The Foreign Service Journal, October 2024

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2024 33 strategic communications, energy, health, Black Sea export issues, and several others provided a solid platform for planning efforts. We used a variable-aperture method in deliberations, sometimes keeping discussions at the 30,000-foot level, as with largerscale USAID humanitarian assistance efforts, and sometimes digging into project-level coordination, for example, with cyber, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) activities. Most importantly, we employed Ambassador Bridget Brink’s prime directive, a relentless proactivity to inform Washington planning from the field and give senior decision-makers the options they needed to maximize results. Leveraging reforms is another vital piece of the assistance puzzle. Challenges provide opportunity. From the outset, we approached large-scale assistance provision as an opportunity to help Ukraine improve systemic concerns like anti-corruption, good governance, and strengthened institutional capacity. As the crisis moved from the acute existential phase of early 2022 to a more protracted conflict, we adjusted our reform agenda to include a focus on improving the legal climate and regulatory environment to better attract foreign investment, increase revenue generation, and create the basis for a strong, sustainable recovery. Implementing reform agendas is often like pulling teeth; but in the case of Ukraine, our efforts have proved to be a catalyst for real change and social transformation. We hope this will continue. The adaptability applied to our reform agenda is really just one aspect of the larger flexibility we strove for throughout the crisis. There’s no shortage of strategic assistance plans, but responding to changing conditions on the ground in real time and making continuous adjustments based on shifting needs and priorities have enabled U.S. assistance to Ukraine to remain effective. USAID, in particular, has been nimble in its constant evaluation and recalibration of activities across the board, and this is nowhere more evident than in the energy sector, where Russian attacks have significantly degraded Ukraine’s generating capacity. USAID, the Department of Energy, and others have replied with agility and continue to do so despite tremendous challenges. Flexibility in planning and willingness to course correct in midstream when circumstances warrant is often easier said than done, but it has been an important part of our success story in Ukraine. The sheer volume of U.S. assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion—$136 billion, including the last supplemental—creates special challenges and responsibilities regarding monitoring and accountability. Accountability for this money—doing everything we can to ensure that assistance effectively serves its intended purposes—is difficult, but we have prioritized it from the outset. The biggest challenge we face is obvious: Many of these programs and projects are in areas either close to the shifting front lines or subject to continuous pounding from missile attacks. Kinetics and their attendant security concerns amid the biggest conventional conflict since World War II limit our ability to use traditional monitoring in some cases. We’ve developed, however, a robust system of measures to ensure effective oversight, starting with coordinated, missionwide prioritization of monitoring targets, site visits, expanded enduse monitoring, third-party monitoring mechanisms, remotemonitoring technologies, and embedded advisers. We also have a team of USAID, Defense Department, and State Office of Inspector General (OIG) personnel in-country and integrated into our operational rhythm. I served in Iraq and have done assistance monitoring before, but the mosaic that we’ve developed in Ukraine in response to the inherent challenges is exceptional. No Guarantees There are other aspects I could mention. A focus on inclusivity, gender equality, and local partnerships comes to mind. But I think the broad concepts discussed above are crucial and probably replicable in different ways in most crises. Coordinating laterally and nurturing stakeholder buy-in strengthens planning and implementation. Leveraging reforms helps to win the future. Flexibility ensures relevance and effectiveness. And a razor-sharp focus on oversight guarantees fiscal responsibility. Outcomes are never guaranteed, and there’s no way to know what the endgame in Ukraine will eventually be. But those 15 minutes on the roadside and the commitment of my colleagues moved mountains. Everything we’ve accomplished since stems from that. n The exodus begins: Ukrainians queue for U.S.-provided emergency assistance prior to fleeing the country into Poland as Russia’s forces launch their invasion in February 2022. The U.S. provided food, medicines, clothing, and other forms of humanitarian aid to tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees in the war’s opening stages. DAVID SCHLAEFER

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