USAID General Publications

From Principle to Practice: Implementing the Principles for Digital Development

For over a decade, the international development community has been exploring how the use of digital technologies, including tools like the mobile phone, can extend the reach of development. At the same time, development organizations have grappled with how to use these technologies to make their own work more participatory, sustainable, and effective.

The results have been mixed. Some projects have succeeded, enabling improved and sustained access to information and services that previously were out of reach for marginalized populations. Other projects have failed, often due to preventable reasons, resulting in hundreds, if not thousands, of projects being unable to scale.

In the late 2000s, several donors and multilateral organizations began talking about the failure in using digital tools to support development. Soon, sets of principles, lessons, and best practices started emerging, beginning with the UNICEF Innovation Principles in 2009. One year later, a group of mHealth implementers and donors independently developed a different set of principles known as the Greentree Principles. The Principles for Digital Development (Principles) were created through the integration and refinement of these two previous sets of principles.

USAID ME capacity assessment toolkit

The Monitoring and Evaluation Capacity Assessment Toolkit (MECAT) is a set of tools that guide organizations through a process to assess their current monitoring and evaluation (M&E) capacity, identify gaps, and plan ways to strengthen their M&E systems.

MECAT uses four methods and supporting tools in the assessment process: (1) a group assessment, (2) an individual assessment, (3) key informant interviews, and (4) a desk review. With this approach, organizations, national health programs, and subnational health teams can accurately assess program strengths and weaknesses and plan the steps needed to strengthen the M&E functions.

Participatory MEL in Complex Adaptive Environments

This volume is the last in a series of papers about systems approaches in complex environments, which includes the use of the collective impact model to address large-scale social problems, and the application of participant-driven MEL techniques across 17 networks of civil society organizations. It is based on the experiences of Root Change and Chemonics, two development partners working on a USAID civic engagement project in Nigeria (2013-2018), as well as hundreds of civil society organization partners. This is the final paper in the series and aims to highlight how the adaptation of participatory monitoring, evaluation, and learning techniques (e.g., most significant change, outcome mapping, and outcome harvesting) evolved and ultimately empowered cluster members. The first paper in the series presented a brief introduction to systems approaches in advocacy settings, the SACE theory of change, and the scope of Root Change’s work as technical lead on capacity building and measurement. The second volume aims to address the innovative use of the advocacy strategy matrix, adapted from work by the Center for Evaluation Innovation, for collective impact and the Collective Impact Model, an approach that engages multiple players in working together to solve complex social problems.

Monitoring Guidance for Cash Transfer Programming in Emergency Contexts

Linking monitoring and accountability: This guidance aims to highlight the inherent links between monitoring and accountability. That is, monitoring enables evidence-based decision-making, which contributes to accountable practices. For example, if monitoring activities identify a problem with the security of the cash transfer, a solution is found to protect those receiving the cash transfer. Changing the project in this way, based on what is happening, demonstrates accountability. Information collected through accountability mechanisms, for example complaints and feedback, is a crucial source of monitoring data. This guidance integrates accountability considerations that are linked to different aspects of monitoring.

Monitoring and Evaluation Capacity Assessment Toolkit - User Guide

The Monitoring and Evaluation Capacity Assessment Toolkit (MECAT) is a set of tools that guide organizations1 through a process to assess their current monitoring and evaluation (M&E) capacity, identify gaps, and plan ways to strengthen their M&E systems.

MECAT uses four methods and supporting tools in the assessment process: (1) a group assessment, (2) an individual assessment, (3) key informant interviews, and (4) a desk review. With this approach, organizations, national health programs, and subnational health teams can accurately assess program strengths and weaknesses and plan the steps needed to strengthen the M&E functions.

USAID Disability Policy - Nothing Without Us

There are more than 1.3 billion persons with disabilities globally—or approximately 16 percent of the global population—with nearly 80 percent of persons with disabilities living in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and 240 million children with disabilities worldwide. In 1997, USAID became one of the first bilateral development agencies in the world to adopt a policy on disability to guide the Agency’s efforts toward disability inclusion. Now, USAID has convened stakeholders, development practitioners, and community members around the world to inform an updated policy aimed at further advancing disability-inclusive development. This 2024 “Nothing Without Us: USAID Disability Policy” responds to stakeholder feedback, updates promising practices, places the Agency’s work within the current global context, and situates USAID to fulfill its long-standing commitment to nondiscrimination and inclusion of persons with disabilities in society on an equitable basis with others. The policy also positions USAID to partner with persons with disabilities in meeting the myriad challenges and  opportunities of the 21st century.

USAID Protocols for Evaluation of Current USAID Programming - 2025-02-20

To assess alignment of the US Government’s (USG) foreign assistance with the President’s America First foreign policy, which requires that each dollar of foreign assistance makes America safer, stronger, and more prosperous.

Semiannual Report to Congress - March 2024 - 2024-03-20

USAID

Simply put, our goal at USAID OIG is to improve U.S. foreign assistance programmed by the agencies we oversee by providing assurances to Congress and the American people that critically important aid dollars are going where intended and having the desired impact.

Our oversight work during this reporting period tracked USAID’s major programs and initiatives. For example, we continued to prioritize USAID’s Ukraine response, expanding our on-the-ground presence in Kyiv, and issuing an evaluation of USAID’s direct budget support to the government of Ukraine administered through the World Bank. We also audited USAID’s response to the Rohingya crisis in Burma and Bangladesh and evaluated USAID’s role in evacuating aid workers during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, all while expanding our evaluation and inspection capacity.

Program Cycle Operational Policy - 2024-03-20

USAID, Revised 2024

The Program Cycle is USAID’s operational model for planning, delivering, assessing, and adapting development programming in a given region or country to advance U.S. foreign policy. It encompasses guidance and procedures for:

1) Making strategic decisions at the regional or country level about programmatic areas of focus and associated resources;

2) Designing supportive projects and/or activities to implement these strategic plans; and

3) Learning from performance monitoring, evaluations, and other relevant sources of information to make course corrections as needed and inform future programming.

Driving Progress Beyond Programs - 2023-01-20

USAID, March, 2023

Since USAID’s founding more than 60 years ago, we have helped tackle many of the challenges of our time. With development partners around the world, we helped lift communities out of poverty, push back against oppression, and secure peace after conflict. We helped spark the Green Revolution and avert an age of global and continuous famine. We helped eradicate smallpox, reverse the spread of AIDS, end Ebola outbreaks, lead the campaign that has nearly eradicated polio, and dramatically decrease the incidence of malaria and tuberculosis. We supported dozens of transitions from autocracy to democracy, enabled tens of millions of girls to attend school, and provided lifesaving aid to communities torn apart by disasters, wars, and other crises.

Yet despite this remarkable progress, the development challenges of today are more formidable than those the world has faced at any time since World War II, with significant implications for America’s national security. The COVID-19 pandemic caused mass devastation, resulting in millions of deaths, economic turmoil, and rising global inequality. The climate crisis bears down on us all, with particularly vicious and destabilizing impacts on those least able to withstand its effects—and least responsible for the emissions that caused it. Vladimir Putin’s brutal war on Ukraine has led to widespread misery and death and exacerbated a global food crisis to levels not seen in decades. In every region of the world, autocrats have become increasingly brazen, while democratic institutions and governance face a multitude of threats. All of these developments have combined to inflict significant economic harm on the world’s most marginalized communities.

These headwinds are occurring at a speed and scale never before witnessed, bypassing borders and affecting nations regardless of ideology or system of government. They are deeply interconnected, with climate change accelerating global hunger, the pandemic exacerbating long-standing economic challenges, and pervasive inequality contributing to democratic decline.