Public/Private Alliances Transform Aid.

UNITED States. Agency for International Development; BUSINESS partnerships; JOINT ventures; STRATEGIC alliances (Business); BUSINESS development; BUSINESS planning; BUSINESS success; BUSINESS enterprises; ECONOMICS

The article discusses the strategies the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) employed to forge public-private partnership for business success. USAID's big tent approach, which is engaging a broad range of potential partners including corporations, religious institutions and ethnic diasporas, created a laboratory for experimenting with the different uses of private foreign aid and has become a rich source of information on identifying effective projects and the reasons for its success. It also offered incentives to seek out and cultivate these alliances, for example it set up an annual prize for the best alliance. It notes that its alliances have produced effective solutions to local social and environmental problems, but also have produced unanticipated results.