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BUREAU FOR POLICY AND PROGRAM COORDINATION
The Policy and Program Framework (PPC)
930-001. Learning from Experience
U.S. Financing Table for 930-001 (Microsoft Excel Document - 28 kb)
Any organization of USAID's size and complexity requires certain core functions, which cut across bureau and office lines and ensure that it operates as an integrated whole. These include:
- the development and communications of a clear, shared mission, and an overall strategic and policy framework;
- standard setting and monitoring to assure consistency and efficiency across units;
- coordination and oversight to develop and maintain an information base on the organization as a whole (for management oversight and reporting);
- an institutional memory for the organization and the capacity to distill lessons (learned) from previous experience;
- a capacity to make (or cause to make) authoritative decisions and to communicate these quickly and effectively to all units; and
- an ability to speak authoritatively on behalf of the entire organization to external groups.
The Agency's central Bureau for Policy and Program Coordination (PPC) is the organizational unit within USAID that primarily performs these functions through its responsibilities for policy development and coordination, operational program guidance and oversight, donor coordination, program evaluations, and development information services.
The extraordinary effort that the Agency has made over the past several years to streamline and improve its operations has required PPC to give highest priority to developing and putting in place program operations and management policies and systems. These range from guidance on strategic planning and Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) reporting to the implementation of the Agency's comprehensive reform plan. It now must turn to other important work like that of updating Agency policy in such areas as the environment or gender. Other work has had to be postponed including evolving new policy issues like child labor, non-presence and conflict mitigation.
USAID is facing new challenges, and given the central program's unique role within USAID, these challenges will necessarily help shape priorities for the future. For example:
- The formal reorganization of foreign affairs agencies is complete, but myriad details still need to be worked out, and coordination between the U.S. Department of State (DOS) and USAID needs to be improved. Working out the operational details and making sure that both DOS and USAID fulfill agreements reached will be a major priority in the coming two years.
- The increased focus on policy coherence requires both better coordination among the operational units of the Agency and clearer policy on USAID's role in supporting U.S. policies including trade, climate change, and conflict. This, too, will demand greater attention in the coming years.
- The Agency is facing a major challenge in maintaining a focused mission and the expertise to execute that mission. Adding to this challenge is the fact that many of the issues on which USAID has taken the lead within the U.S. Government (e.g., population, the global HIV/AIDS pandemic, global climate change) are now being viewed as mainstream foreign policy issues. Meeting these challenges, finding new opportunities for program efficiencies, and making the difficult choices among policy priorities will also be a critical job for USAID central programs.
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