The Foreign Service Journal, March 2017

10 MARCH 2017 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL LETTERS “Local Solutions” Alive and Well at USAID The frank exchange of views is invalu- able to successful outcomes, and your publication provides a forum for mean- ingful debate to take place. Having read the op-ed “Why USAID’s New Approach to Development Assis- tance Is Stalled”(December, Speaking Out), I offer a counterpoint to Thomas Dichter’s assertions, which broadly char- acterized the agency’s Local Solutions commitment as having “gained very little traction.” He also implied that since USAID did not fully achieve the 2015 goal of obligating 30 percent of agency resources through local organizations, the agency has abandoned the idea of country own- ership. These points merit clarification and further discussion. By 2014 USAID had recognized that, by itself, substituting local partners for international ones would not ensure the achievement of locally owned and sustain- able results. Consequently, the agency made a deliberate decision tomake the 30-percent target aspirational. And, though it is true that USAID did not reach the tar- get, we didmake incredible progress. Funding obligated directly through local systems nearly doubled from 9.7 percent to 18.6 percent from Fiscal Year 2010 to FY2015. If you include indirect funding through cash transfers and mul- tidonor trust fund contributions—other important approaches we use to channel funds through local systems—we came up just three points shy of 30 percent. In terms of momentum, FY2015 had the highest percentage of funds obligated to date: Missions spent $2.6 billion of their $9.8 billion budgets through local systems. This demonstrates real mission “buy-in” for local ownership. USAID’s shift to a more holistic and thoughtful approach to engaging local actors became even more concrete in 2014 when it issued the Local Systems Framework, describing an overarching approach to promoting local ownership. To embed and institutionalize this way of working into the agency’s operational policy, in 2016 USAID released “Auto- mated Directives System, Chapter 201,” which elevates local ownership as a key principle underlying the way we do our business. The agency has started developing tools to help missions analyze the local context and is promoting the use of pro- curement mechanisms that better facili- tate working with local actors. We are also creating incentives within the Foreign Service pro- motion system to drive home our commitment to the principle of local ownership. Consequently, we expect to see more programs that respond to local priorities, leverage local resources and involve local actors—including government, civil society and the private sector. These efforts align with Mr. Dichter’s own 2014 recommendations in “The Capable Partners Learning Agenda on Local Organization Capacity Develop- ment.” The executive summary of that document states: “The percent goal … ought to have the freedom to be rede- fined not in terms of numbers of organi- zations funded, but numbers of problems tackled that are fundamental challenges in institutional change and country ownership.” In short, Local Solutions is alive and well at USAID. And while we are well aware of challenges to sustainability— including competing pressures for quick and demonstrable results and the need to ensure the safety of our staff—we remain committed to making progress in this critical area. Alicia Dinerstein Director, Office of Strategic and Program Planning Bureau for Policy, Planning and Learning U.S. Agency for International Development Washington, D.C. NATO Expansion Is Sound Congratulations on the Russia pack- age in the December issue of the Journal . You provided a wealth of facts, insights and wisdom on the vital issue of how to deal with Russia. If only members of the incoming Trump administration would read and absorb these lessons. That said, your cover- age would have benefited from some perspective from Central and Eastern Europe, particularly on NATO expansion. Poles, Czechs, Hungarians and others who lived under Soviet occupation during the Cold War saw this step not as a provocation, but as essential to guaranteeing their own independence. They saw no reason why their security concerns should again be sacrificed to those of Russia, as happened decades ago at Yalta. This traditional fear of threats from Russia has only been reinforced by President Putin’s intervention in Ukraine. Having worked on the issue of NATO expansion in Bucharest, Warsaw and Washington, D.C., in the 1990s, I’m convinced it was a sound and necessary policy. It was successful, too. NATO membership has brought unac- customed peace to a dozen new mem- bers by making it clear to Moscow that