Megan O'Donnell, policy fellow and assistant director for gender at the think tank Center for Global Development, welcomed this new role, but she stresses that the officer can't just have a vanity title. "It would need to be someone with expertise in the topic and who will make connections with the local women's organizations," she says — not "any woman already sitting within a mission, just having this title tacked on to their preexisting duties."
Problem: USAID programs are sometimes based on preconceived ideas, not data.
Solution: Gather evidence.
"We can't assume that what works in one culture or community will easily work in another. To understand human behavior, we need concrete data, not intuitions or assumptions," she said.
She said she will establish a new Office of Behavioral Science and Experimental Economics "that will report to a new, elevated and expanded chief economist." The team will gather evidence from the communities USAID serves, use it to design new programs — and also conduct trials to see if these initiatives are successful.
"We were quite excited about this idea," says Erin Collinson, director of policy outreach at the Center for Global Development. "With authority, staff and a real budget, the chief economist could do more to integrate evidence within the agency's programming."
Problem: The world needs to be prepared for the next pandemic.
Solution: Don't wait until it's too late.
Power wants to make sure that the global health inequalities brought on by the pandemic don't happen again. During the COVID-19 crisis, for example, the vast majority of vaccines are produced by the world's largest economies, even though the vast majority of need is in developing countries, she said.
Power said "we are establishing a new and dedicated USAID Emergency Response Unit to lead on infectious disease outbreaks."
And she plans to double "the number of partner countries we will support in preventing and detecting pandemic threats."
Outside perspective: Will it all happen?
Now there's always reason to be a bit ... skeptical. "We're cautiously optimistic that USAID is going to do as much as it can to implement these plans as quickly as possible," says O'Donnell of CGD. "But we have to be mindful that similar efforts have been underway before."