.S. aid in Vietnam has helped that country become
more business-friendly. Since the United States and Vietnam
ratified a trade agreement in 2001, bilateral trade has increased
by 400 percent. Vietnam has also changed its legal practices
to improve the rule of law, promote good governance, and protect
property rights.
The Agency linked the Vietnamese government and businesses
to U.S. counterparts by placing a famed U.S. economist specializing
in Southeast Asia in Hanoi to direct a team of local and international
lawyers. A committee was set up to evaluate all requests for
technical assistance from the 46 government offices in need
of reform in order for Vietnam to remain compliant under its
trade agreement obligations. USAID then responded to the most
pressing requests.
Vietnam business practices have become more transparent.
For instance, 4,200 laws and regulations were published in
the Official Gazette in 2002. By 2004, that number had risen
to 16,510. Many draft laws and regulations are now posted
for public comment, too.
USAID-funded training for about 400 judges in a new civil
procedure code improved court procedures, especially for intellectual
property rights disputes.
Revisions to the law governing credit institutions leveled
the playing field for commercial banks.
Commercial arbitration procedures have been strengthened,
and Vietnam’s customs laws now comply with World Trade
Organization requirements.
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