U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)

Ronald Reagan Building
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20523-0016

Phone: 202-712-4320
Fax: 202-216-3524
E-mail: pinquiries@usaid.gov
Internet: www.usaid.gov

USAID is an independent federal government agency that receives overall foreign policy guidance from the secretary of state. It is the principal U.S. agency to extend assistance to countries recovering from disaster, trying to escape poverty, or engaging in democratic reforms. U.S. foreign assistance has the twofold purpose of furthering U.S. foreign policy interests in expanding democracy and free markets while improving the lives of citizens of the developing world. USAID works in agriculture, democracy and governance, economic growth, the environment, education, health, global partnerships, and humanitarian assistance in more than 100 countries to provide a better future for all.

With headquarters in Washington, D.C., USAID's strength is its field offices around the world. It works in close partnership with NGOs, indigenous organizations, universities, U.S. businesses, international agencies, other governments, and other U.S. government agencies. Much of USAID's work in relief and stability operations is focused on the work of several departments, identified below.

OFFICE OF U.S. FOREIGN DISASTER ASSISTANCE (OFDA)

Internet: www.usaid.gov/our_work/humanitarian_assistance/disaster_assistance/

OFDA is responsible for providing humanitarian assistance in response to international crises and disasters. The USAID administrator is designated as the president's special coordinator for international disaster assistance, and OFDA helps in the coordination of this assistance.

OFDA provides humanitarian assistance in response to a declaration of a foreign disaster made by the U.S. ambassador or the U.S. Department of State. Once an event or situation is determined to require USG assistance, OFDA can immediately provide up to $50,000 to the U.S. embassy or USAID mission to purchase relief supplies locally or to contribute to a relief organization in the affected country. USAID/OFDA can also send relief commodities, such as plastic sheeting, tents, blankets, and water purification units, from its stockpiles in Maryland, Guam, Honduras, Italy, and the United Arab Emirates. Increasingly, OFDA deploys short- or long-term field personnel to countries where disasters are occurring or threaten to occur, and in some cases, dispatches a USAID Disaster Assistance Response Team.

A large percentage of OFDA's assistance goes to disaster relief and rehabilitation projects managed by NGOs (66 percent), UN organizations (15 percent), and IOs (2 percent). Relief projects include airlifting supplies to affected populations in remote locations, managing primary health care and supplementary feeding centers, and providing shelter materials to disaster evacuees and displaced persons. A rehabilitation project might immunize dislocated populations against disease, provide seeds and tools to farmers who have been affected by disasters, drill water wells, or rehabilitate water systems in drought-stricken countries. OFDA carefully monitors the organizations implementing these projects to ensure that resources are used wisely and to determine if the project needs to be adapted to changing conditions. The goal of each project is to meet the humanitarian needs of the affected population, with the aim of returning to self-sufficiency.

OFFICE OF FOOD FOR PEACE (FFP)

Internet: www.usaid.gov/our_work/humanitarian_assistance/ffp/

FFP, during the past fifty years, has sent 106 million metric tons to the hungry of the world, feeding billions of people and saving countless lives. The program depends on the productivity of U.S. farmers and the U.S. agricultural system. The commodities FFP relies on are grown in the fields of virtually every U.S. state. But much more than farming is involved. Merchants sell the seed and fertilizer, mechanics keep the combines running, bankers extend credit to the farmers who plant and harvest the crops, millers process the grain, forklift drivers and stevedores load the ships—all are part of this unbroken chain of production and distribution feeding the world's hungry.

Upon reaching its destination, the food is used in a variety of ways, and always for the people most vulnerable to the effects of hunger: children under age five, pregnant women, the elderly, and the poorest families in a com munity. In an emergency where people face the threat of imminent starvation, food—usually wheat and corn—is distributed to save their lives. If the symptoms of extreme malnutrition have already appeared, a nutritionally fortified ration with blended, fortified, and processed food is provided. In less dire circumstances, food can be used to compensate people for work, such as building roads or repairing water and irrigation systems. In turn, these projects help protect communities from future hunger by providing them access to local markets for their produce, keeping them healthy, and improving their harvests. Other methods of using food aid include the following:

• Showing farmers better ways to sow and tend their fields or providing improved seed, thus improving their harvest by linking them with American know-how
• Teaching women about nutrition, resulting in healthier babies and children
• Encouraging the production of higher-value commodities that could earn money in local markets
• Providing micronutrients, such as vitamin A, iodine, zinc, and iron, that hungry children often lack
• Feeding children at school to encourage attendance and improve academic performance

OFFICE OF TRANSITION INITIATIVES (OTI)

Internet: www.usaid.gov/our_work/cross-cutting_programs/transition_initiatives/

OTI lays the foundations for long-term development by promoting reconciliation, jump-starting economies, and helping stable democracy take hold.

