Message from Director

For more than sixty years the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and its predecessors have collaborated with the government and the people of Paraguay to build infrastructure, strengthen public institutions, enhance economic opportunities for the poor, improve the quality of health care and provide expanded academic and technical skills training. Today, USAID works with local and national governments, civil society and the judiciary, the private sector and non-governmental organizations to advance four basic "strategic objectives". The program seeks to help Paraguayans to:

1) Consolidate their democratic institutions and practices, by strengthening local government to make them more accountable, responsive and financially responsible;

2) Improve the quality of and access to reproductive health services, particularly of the rural poor by providing local communities with a voice in planning and managing public sector health services;

3) protect globally significant biodiversity in the Chaco, the Pantanal and the Interior Atlantic Forest by strengthening civil society and supporting a broader role for them in managing protected areas and by encouraging local government to play a more active role in environmental regulation and management;

4) reduce poverty by helping firms to increase their sales, employment, exports and investments.
In collaboration with the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), USAID is also working closely the Government of Paraguay to undertake a Threshold Program intended to fight corruption by attacking the root causes of impunity and informality in the economy. Approved by the Board of the MCC on February 8th, 2006, it represents one of 5 approved Threshold Programs. With approximately $35 million in MCA financing, it was the largest approved program as of that date.

As USAID enters the next decade of its development partnership with Paraguay we look forward to working with the many talented Paraguayans whose ideas, energy and integrity are essential to meeting the many challenges that confront their families, their communities and their country. USAID remains committed to helping Paraguayans construct a more democratic, prosperous, just society for themselves and their children.


JOHN BEED

USAID/Paraguay Director