This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
Administrator J. Brian Atwood
Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid
Washington, D.C., March 11, 1998
U.S. Agency for International Development
Good morning. It's a pleasure to be here to open
the first full quarterly meeting of this Advisory
Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid.
I want to begin by thanking you publicly for
accepting your nominations to this committee, and for
the remarkable contributions of time and talent you will
make to the USAID/PVO partnership. In particular, I
want to acknowledge the leadership of ACVFA Chair
Bill Reese and Vice Chair Carol Lancaster.
ACVFA has been an activist, constructive source of
guidance on the Agency's work with the private
voluntary sector, and I look forward to your
recommendations in this term.
Your agenda today is very impressive, not only
because it focuses on two issues of central importance
to the USAID/PVO partnership -- civil society, and
achieving development results -- but also because your
plenaries and breakout groups model the partnership
you seek to advance.
You have my strong mandate to examine the issues
of civil society and achieving results. We have a
mandate to listen to you, and I will expect ACVFA to
continue to engage with USAID staff at all levels over
the next two years.
In addition, I want to publicly endorse your other
focus issues for the term: country close-outs; public
outreach; and continued emphasis on partnership and
strategic dialogue.
I'd also like to update you on USAID's response
to some of the recommendations pending from the last
Advisory Committee, including the recommendations
related to ACVFA itself.
-- Those of you who picked up ACVFA's June
1997 "Assessment of the State of the USAID
Partnership" at the doors may want to update
the famous "report card" in the back:
-- As you know, we were able to avoid a hiatus
by appointing this Committee in September.
-- As your predecessors recommended, this
Committee embodies diverse perspectives.
You are affiliated with large and small PVOs
within and outside the beltway, and also with
universities, foundations and the private sector.
-- And you are a mix of former and newly
appointed members, ensuring both continuity
and diversity.
With regard to some of the other pending ACVFA
recommendations, let me report on several important
advances in our partnership:
-- A joint USAID/PVO task force is meeting to
examine implementation of the cost share
policy codified in USAID's PVO Policy
guidance and whether it should be revised.
-- The FY 2000 Results Review and Resource
Request, or R-4, reminds Missions and
operating units that USAID:
"is committed to increase assistance funding through
nongovernmental or private voluntary organizations and
to monitoring progress ... through the R4s."
The R-4 guidance then instructs all operating units
to indicate the percentage of DA, prior year DA, IDA
and other disaster funding managed by NGOs/PVOs."
As your agenda today indicates, we have also acted
on one of the key recommendations in the ACVFA
Assessment itself, namely:
"USAID should develop and disseminate models,
and train USAID, PVO and NGO staff, on the use of
performance-based assistance instruments."
The Office of Private and Voluntary Cooperation
and the Office of Procurement have developed an
electronic Sourcebook on Results-Oriented Grants and
Cooperative Agreements. This will be an
unprecedented resource for USAID and our partners.
You'll hear more about this addition to USAID's
Internet website this afternoon.
I urge all of you to contribute your own best
practices to this draft website to ensure that it is truly
user friendly.
We have also begun implementing some of the
recommendations of USAID's task forces on
procurement and workforce planning. I won't attempt
to go into all the recommendations they made, but some
will be of particular interest to this group.
We are moving toward implementing the
procurement task force's recommendation that we
establish pilot programs within the Washington bureaus
to expand administrative authorities for grants, contracts
and Personal Service Contracts and increase the
authority of mission directors to execute grants and
cooperative agreements with local non-governmental
organizations.
The Workforce Planning Task Force called for
maintaining our strength in the field -- maintaining both
current missions and the size of the field staff. The
way our field staff is used would change, however.
Changes would include developing a cadre of technical
officers who are primarily technical managers, having
missions share some technical experts and creating a
cadre of short-term appointment technical officers to
provide specific skills.
That Task Force also recommended:
-- reducing the Washington staff over time
through attrition and reallocation of staff
resources, retraining of some staff to allow
greater flexibility of staffing arrangements --
without any RIFS.
-- further flattening the levels of management and
the numbers of managers.