OTI specifically encourages a culture of swift response among its staff and partners. This culture is reflected in a strategic approach that continually incorporates best practices and lessons learned. OTI is funded by a separate Transition Initiatives budget account with special authorities that allow immediate spending where it is most needed. Finally, OTI created an innovative contracting mechanism that preserves the principle of competition while allowing quick start-up in new countries and direct grants to small, indigenous organizations. Some of the specific project areas of OTI include the following:

• Supporting community development programs that encourage political participation of previously marginalized groups and link constituents with their elected representatives
• Funding reintegration of ex-combatants into their communities as citizens
• Backing alternative media and public information campaigns to encourage reconciliation and informed participation in elections
• Assisting local efforts to fight corruption and promote transparent governance
• Helping governments develop action plans for key reforms
• Encouraging measures to bring the military under civilian democratic control
• Building the capacity of civil-society organizations to effectively engage government officials in dialogue and debate
• Promoting human rights through education, advocacy, monitoring, reporting, and services to survivors of rape and torture
• Helping national governments manage their strategic natural resources responsibly to avoid illegal exploitation and trafficking
• Supporting local efforts to mitigate and manage ethnic and religious conflict through training, improved communication, and confidence-building measures
• Providing opportunities for children and adolescents to engage in constructive and educational activities, reducing their vulnerability to illegal recruitment in armed forces and other forms of exploitation and abuse

OFFICE OF CONFLICT MANAGEMENT AND MITIGATION (CMM)

Internet: www.usaid.gov/our_work/cross-cutting_programs/conflict/

CMM works to assist USAID to prevent, mitigate, and manage the causes and consequences of violent conflict and fragility. CMM leads USAID's efforts to identify and analyze sources of conflict and fragility; supports early responses to address the causes and consequences of instability and violent conflict; and seeks to integrate conflict mitigation and management into USAID's analysis, strategies and programs.

CMM provides analytical and operational tools to USAID overseas missions, development officers, and program partners to enable USAID to better address the causes and consequences of conflict through its development assistance programming. Its mission is to mainstream conflict programming within USAID's traditional assistance portfolios and allow it to utilize its resources in a more strategic, cost-effective manner. CMM's primary activities include the following:

• Creating detailed conflict assessments that map out destabilizing patterns and trends in specific developing countries
• Providing USAID missions with access to concrete, practical program options; lessons learned; and options for partners, mechanisms, and monitoring and evaluation tools for implementing more-effective conflict programs
• Providing direct support for innovative conflict management programs in a number of countries
• Supporting the development of an early warning system that can help focus USAID and U.S. government attention and resources on countries that are at greatest risk for violence

OFFICE OF MILITARY AFFAIRS (OMA)

Internet: www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_partnerships/ma/ 

In 2005, USAID created the Office of Military Affairs in the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance (DCHA). The office serves USAID as a whole and reflects the increased importance of effective interface with the military in reconstruction, stabilization, and humanitarian assistance operations. In addition to Washington positions, the office will have advisers in several of the key combatant commands to help link regional and field planners and managers. The office will also help build understanding and effective relations between the U.S. military and the NGO community.

BUREAU FOR GLOBAL HEALTH (GH)

Internet: www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_health/

GH supports field health programs; advances research and innovation in selected areas relevant to overall USAID health objectives; and transfers new technologies to the field through its own staff work, coordination with donors, and a portfolio of grants and contracts with an annual budget in excess of $1.6 billion. USAID's objective is to improve global health, including child, maternal, and reproductive health, and to reduce abortion and disease, especially HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. GH personnel also deploy into the field during humanitarian crises.

\ There are several means by which the GH engages in relief and stability operations. The Global Health program has strengthened USAID's ability to respond to the increasing threat of new and reemerging infectious diseases through the Infectious Disease Initiative. The initiative focuses on preventing diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis, while simultaneously strengthening the treatment and control programs that exist in the health care system and focusing on crosscutting issues of building surveillance capacity and addressing antimicrobial resistance. Additionally, the Bureau for Global Health provides technical leadership to improve emergency and transition programming in nutrition and food security. The resources for responding to complex emergencies tend to shift from immediate shelter, water, and food needs to reestablishment of livelihoods and eventual development efforts. USAID relies on food aid and emergency funding for short-term activities, including technical assistance. Another GH involvement in relief operations is the reconstruction of water supply, sanitation, and hygiene activities in areas of crises, through the Environmental Health branch of GH.

OFFICE OF DEMOCRACY AND GOVERNANCE (DG)

Internet: www.usaid.gov/our_work/democracy_and_governance/

DG is the reach-back technical office for all USAID field missions with democracy assistance programs. It consists of approximately sixty experts with experience in the areas of rule of law, elections, political processes, civil society, media, labor, anticorruption, decentralized local governance, and legislative development. DG's officers are engaged with USAID field programs in all phases, including planning, design, development, implementation, and evaluation.

DG supports the overall USAID effort to consolidate democratic change and build robust democratic institutions in three basic ways: by providing technical assistance both on-site and through electronic means to the field offices; by developing technical guidance in the emerging practice areas of democracy building; and by conducting an extensive training program for the entire agency on democracy development.