USAID Project CYCLE

OVERVIEW SUMMARY

This paper provides an overview of the Program Cycle to all USAID staff and their development partners. The overview demonstrates how the components of the Program Cycle support each other and relate to annual processes and documents.

We now live in a more dynamic world, however, with new development partners, more coordination among various US Government actors, shorter execution cycles, new policies and fiscal realities, and greater appreciation for the complexity and contingency of development. The Program Cycle acknowledges that development is not static and is rarely linear, and therefore stresses the need to assess and reassess through regular monitoring, evaluation, and learning. The Program Cycle encourages planning and project management innovations to reduce the unit cost of delivery and increase the cost-effectiveness and lasting impact of development cooperation. In short, we are not going back to the future, but moving forward based on historical best practices.

PROGRAM CYCLE COMPONENTS:

1. Agency Policies and Strategies. 2. Country Development strategies 3. Project Design and Implementation

4. Monitoring 5. Evaluation

6. Learning and Adapting 7. Budget Resources

Agency Policies and Strategies:

The Program Cycle is informed by a series of U.S. Government and USAID policies and strategies that define the goals and purpose of this approach, and that ultimately strive to make USAID a better development partner.

Key policies and strategies include:

* The President’s Policy Directive on Global Development (PPD-6) – recognizes that development is vital to U.S. national security and is a strategic, economic, and moral imperative for the United States (Obama, September 2010)

* The Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) – proposes ways to