A Message from the USAID Administrator
Ambassador Randall L. Tobias
Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and Administrator U.S. Agency for International Development
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I am pleased to present the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Performance and Accountability Report for Fiscal Year 2006 (PAR). This report comes at a time of transition for the Agency. Following Secretary Rice’s announcement in January of the most significant restructuring of U.S. foreign assistance in decades, USAID is working to streamline processes in order to meet the challenges and opportunities of a new era in foreign assistance.
Recognizing the need for collaboration, the Department of State and USAID have been operating under a joint Strategic Plan for 2004-2009 that captures and articulates U.S foreign policy objectives shared by both agencies. This report captures our performance against the objectives laid out in that plan. In the coming year, we will revise the Joint Strategic Plan to reflect the foreign assistance reforms underway. Doing so will provide the long-term strategic vision necessary to ensure that foreign policy priorities and assistance programs are fully aligned.
From the highest levels, this Administration has made and Congress has supported an enormous commitment to development and transformation. President Bush has made—and is keeping—that commitment. In fact, the total official development assistance (ODA) provided by the United States for 2005 came to $27.6 billion—a near tripling of ODA since 2001.
But these vastly increased resources have also come with new responsibilities—to focus on performance, results, accountability—and ultimately, to define success as the ability of a nation to graduate from aid and become a full partner in international peace and prosperity. This is precisely what the Secretary has acknowledged in establishing the transformational diplomacy goal of “helping to build and sustain well-governed, democratic states that respond to the needs of their people and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system.”
This is now the overarching goal of all U.S. foreign assistance. From this point forward, all USAID and State Department foreign assistance funds will be planned, allocated, and measured against achieving this goal. Under the Secretary’s leadership, the United States seeks to reform its organization, planning, and implementation of foreign assistance in order to achieve this goal.
A fundamental purpose of this reform is, in the end, to better ensure that we are providing both the necessary tools and the right incentives for host governments to secure the conditions necessary for their citizens to achieve their full human potential. We cannot provide those tools and incentives absent transparency and accountability. The report that follows provides—for the first time ever—a joint State-USAID performance section. This is an important step upon which we will continue to build in order to honor our long-standing commitment to being effective and accountable stewards of taxpayer dollars.
Remarkably, the United States has never before had an integrated foreign assistance strategy. We have not had a consistent and comprehensive story to tell to our various stakeholders, including Congress and the American public. This new strategic approach will help us tell the story of what we are trying to accomplish, and provide the basis for evaluating our progress—not just within one agency, but across the U.S. government.
I believe USAID has a tremendous contribution to make in writing that story. The men and women of USAID have the experience and expertise that are crucial to meeting the unprecedented development challenges of this century—a time which sees the world at once ripe with democratic promise and menaced by global terrorism.
As evidenced by our continued commitment to addressing challenges—from the needs created by genocide in Sudan; to the toll taken by diseases like HIV/AIDS and malaria; to our work in rebuilding both physical and human capacity following conflict in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon—each of us who works at USAID is driven by the belief that peaceful societies, where healthy and well-educated people are free to provide for themselves and their families, are aspirations of human beings regardless of ethnicity, religion, or geographic location.
This core belief in human potential—and the understanding that the United States can and should play a role in helping people around the world strive for and achieve those aspirations—is the cause that draws us together and drives us to perform. As we move forward on foreign assistance reform, I am confident that the Agency—and the entire U.S. government—will be in a better position to report on that performance.
I hereby certify that the financial and performance data in the FY 2006 PAR are reliable and complete, except for the inadequacies detailed within this report. A discussion of actions that USAID is taking to resolve these issues is also provided in this report. This PAR contains the Agency’s performance information as required by the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA); our audited consolidated financial statements as required by the Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act and the Government Management Reform Act (GMRA); a report on management decisions and actions in response to audit reports issued by the Agency’s Inspector General (IG) as required by the Inspector General Act; and a report on our management and internal controls as required by the Federal Managers’ Financial Integrity Act (FMFIA).
Ambassador Randall L. Tobias
Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and Administrator
U.S. Agency for International Development
November 15, 2006
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