USAID’s Bureau for Planning, Learning, and Resource Management (PLR) is the Agency’s lead on strategy, policy and program implementation, budget, learning, and evaluation. PLR aligns resources with the U.S. Government’s foreign policy and national security objectives – and we advance evidence-based, cost-effective programming to achieve sustainable development outcomes. We harness the technical prowess and subject matter expertise that sit in every bureau, independent office, and mission to make progress on issues most critical to our development and humanitarian aims.
PLR plays a central role in helping USAID leadership shape the Agency’s policy priorities. The Bureau co-leads the Secretariat for the Policy Advisory Council, an Agency-wide senior leadership group focused on identifying and prioritizing issue areas most important to U.S. development and national security goals. We translate high-level policy conversations at headquarters to mission leadership and colleagues around the world. Our analytics team compiles and contextualizes data and primary source reporting on country, regional, and geopolitical trends relevant to our development goals – thereby helping leadership make better informed decisions.
PLR advocates and champions for the funding that the Agency needs to accomplish its important work globally. The Bureau is at the nexus of negotiations to secure the right mix of budgetary resources to achieve our development and humanitarian aims worldwide. Our team also creates a culture of budget advocacy across USAID by building capacity through Agency-wide training efforts – both in the field and in all bureaus and offices at headquarters.
PLR is the chief coordinator for the Agency’s development diplomacy efforts. We represent U.S. interests through partnerships with traditional donors and emerging economies and strategically engage with multilateral organizations, such as the United Nations, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and multilateral development banks. We convene partner countries to advance collective action on pressing challenges. We ensure that USAID is prioritizing all such engagement to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. We collect and report official development assistance statistics on behalf of the U.S. Government.
PLR promotes effectiveness and accountability at USAID – and that sound evidence informs policy, strategy formulation, budgetary, and programming choices at all levels. We provide guidance on effectiveness and build staff capacity on USAID’s Program Cycle — the Agency’s operational model for planning, implementing, assessing, and adapting development programming in a given region or country to advance U.S. foreign policy. We also enhance Agency staff capacity to integrate innovative design approaches and strengthen award management to achieve more effective and sustainable results. By doing so, we ensure that USAID programs can help achieve development objectives in a given country or region, with the aim of strengthening a country’s ability to lead its own development, including through locally-led development.
To learn more about our work, follow us on X (Twitter) @USAID_Diplomacy. For additional ways to contact PLR, please complete the comment form or directly email open@usaid.gov. And don’t forget to check out our LearningLab for excellent tools and approaches to learning for better development programming.
