#usaid

  This week, the WHO upheld its current guidelines in relation to use of hormonal contraception and women living with HIV.  President Obama released his administration’s budget request for 2013, with some surprising news for US global heath policy.  Finally, polio eradication efforts in Pakistan have been hamstrung by government health care and regulatory incompetency […]

If you have followed this blog for a while you may have noticed a few posts on the subject of U.S. foreign aid (most recently: here , here , and here). I’ve mentioned it several times and so I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that the U.S. is celebrating the 50th anniversary […]

Coca-Cola Commercial – Lyrics: We have sworn to erase the impossible/ It should be hope, or no other alternative/ No matter how long they say the night is/ There is no sleep, when it is time for seriousness/ Make tomorrow better, with your hands, you will defy the clouds/ Make tomorrow better, the sun rises […]

How can we best ensure that development assistance reaches those who need it most? Here are six building blocks.

The incoming chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen signaled a few weeks ago that State Department and foreign aid programs will most likely be cut when she assumes the chairmanship in 2011. In a recent statement, Ros-Lehtinen laid out her agenda, “I have identified and will propose a number of cuts to […]

Today (Tuesday, November 2) is Election Day in the United States.  While it is an off-year for presidential elections, in my home state of New York the entire state legislature is up for election, governor, attorney general, comptroller, both US Senators (rare as they are usually staggered , but one is running for Hillary Clinton’s […]

Two stories about important trends in international development at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the the British equivalent, the Department for International Development (DfID): 1. Federal Times article on decreasing reliance on contractors and increasing insourcing at USAID can be found here. An excerpt: USAID is trying to rebuild a work force […]

USAID is to be commended for creating and successfully implementing a program in Egypt that combines the best of development policy and US higher education resources.  The LEAD Program (Leadership for Education and Developoment) anually selects two students from each of Egypt’s 27 governorates to attend the American University of Cairo.  The scholarships are reserved […]

_______________________________________________________________________________ Federal Times.com has a story this week about USAID’s moves to do more of their work in house instead of farming it out to contractors. The U.S. Agency for International Development plans to bring in-house more work related to program design and monitoring and evaluation, Administrator Rajiv Shah said May 5.   Shah made the […]

Senator John Kerry (Democrat – Massachusetts), as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has put a temporary hold on all US democracy promotion programs for Cuba while the State Department conducts a review of these programs so that the Committee can investigate their effectiveness. This is a review that many experts have hoped for, […]

For the past three days I participated in USAID’s online dialogue about various international development topics.  Called “Global Pulse 2010, “ USAID has the following to say about it: …a 3-day, online collaboration event, that will bring together individual socially-engaged participants and organizations from around the world. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is […]

When I was in Uganda last month I was fortunate to learn more about an interesting parliamentary internship program being carried out by the Center for International Development (CID) of the State University of New York (full disclosure: I used to work there).   Supported by Higher Education for Development (which uses fairly small grants to […]