Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Top 10 Priorities for US Foreign Aid 2010 Budget

This interesting table depicting the "top 10"  2009 and requested 2010 US Foreign Aid appropriations request gives a sense of the over-riding priorities for US development support (click to enlarge).

published by Casey Research, July 20th Daily Dispatch

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Additional aid effectiveness reference links

Hi, Mari, With my new assignment with UNDP coordinating OECD support for the Ministry of Finance in Georgia, I would like to stay involved. Actually, my SOW is pretty much right up the ISPI alley, though of course it will be adapted to Georgian reality..So, yes , I will do what I can. Just started so am crazed. More soon. Note some additional reference links below:

Stay well.
Larry


· http://www.aideffectiveness.org

· http://www.aidharmonisation.org

· http://www.aidinfo.org/

· http://www.cgdev.org/section/topics/aid_effectiveness

· http://www.mfdr.org/

· http://www.oecd.org/department/0,2688,en_2649_3236398_1_1_1_1_1,00.html

· Harmonising Donor Practices for Effective Aid Delivery - Three Volumes: http://www.oecd.org/document/22/0,2340,en_2649_3236398_34600534_1_1_1_1,00.html if you have not seen them

(see new links to the right)

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Addressing immediate USAID opportunities

Hi Mari!!

I've trying to think about your question in those few odd moments (even my weekends are overtaken with work these days.....).

Thinking in practical terms, maybe we need to start with meetings with
just us (the committee and April?) to figure out exactly what we want to recommend to USAID (services for hire, a way to implement the HICD approach, a way to get information out to Missions on benefits of the
approach and how to incorporate it into their portfolios, other?).

Then, if this hasn't happened yet, perhaps a meeting with ISPI (April
and others in DC such as someone from WL and from AED to start with) and with EGAT managers. So if a case is made to them and they like it, a follow on meeting with someone higher at EGAT (I'm not sure who this is now) can be scheduled, and then we continue trying to work up the USAID chain to make a case for the PI approach.

Also, since USAID released the HICD guidance that is supposed to be
used across all USAID, it seems to me that we could use that as well as a starting point to talk about very practical ways to take the theory and put it into practice.

Let me know next steps - we've got a couple of proposals in the works
right now, to add to the insanity, but I'll try to respond more quickly than this time!!

Susan