
Accelerating Innovation, Performance, and Impact at USAID
Summary
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) tackles some of the toughest challenges in some of the toughest places on earth, including fighting global pandemics, growing economic prosperity, strengthening democratic institutions, and providing humanitarian relief. USAID plays an important role in addressing global development problems that initially lack effective, scalable, and sustainable solutions. Yet USAID’s activities allow little room for the risk taking or iteration needed to drive significant improvements and encourage disruptive new ideas, with most programs implemented through detailed plans with rigid designs.
Imagine if the pace of progress for global development could match the breakneck pace of advances in the tech sector. The next administration should assess where current USAID interventions are inadequately meeting global need, applying best practices from innovation to improve programs accordingly. This will include shifting to outcomes-based performance metrics, dedicating budget for experimentation, establishing incentives that encourage risk-taking, linking payments with outcomes, and conducting ex-post evaluations of scale and sustainability.
As Congress moves forward with the appropriations process, both the House and Senate have proposed various provisions related to artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) across different spending bills.
The looming competition for global talent has brought forth a necessity to evaluate and update the policies concerning international visa holders in the United States.
Despite the hype, the uptake of geothermal energy is still relatively low, with only 0.4% of U.S. electricity generated by geothermal.
Responsible governance is crucial to harnessing the immense benefit promised by AI. Here are recommendations for advancing ethical, high-impact AI with thoughtful oversight.