Andrew Natsios Pens Essay on Development Efficiency
Former-USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios made waves with his recent essay arguing that existing regulations and efficiency measurements have created enormous hurdles for USAID’s ability to be effective. Misguided attempts at oversight are “now so intrusive that they have distorted, misdirected, and disfigured USAID’s development practice to such a degree that it is compromising U.S. national security objectives and challenging established principles of good development practice,” Natsios writes. Measuring success is not a waste of time, he argues, but in the current system, programs are judged by the criteria easiest to measure, not necessarily the criteria that will accurately reflect program success. For development, which is inherently a long-term, capacity-building endeavor, metrics that judge short-term outputs contradict principles of lasting, impactful development. If USAID is not able to function properly, he warns, the United States will not be able to meet its foreign policy and national security goals, especially where conflicts threaten U.S. interests.
