At USAID, it’s bye bye bureaucracy, hello local competition
January 13th, 2012 | by Guest BloggerThis guest blog was written by Porter McConnell, policy and advocacy manager, Aid Effectiveness Team, Oxfam America
As part of a broader reform effort to make US foreign aid more effective, USAID is peeling away layers of bureaucracy, bit by bit. The latest casualty in this battle against obscure and painful regulations that get in the way of helping people help themselves? A little thing called the Source, Origin, and Nationality regulation, or S/O/N. The S/O/N led USAID to buy much of the goods it needed in the field from the US, and submitting to a lengthy waiver process when this was impractical or costly. After a year-long public consultation, reforms to this clunker of a rule went live this week.
Now that USAID has used its authority under law to change the S/O/N rule, it can buy the goods it needs not just from the US, but also from the country where the good is being used, or another low income country with a competitive price. But wait, isn’t buying American a good thing, you ask? Well, not always. If it’s ten times as expensive and takes months to get there, it’s probably not the best use of taxpayer dollars, especially when delay could cost peoples’ lives. Also, if your goal is to help people in poor countries help themselves, you probably want to support the local small businesses that employ those people, so they can feed their families, and be less dependent on our aid, right? In that case, buying American is shooting ourselves in the foot.
Fixing the S/O/N is just one regulation peeled back in a much larger battle. There are still plenty of other senseless or antiquated regulations whose demise would make a big difference for the lives of poor people overseas, and also save US taxpayer dollars. Ultimately, the best use of US foreign aid dollars is to invest in genuine partnerships with poor people and their governments, the kind that will put us out of the aid business for good. But make no mistake: this one little reform will make a big difference for that small business in Kenya that gets the USAID contract, and can hire more Kenyans, who can send their kids to school. Who knows, maybe one of those kids will grow up to be the next Wangari Maathai or John Githongo.
Wangari Matthai was the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a PhD, and she went on to become a lifelong environmental activist. She passed away in 2011. Photo: greenbeltmovement.org
[...] Manager, Aid Effectiveness Team, Oxfam America. The post originally appeared on Oxfam America’s Politics of Poverty [...]
This is a great step in the right direction. An article in today’s Chronicle of Philanthropy encourages us to keep going on these reforms. http://philanthropy.com/article/Where-Has-All-the-Haiti-Money/130333/ It cites the U.N. Special Envoy for Haiti data that only 0.4 percent of international aid has gone directly to Haitian nonprofits.
Donors and international NGOs need to restructure and revise their accountability requirements to focus on the minimum structure and financial controls necessary, rather than asking local organizations to conform to complex regulations. In effect, not only must we “build groups up,” we must lower the “glass ceiling” that currently blocks community-based organizations to participate in and benefit from funding mechanisms.
Certainly high-level larger programs and policy efforts and reforms are needed to bring about changes in Haiti and elsewhere in the developing world. But we all know that without building a base of committed stakeholders at all levels—in particular the local level—programs runs the risk of being inconsequential in the lives of everyday people. Grassroots organizations are a critical part of making this happen, and what’s more, grassroots organizations are often among the “first responders” in any disaster or issue at the local level. As donors, we have not yet done enough to adequately harness and support the strengths that local groups have—-namely, their rootedness in the communities they serve, deep contextual knowledge, language capacities and the flexibility to operate in a responsive manner to local needs.
The “outside expertise infusion” aid model is being transformed. Taking a look at the S/O/N reform and the recovery efforts in Haiti invites us to open up the dialogue about international actors can focus on building their own skills, practices, and institutional processes to accompany and support local leadership, rather than overpower or co-opt it.
[...] blogger Porter McConnell tells us more here: “A little thing called the Source, Origin, and Nationality regulation, or S/O/N. The S/O/N [...]
[...] Writing on the Oxfam America blog, Porter McConnell praises the move saying that, “Fixing the S/O/N is just one regulation peeled back in a much larger battle. There are still plenty of other senseless or antiquated regulations whose demise would make a big difference for the lives of poor people overseas, and also save US taxpayer dollars.” [...]
Hi Porter, is it clear on whether this change in regulation applies to (a) food aid (b) US flag shipping and (c) pharmaceuticals, in particular ARVs for HIV?
cheers
Cynan