Rajiv Shah Discusses USAID’s High-Impact Development
On Wednesday, May 5th the USGLC hosted USAID Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah for a speech on USAID’s Approach to High Impact Development. The standing room only event was held at George Washington University and featured questions sent in over YouTube, by E-mail, and through Twitter – it was also live streamed on usglc.org. Watch the event below and look out for more pictures and videos from this fantastic event with Rajiv Shah.
Pictures from the event with Rajiv Shah are here.
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Dr. Shah,
How will you ensure donor harmonization in US foreign assistance and what resources are you using to make donors’ data comparable?
Thank you
Claudia Elliot
Dr. Shah,
USAID’s new policy in Afghanistan (awarding 1-year projects with optional years based on performance) seems to make achieving Year 1 and overall project goals synonymous. Experience suggests this could run the risk of institutionalizing and rewarding “cowboy” development at the expense of more sustainable development, especially in this environment where community trust and buy-in can be time-consuming, yet is essential to long-term success. Could you clarify the intent of this new policy?
Dr. Shah,
USAID’s new policy in Afghanistan (awarding 1-year projects with optional years based on performance) seems to make achieving Year 1 and overall project goals synonymous. Experience suggests this could run the risk of institutionalizing and rewarding “cowboy” development at the expense of more sustainable development, especially in this environment where community trust and buy-in can be time-consuming, yet is essential to long-term success. Could you clarify the intent of this new policy?
Thank you,
Seth McDonagh
ACDI/VOCA
Dr. Shah,
One of the clearest lessons from the past four decades is that development is more effective when gender is integrated — analysis of both women’s and men’s respective roles, resources, rights and responsibilities. Despite this, USAID has never adopted a clear, cross-cutting mandate or invested in developing sufficient capacity to do this.
Do you have plans to create a high-level office responsible for gender integration in policy and implementation, and to give it the mandate, resources and political support to succeed?
We know that gender integration was an important part of your leadership at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and something you have raised in speeches and testimony since taking leadership at USAID.
Thank you,
Nora O’Connell
Women Thrive Worldwide