USAID to create new policy organization
Bureau of Policy, Planning and Learning will decide where to focus the agency's limited resources.
The U.S. Agency for International Development is creating a new bureau to give the agency a voice of its own -- and 60 job openings to make it happen -- according to an internal memo.
The new Bureau of Policy, Planning and Learning will be a voice independent of the State Department to evaluate what natural disasters, civil unrest outbreaks or refugee crises are most urgently in need of the agency's limited resources.
In the internal e-mail, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah said the department fulfills the Obama administration's vision of "regaining USAID's status as a premier development agency."
"We must be able to channel the expertise and experience of all our development professionals through a unified voice," Shah said in the memo. "... Of equal importance, [the bureau] will support USAID's evolution as a learning organization that is, above all, results-oriented and fosters interchange among policy, planning, evaluation, research, innovation and knowledge of management activities."
The planning bureau will also give USAID's perspective on the Department of State's Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, the Presidential Study Directive and the fiscal 2012 budget. Shah previously announced the upcoming creation of an Office of Budget and Resource Management, which will also give analysis on these issues.