Archive - U.S. Agency for International Development

Effective Partnering and Procurement Reform

Speeches Shim

In the fall of 2017 USAID embarked on an ambitious Transformation to shape the USAID of tomorrow and work towards ending the need for foreign assistance. Vital to the success of Transformation and advancing countries on their Journey to Self-Reliance was rethinking how the Agency’s core functions of partnering and procurement take place. The goal of EPPR was to develop and implement a series of reforms to the Agency’s program design and procurement processes aimed at fostering self-reliance.

Process and Deliverables

EPPR launched with an external listening tour that consisted of one-on-one interviews with representatives from 19 organizations, and eight meetings with partner associations. In total, the Agency met with more than 250 individuals as a part of the external listening tour. At the conclusion of the listening tour a final report was released.

EPPR centrally convened a group of subject matter experts from procurement, legal, programming, and technical offices to lead internal outreach and better understand how the Agency can improve its procurement and partnering practices.

EPPR then created four cross-Agency working groups representing all equities in the Agency procurement and planning process. The four working groups were:

Collaborative and Diverse Partnering: Enabling more effective co-creation, innovative financing, and partnerships with a diverse array of actors.
Supporting Local Partners: Catalyzing local public-, private-, and non-profit-sector to own their development objectives.
Strategic and Efficient Partnering: Simplifying and streamlining processes in order to allow USAID staff to focus more of their time on fostering self-reliance and achieving development results.
Adaptive Partnering: Creating an agile and flexible Agency that can adapt to changes on the ground to improve the effectiveness of our foreign assistance, including in fragile states and non-permissive environments.

More than 120 individuals from 35 operating units and Missions participated in the working groups. Working groups met for approximately 4 months and were responsible for developing a comprehensive set of recommendations. As a part of the efforts to develop recommendations, the working groups engaged with staff across the Agency and reviewed relevant Inspector General reports, historical documents, and the ELT report.

To articulate the overall vision for EPPR, USAID developed an Acquisition and Assistance Strategy, the first ever strategy for the Agency, which was released in December of 2018. The A&A Strategy outlines a series of guiding principles for how will do business.

On June 4, 2019, Administrator Mark Green released an Agency Notice with the final list of EPPR recommendations for Implementation. Prior to releasing the final recommendations, USAID received input from Agency staff and partners to help refine and prioritize implementation.

With the release of the final list of EPPR recommendations, implementation will be overseen by the Agency’s Management Operations Council.