CGD President Nancy Birdsall and Homi Kharas of the Brookings Institution recently released the new QuODA assessments measuring the quality of donor assistance. The second edition is based on 2009 data and now provides two years of data by which to judge assistance across four dimensions: maximizing efficiency, fostering institutions, reducing burden, and transparency and learning.
Greetings from Tbilisi, Georgia, where I’m working to bring you the tenth installment in the MCA Monitor’s Report from the Field series.
Observers of U.S. foreign assistance lament the decline of USAID resources, staff and expertise. Many old hands remember the days when it was the global leader in development. Yet, calls to rebuild USAID are everywhere today, from the White House to the State Department to Capitol Hill. President Obama and Secretary Clinton vowed to make USAID the world’s premier development agency and legislation on the Hill clearly seeks to elevate not just development but USAID as well.