Global Development Alliance
The Development Challenge
As one of USAID's four pillars, the Global Development Alliance (GDA) recognizes a major change in recent years in the relative importance of U.S. public and private financial resource flows to the developing world. In FY 2000, private flows - a combination of corporate direct investment, remittances, and philanthropic programs of corporate and private foundations, universities and private voluntary organizations - represented 80% of such resources. A large portion of the private sector is increasingly focusing on corporate social responsibility and understands, and accepts responsibility for management of their supply chain. GDA seeks to engage private partners strategically in supporting development priorities. The creation of public-private alliances with new as well as traditional partners aims to marry USAID development expertise with both the corporate sector's resources, technology and innovative talent and the non-profit sector's understanding of development issues and ability to deliver assistance at the field level. Working together toward common goals, in concert with host country authorities, alliance partners are able to achieve far more than they could individually. The beneficiaries of this effort are those people living in poverty in developing and transition countries who receive expanded and often higher quality services as a result of these public-private alliances.
 |
| Please
note: All documents are in pdf format
|
The joint Department of State - USAID Strategic Plan, FY 2004-2009, makes the explicit commitment to foster a more democratic and prosperous world integrated into the global economy. The Plan identifies the strategic goals of promoting democracy and human rights, economic prosperity and security, and addressing pressing social and environmental issues as part of the broader U.S. foreign policy objective to promote worldwide stability and security. It articulates the intention to "build public-private partnerships that leverage resources, strengthen international cooperation, and help other countries build their institutional capacity…" to manage their development challenges.
In advance of the September 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, the Secretary of State stressed that the United States had "established the Global Development Alliance to combine the assets of government, business and civil society to work in partnership on implementing sustainable development programs." Through the GDA, USAID is inviting and empowering the private sector, broadly defined to include for- and not-for-profit entities, to be a positive actor in the international development community, together with government and civil society organizations.
Specific alliances are managed and reported by individual USAID offices, both in Washington and in the field.
The USAID Program: The GDA Secretariat, a temporary unit charged with initiating public-private alliance creation and integrating alliances as a standard tool within the USAID system, is mandated with these objectives:
- Change the way the Agency at all levels and in all regions and sectors, defines its role vis-à-vis other actors in international development;
- Reach out to new partners to work in concert with them and maximize collective achievements in improving the economic, social and political conditions of people in the developing world;
- Work with USAID's traditional partners in this changing environment to engage them in new and creative ways; and
- Clearly demonstrate the commitment of the U.S. Government, through its foreign assistance programs, to work innovatively with others to achieve significant progress in addressing developing country needs.
Changes to the Agency's programming policy documents now reflect guidance and encouragement to activity managers to consider public-private alliances as a means to implement programs. In order to accommodate outside contributions, GDA Secretariat and USAID legal, procurement, and financial staff have also made creative use of pre-existing but underutilized techniques, such as the acceptance of conditional gifts to be managed by USAID. In addition, the Secretariat has also promoted new governance structures for program oversight, using formal memoranda of understanding similar to those used by private-sector joint ventures. Significant "in-reach" to Agency staff and stakeholders, as well as outreach to traditional and new partners, has taken the form of curriculum development and training workshops on the precepts of public-private alliances as a business model, technical assistance to USAID offices and missions in planning and creating alliances, development of guidance materials, formal reports and public relations materials, website creation and regular updating, and conference participation.
Key Achievements: In FY 2002, the first year of operation, the Secretariat and other USAID units funded 84 alliances with $223 million, leveraging about $1 billion of partner contributions. In FY 2003, well over 100 new and ongoing alliances were funded (about $250 million of public funds leveraging over $1 billion of partner contributions). For every dollar provided by USAID, partners provided $4.
Alliances strongly support the objectives of a number of Presidential initiatives, such as the Africa Education Initiative, the Clean Energy Initiative, the Water for the Poor Initiative, and the Initiative to Prevent Illegal Logging. The Sustainable Forest Products Global Alliance is a typical example of the exciting way in which public and private resources can combine to produce greater impact than any single organization could on its own. This nearly $8 million alliance increases both the demand and supply of legally sourced, certified timber by connecting responsible producers in developing countries to retailers across the United States. It will increase incomes for local communities and mitigate adverse environmental impacts, while expanding the supply of certified products available to U.S. consumers. Partners include USAID, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Home Depot, IKEA, the World Wildlife Fund, Forest Trends, and Metafore.
Other Program Elements: USAID alliances foster relationships with over 400 partner organizations, including private businesses and associations, non-governmental organizations, philanthropic organizations and higher education institutions, as well as host country and other donor public sector partners. Large organizations such as extractive industries and other Fortune 500 firms, numerous foundations, and small non-governmental organizations such as the Foods Resource Bank are among these partners. Some of USAID's traditional not-for-profit partners have become active themselves in recruiting alliance partners. USAID conducts due diligence on potential corporate partners, examining their public records from a variety of perspectives including product offering, workplace and labor issues, human rights issues, international operations, social responsibility programs, and environmental record.
Other Donors: The principal bilateral and multilateral donors strongly support GDA's public-private alliance approach. In fact, a number of them have realized the value in this approach and have launched similar public-private alliance initiatives. United Nations agencies are active in a number of alliances, especially health and education. Bilateral donors, particularly the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, the Netherlands, and Germany are also alliance members. As long as strictly private resources constitute at least 25% of total alliance funding, there is no restriction on the participation of public sector entities from other countries.
Back to Top ^
|
