Barely one month into the new year, and CIDC is running on all cylinders. We had a packed house at our January 19 monthly meeting with USAID’s Procurement Executive Mark Walther with over 75 in the room and attending virtually. One week later we had a similar turnout to meet with USAID’s Assistant Administrator for Europe and Eurasia, Erin McKee to hear the latest developments regarding U.S. assistance to Ukraine.
Additionally, as part of our excellent exchanges with USAID, PSC hosted a small group of CIDC experts and USAID Localization champions last week to discuss how best to elevate and measure Local Leadership engagement. The group addressed: a) incentivizing processes that ensure USAID incorporates local voices at the onset of the design process; b) ensuring that the metrics for measuring local leadership are constructive and useful, and that learning is applied; and c) avoiding duplicative or additional reporting burdens for Missions or implementers.
Not everything in CIDC centers around USAID, of course, and this month we welcome the Department of State’s Procurement Executive, Mike Derrios, who will be at PSC in person for our Thursday, February 16 noon meeting. Please be sure to log-in and register on PSC’s Events Page to let us know if you will be here or attending via Zoom. CIDC’s Procurement Task Force will meet immediately afterwards.
February 24 marks the one-year anniversary of Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine. Since then, the United States has directed more than $100 billion dollars in assistance, with over $46B through State and USAID – spending which is receiving significant OIG reporting from Sate/USAID/DOD. PSC is producing a compendium of PSC members’ efforts to help Ukraine – with more than a dozen submissions – which we will be releasing on the one-year anniversary and highlighting on PSC’s social media platforms.
Speaking of anniversaries, February 22 is the one-year anniversary of the founding Coalition for Racial and Ethnic Equity in Development (CREED) – of which CIDC and many of our members are proud supporters. A live event will be held at 2:30 to mark the occasion with USAID Counselor Clinton D. White, Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere Affairs Ambassador Brian A. Nichols; Global Head of Philanthropy at PepsiCo and President, PepsiCo Foundation, C.D. Glin; and Director of the Ralph Bunche International Affairs Center at Howard University, Tonija Navas. You can register for the event here.
In recognition of the Ukraine anniversary, and while we finish our compendium, our “From the Field” stories this month highlight how Chemonics is working with the Ukrainian agriculture sector to ensure the country’s vital grain harvests are collected. TetraTech – working with GE – has been instrumental in supporting the Ukrainian power grid in the face of relentless Russian destruction.
Paul Foldi
Vice President, International Development Affairs
Professional Services Council