MFAN: AID Redesign: Can USAID Learn from MCC’s Experience?
Patrick Fine, CEO of FHI360, discusses what USAID can learn from the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) as the agency seeks to reform its structure, writing, “Learning from and applying best practices across agencies is a critical step in making development more effective, efficient, and accountable. MCC learned that the time and money invested in project start-up improves performance, both in business operations and program results. As the Trump administration looks for ways to make development assistance more efficient and cost-effective, it should encourage USAID to take a leaf from MCC’s playbook and adjust its business practices to require that all large awards incorporate a start-up period into their first year workplan” (9/27).

Center for Global Development’s “U.S. Development Policy”: A Focus on Evidence at USAID
As USAID considers an organizational redesign and reform, Sarah Rose, senior policy analyst at CGD, highlights “a new CGD Note, Advancing the Evidence Agenda at USAID,” in which Amanda Glassman and Rose offer suggestions, including eight recommendations for improving the “generation and use of evidence” at USAID (9/27).