Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

9. Agency for International Development · Minor

Require BHA to use existing IDA authorities and fixed-amount awards

Not started

268 9. Agency for International Development · abridged

“Require that BHA avail itself of existing IDA authorities that it fails to use, including to dispense with the cost-reimbursement model that disqualifies undercapitalized local NGOs; accept other donor vetting of local partners; streamline the award-approval process; and expand the use of fixed-amount awards to rein in cost overruns.”

What has happened

  1. Not started

    Also moved nearby: the cost-reimbursement and fixed-amount elements are at plan stage at the successor department, State having told Congress it will integrate performance-based payments, where the payment "reflects the value of the outcome to the Department, not actual or estimated costs", across its assistance portfolio, with suitability judged award by award and no funding level set aside. Nothing was found on accepting other donors' vetting of local partners. Under §3b the Status stays `not-started` with this dated Primary Evidence attached to it: a plan at the successor is not the abolished bureau using the abolished account's authorities.

  2. Not started

    Playbook §3b, an ask addressed to a body that no longer exists. The Quote asks that a named bureau avail itself of statutory authorities it holds and does not use — conduct within that bureau — so its abolition defeats the ask rather than delivering it, and here both halves of the ask's furniture are gone: the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance ceased to exist when USAID stopped implementing assistance on 2025-07-01 (its successor is State's Bureau of Disaster and Humanitarian Response) and the International Disaster Assistance account itself was replaced by International Humanitarian Assistance in the FY2026 act. USAID's own Federal Register notice records "the transition of certain foreign assistance functions to the Department of State and a reduction-in-force of nearly all USAID personnel". The record moved nearby, by a mechanism the Quote did not name: the "Humanitarian Reset" memorandum of understanding with OCHA replaces projectized grants with consolidated flexible pooled-fund vehicles, OCHA reaching a seven-day average award disbursement time, "several times faster than USAID's historical average", and disbursing 88 percent of available resources within four months.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

Researched 2026-08-28.

Re-leveled 2026-09-01, under the rule for an ask addressed to a body that no longer exists: partial → not started. Contrast #702, the other BHA ask among these items, which stays partial: that one asks that BHA’s partners adopt stricter vetting, an outcome in the world that survives the bureau, so it is leveled on the state of the world. This one asks BHA to use its own authorities.

Reviewed 2026-09-06. The report to Congress verifies, word for word. The question was whether State’s report commits to performance-based payments in the terms the 2026-05-19 event quotes. It does. The PDF opens (state.gov can now be read); its document title is “The Department of State’s Plans to Implement Pilot Programs, Particularly with Respect to Global Health and Food Security”, created 2026-05-19, three pages, submitted under section 7019(e) of Division F of P.L. 119-75 and House Report 119-217. The three claims in the note appear as: “Performance-based payments are payments made to achieve results against established targets where the amount of the payment reflects the value of the outcome to the Department, not based on actual or estimated costs”; “The Department will integrate the use of pilot programs for performance-based payments in mechanisms across its assistance portfolio, where appropriate”; and “The Department does not currently have a specific funding level set aside for such pilot programs but instead will evaluate suitability for using performance-based payment mechanisms on an award-by-award basis (regardless of the funding amount).” The report also supplies, in State’s own words to Congress, the phrase #690 cites — “the most significant overhaul of health assistance in over 20 years”. Status unchanged: a plan at the successor department is still not the abolished bureau using the abolished account’s authorities.

  • EO 14332 grant-process sweep (2026-09-29). Executive Order 14332 (2025-08-07) puts every agency’s funding announcements and discretionary awards under senior-appointee review and a test of the President’s priorities. Under the rule we settled on 2026-09-29, it counts only where an ask’s object is review, clearance or priority-alignment of an agency’s awards. This Quote’s object is BHA’s use of its own authorities, and BHA is gone, so under the rule for an ask addressed to a body that no longer exists the answer is No. Status unchanged.
Action
other
Object
Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) use of IDA authorities
ID
699