Message From The Acting Diretor

I am pleased to welcome you to the Management Bureau’s Office of Acquisition and Assistance (M/OAA) fiscal year (FY) 2018 Progress Report. Over the past year we saw a variety of new and exciting reforms that will influence many different aspects of how USAID does business moving forward.

When Administrator Mark Green laid out his vision of the Journey to Self-Reliance, it began an Agency-wide Transformation to reshape how USAID will achieve development objectives, while becoming more transparent and strategic in how we go about meeting those goals.

Embracing collaborative approaches earlier in the design phase, maximizing the potential of public-private partnerships, and exploring co-financing models are all part of the bigger, overall initiative known as Effective Partnering and Procurement Reform (EPPR), which embraces entrepreneurial and creative approaches, while improving synergy between design and solicitation processes. This includes deeper engagement with partners, such as faith-based groups, public international organizations (PIOs), local organizations, and U.S. small businesses.

In FY 2018, M/OAA, actualized several of those transformative efforts. During the past fiscal year, USAID obligated $17 billion through 23,309 acquisition and assistance (A&A) actions. Many of these actions incorporated innovative ways of engaging with our implementing par tners, and better leveraging new and existing partnerships to develop solutions that complement traditional approaches to awards. One example of this is the Small Business Applied Research (SBAR) pilot Broad Agency Announcement (BAA), successfully launched in FY 2018. SBAR expands USAID’s access to emerging technology, products, ser vices, and scientific applications developed by U.S. small businesses. This enables us to leverage innovative solutions to development challenges more quickly.

Another transformation in FY 2018 was the Agency‘s revision of ADS 300 relating to senior leadership reviews of A&A actions. The previous AARAD process is now the Senior Obligation Alignment Review, (SOAR). The SOAR process incorporates many of ideas that are part of the Administrator’s vision, including expanding opportunities for competition, enhancing collaboration in the designs, and helping our partner countries on their development journeys from recipient to donor.

USAID also focused on the increased utilization of the government-wide procurement initiative known as Category Management (CM). In FY 2018 USAID exceeded its CM goals set by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for both Best-in-Class (BIC) and Spend Under Management (SUM).

In addition, USAID focused efforts on increasing the use of collaborative approaches, which is an Agency Priority Goal. In FY 2018, USAID established an 18-percent baseline for the use of co-creation.

Finally, beyond procurement reform, in FY 2018, the Administrator reaffirmed the Agency’s zero tolerance for sexual misconduct, abuse, and fraud and established the Action Alliance for Preventing Sexual Misconduct (AAPSM) to, among other things, strengthen protections for beneficiaries and help partners institute a culture of accountability. In addition, mandatory standard provisions for both acquisition and assistance awards were revised.

Mark Walther
Acting Director
Office of Acquisition and Assistance