New Administrator Wants to Change the Way USAID Works (The Washington Post)
The Washington Post covers USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah's speech last week hosted by the Center for Global Development.
From the Article:
"This agency is no longer satisfied with writing big checks to big contractors and calling it development."
Those challenging words, spoken last week by Rajiv Shah, the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), were just one part of his speech forging a new direction for an agency that has been in the backwater of U.S. foreign and national security policies for years.
With little more than a year on the job, the 37-year-old medical doctor and research scientist, who once handled the $1.5 billion vaccine fund for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, criticized development programs designed to be "extended in perpetuity while goals remain just out of reach."
And he challenged another industry practice.
"There's always another high-priced consultant that must take another flight to another conference or lead another training," he said. "This practice simply must end." The declaration drew applause from the Center for Global Development audience.