As I have said on a number of occasions, the ultimate goal of development assistance must be to work towards the day when it is no longer necessary, and we should measure our work by how far every one of our investments moves us closer to that day. At the heart of our work is the core belief that each country must lead its own development journey. USAID is realigning its policies, strategies, programs, and investments to support our partner countries on what we call their "Journey to Self-Reliance."

To facilitate this shift, USAID must first understand how self-reliant each of our partner countries is today, so we can tailor our partnerships and programs accordingly. Over the past year, we have coordinated a team of data and policy experts to identify the best-in-class, third-party, publicly available metrics that measure a country's level of self-reliance. We ultimately settled on 17 metrics that cover areas such as open and accountable governance; inclusive development; economic policy; and the relative capacities of the government, civil society, citizens, and the economy -- all key elements of self-reliance.

USAID has used these 17 Self-Reliance Metrics to produce what we call "Country Roadmaps," a visualization tool for showing each low- and middle-income country's overall level of self-reliance and performance on each of the metrics.

Therefore, I am pleased to announce the launch of USAID's Journey to Self-Reliance online portal. This new resource is a central part of how we are reorienting the way we do business to focus on strengthening each country's ability to fund, manage, and solve its own development challenges.

The portal will greatly strengthen USAID's ability to ensure we tailor the programs we implement and the partnerships we forge to support each country's unique Journey to Self-Reliance. Furthermore, by making these materials available worldwide, we will be able to amplify our self-reliance dialogue with partner countries, interagency colleagues, Congress, other donors, implementing partners, regional organizations, and other stakeholders in pursuit of a joint and robust effort to allow us to end the need for assistance one day.

We encourage you to visit the new Journey to Self-Reliance portal, where you will be able to view all Fiscal Year 2019 Country Roadmaps, and download a wide range of supporting resources on the Journey to Self-Reliance and the methodology that underpins this effort.