Giovanny Rincon

I was part of RTI International team during this summer thanks to Global Studies Summer Award that permitted me to adapt partially, my laptop in a home-office desktop in order to accomplish my main objectives during my internship.

The main task that I had during my internship was to lead the formulation of the component of Past Performance for USAID Mozambique Local Governance Strengthening (LOGOS) proposal. As part of the writer’s group I had the opportunity to gather information of previous projects implemented by RTI and to write the principals goals and lessons learned under three objectives:

– Strengthen Democratic Governance of Targeted Mozambican Institutions

– Strengthen Service Delivery Capacity of Targeted Subnational Governments

– Accelerate Resilient, Broad-Based Economic Growth in Targeted Subnational Territories

The case of Mozambique was very interesting to work. Despite being a long-standing war since 1973 whit fragmented periods of peace. Mozambique signed a peace agreement in 2019 that seeks guarantee democratic transition with decentralization reforms. It is an interesting and also challenging framework for formulating a proposal focused on governance and economic growth, because the sub-national entities, along with more rural districts, are dependent on central funding transfers and lack authority over service sector bureaucrats, service delivery is under-resourced, authority ambiguous and accountability weak.

Under this context the team applied the Theory of change to design the proposal. The premises taken for this analysis were that If subnational governments improve knowledge and skills in public financial management, and apply techniques for promotion local economic development, and improve public services, including health and education services, measures of individual agency and human capital for participating youth and adults, who have received improved health, education, and public services, will increase.

For these reasons, the main objective defined was to increase the quantity and quality of sustainable, resilient local public services, provided by participating subnational governments. That meant, the design of a strategy focused on local governance.

The second relevant activity that I had was the revision of the USAID’s Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) in 20 countries, focused on Governance and Youth. I reviewed the CDCS of: Albania, Angola, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Bureau for Africa’s Office of Sustainable Development, Cambodia, Central Africa Regional Program for the Environment, Central America and Mexico (CAM), Central Asia, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic, East Africa Regional, Eastern and Southern Caribbean, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras y Mexico. With this activity I could identify new opportunities for development new proposal and understand how USAID applies the following concepts according to each country context: governance, democracy, accountability, transparency, public administration or public financial management; and then youth, workforce development, employment.  This exercise allowed me to contrast application of the debates taken in class with the USAID’s strategy for many countries.