USAID Agenda for Private Sector Engagement

USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah presented at the USAID Public-Private Partnership Forum held Oct. 20 in Washington. D.C. , where he outlined a new direction for the agency’s work and encouraged the development community to “embrace a new wave of creative, enlightened capitalism” that connects profit, wealth and development. Full remarks are linked here.

In the coming years, the U.S. Agency for International Development is expected to pursue more partnerships with local and foreign private corporations and to boost investments in business-related reforms in partner countries as the agency moves to make private sector development a key part of its mission.

As noted in a recent Devex article by Ivy Mungcal, "This push to elevate partnerships and support for private sector-led development as a key part of USAID’s mission is in line with U.S. President Barack Obama’s development policy, which includes promoting broad-based economic growth as one of its pillars. It is also in line with an emerging trend among donors to engage in development efforts that would help recipient countries graduate eventually from aid dependence.

USAID, according to Shah, would tap partnerships with foreign and local private corporations, including multinationals such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi Co., to leverage U.S. investments in the developing world. “I’m not talking about partnership for partnerships sake,” Shah stressed. “I’m talking about helping support the work of markets that can deliver profits and create opportunities for women, minorities and the poor. We must partner with the private sector much more deeply from the start, instead of treating companies as just another funding source for our development work.”

USAID aims to create and maintain these partnerships through its recently launched Office of Innovation and Development Alliances supervised by Maura O’Neill, USAID’s senior counselor and chief innovation officer (recent remarks here). 

Read Shah's full remarks here.