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Bureau for Policy and Program Coordination
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Policy and Program Coordination Summary Tables
Program Summary
Last updated: lmod
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 communication 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 overnight 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 commnicate 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.
Over the past several years PPC has given 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. With the arrival of a new administration, the PPC bureau will turn to ensuring that its new policy directions are refined, codified and communicated throughout the Agency. This includes how the Agency will address the post-Cold War issues of globalization and conflict. PPC will also give increased attention to identifying and communicating best practices in the areas of managing for results, performance measurement, and procurement.
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 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 regarding trade, and conflict. This, too, will demand greater attention in the coming years.
- The Agency is facing a major challenge in maintaining a focused missionand the expertise to execute that mission. Adding to this challenge is the fact many of the issues on which USAID has taken the lead within the U.S. Government (e.g., population and the global HIV/AIDS pandemic) 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.
Activity Data Sheets
- 930-001 Learning from Experience
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Last Updated on: May 29, 2002 |