-- providing easier crossovers between the
Foreign Service and the Civil Service and
realigning resources geographically to better fit
staff and operating expense allocations to the
mission being carried out, and to make better
use of all staff resources.
-- simplifying the work process and
administrative workload to allow more time for
carrying our the substantive work.
To help us carry out that mission, President Clinton
has requested $20.1 billion for international affairs
programs. USAID will manage $7.3 billion of those
funds, including funds administered by our Agency in
cooperation with other departments and agencies.
His request is for $302 million over the FY 1998
appropriation. Slightly more than half of that --
$154 million -- is for programs in the New Independent
States of the former Soviet Union. Another $94 million
will go into the Economic Support Fund. The overall
Development Assistance Account will also increase by $94 million (cq).
There are two new Presidential initiatives included
in this budget request: the Africa Trade Reform and
Growth Initiative -- $30 million; and the Americas
Summit Initiative -- $20 million, both under the
Development Assistance Account.
In addition, the FY 1999 requests includes
economic activities aimed at improving food security in
Africa to combat malnutrition and spur rural economic
growth through support for agricultural research.
As you know, we have strengthened the links
between American colleges and universities and the
international agricultural research centers as part of the
effort to boost food security for developing nations.
President Clinton is also requesting a $15 million
increase in International Disaster Assistance for
transition initiatives in countries coming out of crisis.
We also set up a separate account for the Child
Survival and Disease Program for the first time, at
$503 million.
These programs advance both American foreign
policy goals and the well-being of some of the world's
neediest people. The funds for FY 1999 will:
* Help eradicate polio globally by the year 2000.
Once that is achieved, it will save American
taxpayers $230 million a year in domestic
immunization costs;
* Save more than 5 million lives through child
survival programs;
* Extend family planning services to more than
19 million couples around the world who
otherwise could not afford them, averting
needless deaths of thousands of mothers and
children;
* Provide assistance to millions of victims of
flood, famine, conflict and other crises around
the globe;
* Combat worldwide environmental degradation,
including global climate change, biodiversity
loss and natural resource depletion;
* Provide credit to hundreds of thousands of
"microentrepreneurs," especially women, who
are starting or enlarging small businesses.
-- AND -- we will implement all of these programs in
partnership with the private voluntary community.
In addition, USAID programs will help developing
nations build their capacity to open their markets and
tear down barriers to U.S. trade. This will also build
America's future export markets. U.S. exports to
developing countries -- almost all of them former or
current USAID recipients -- grew by $115 billion from
1990 to 1996. Those exports supported roughly 1.5
million jobs in the United States.
While Asia's current financial problems may cause
a temporary drop in U.S. exports, the overall trend
continues -- by the year 2000, four out of five
consumers in the world will live in developing
countries. Those who remain too poor to afford
American products and services will not contribute to
the rise in American exports. Those whose productive
capacity has grown so that they can compete in world
markets will make up the bulk of America's new
customers.
I think the President's agenda on his trip to Africa
in a couple of weeks is a strong indication of the
importance he places on USAID's work. I started my
foreign service career in Africa, and I am excited that
this trip will focus media attention on an Africa that
millions of Americans know little about. This will
highlight what you already know.
We are seeing a new commitment to reform in
much of sub-Saharan Africa, and this commitment is
making tremendous new breakthroughs in development
possible across large parts of the continent. We have
never been better positioned to deal with the serious
challenges in areas such as education, public health, and
the environment. We can now direct our assistance
toward people and governments who are geneuinely
committed to democracy and open markets.
I look forward to showing President Clinton
USAID programs in action as we visit Ghana, Uganda,
South Africa, Botswana and Senegal.
I am proud of what is being accomplished, often
under the most challenging and demanding
circumstances. I know how impressed First Lady
Hillary Rodham Clinton has been when she seen what
we are doing.
I also know the importance Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright places on the work being done by
USAID and our partners in the private sector. I look
forward to the opportunity to showing President Clinton
some of the wonderful work being done by USAID
missions -- and by our PVO partners.
Thank you.
This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
 |
Last Updated on: July 18, 2001
|
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
