Pursuant to the requirements of Section 258(a) of the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) of 1961, as amended by Section 4 of the Women’s Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment (WEEE) Act of 2018 (Public Law 115-428), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) submits this report to Congress.
The WEEE Act requires that this report contain, to the extent practicable, information on the five reporting elements below related to the Agency’s Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) Programming:
- Information about assistance provided under section 252 [of the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA), as amended], including:
- the amount of each grant or other form of assistance;
- the name and type of each intermediary and implementing partner organization receiving assistance;
- the name of each country receiving assistance; and
- the methodology used to ensure compliance with targeted assistance requirements under subsection (c) of such section.
- The percentage of assistance, provided under section 252, disaggregated by income level, including for the very poor, and by [sex]1.
- The estimated number of individuals that received assistance under section 252, disaggregated by income level (or an appropriate proxy for income level, including for the very poor) by [sex], and by type of assistance.
- The results of the monitoring system required under section 253.
- Information about any method in place to assess poverty levels under section 254.
This report also reflects the incorporation of all U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) Audit recommendations for MSME reporting by USAID, as noted in the GAO report, Micro, Small, and Medium-Sized Enterprise Development: USAID Needs to Develop a Targeting Process and Improve the Reliability of Its Monitoring. The data collection processes, definition of terms, and analytical methods now employed in the development of this report, because of these recommendations, will be reviewed on an ongoing basis to ensure the reporting objectives assigned to USAID are achieved.
