Sharifamoh Safarov working on her farm in Tajikistan, one of the Feed the Future countries.
Presently, country-led approaches are the exception rather than the rule in U.S. development assistance. Early signs of progress under Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) compacts led the administration to incorporate a country-led approach into the plans for Feed the Future. In turn, good results from Feed the Future should encourage a much wider application of country-led development principles. As the balance shifts toward the country-led model, the U.S. government needs to adopt a single, government-wide definition of what constitutes country-led development and operational standards for its programs.
Partner countries need a coherent approach. Participating in Feed the Future shouldn’t mean that they have to waste time and resources puzzling out how the definition of “country-led development” might vary from one program or U.S. agency to the next. Consistency in country-led programming will make U.S. assistance more efficient—rather than getting tangled up in bureaucracy, more of the aid can go directly to programs that help people escape poverty. A country-led approach should be accompanied by other improvements (the subject of our next chapter), but more than any other reform, it is the foundation of a new and improved U.S. development strategy.
Issues
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