The Making Cities Work (MCW) indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract (2014-2024) issued 18 task orders (TOs) for urban governance work, totaling over $500 million. MCW aims to provide access to short- and long-term technical services, training, and capacity-strengthening in areas related to improving urban and local governance.

The civil service is not only essential for a government to function but also plays a key role in supporting or undermining a government’s ability to deliver public services. It supports the very purpose of a government’s existence and forms a key part of the overall governance system.

This Practitioner’s Guide provides practical advice for how to design, implement, and evaluate legislative strengthening and engagement projects.

This primer covers key concepts and tools that are central to public debt theory and practice. Development stakeholders can use the contents of this primer to put the proper emphasis on public debt developments in their analysis and advice, and to understand appropriate roles that USAID and other partners can play. An improved ability to detect early warnings of debt vulnerabilities can help governments take timely and effective measures to mitigate risks, including productive approaches to debt restructuring. Good international practice derived from past cases will inform the discussion.

The Democratic Decentralization Programming Handbook conceptualizes decentralization as a reform that advances democracy and development in a context of stability and the rule of law.

This document provides an overview of the tax administration reform process.  It first describes the tax administration's tasks and operating environment and then discusses a reform strategy, highlighting areas frequently in need of reform and providing case illustrations of successful reform.   

This paper is designed to guide practitioners at the Department of State, DoD, and USAID in their implementation of current foreign assistance approaches to security and development. Forces enhanced through traditional security assistance comprised of equipment and training can better carry out their responsibilities if the institutional and governance frameworks necessary to sustain them are equally well-developed. Development assistance also benefits from being fully coordinated with security related assistance, as development is at risk without basic security. The increasingly complex threats facing our partners and our own nation urgently require that we address the linkages among security, governance, development, and conflict in more comprehensive and sustainable ways.

This handbook is intended to help USAID field staff make informed decisions with regard to legislative strengthening strategies. It outlines a framework for assessing the needs of legislative bodies and designing appropriate responses to those needs, and describes legislative strengthening work carried out by USAID and others.