40 years of DAI

find alternatives as long as the Government of
Bolivia had the will to protect the people from
intimidation.” CONCADE surpassed nearly all its
targets, reaching more than 28,000 farm families
and enabling those families to earn an average
income of $2,275 per year, significant in that it
exceeded the income earned from coca. Land
devoted to licit crops increased to more than
135,000 hectares, and the project directly created
23,000 new on-farm and 58,000 off-farm
jobs.
DAI’s water-related projects also became more
complex and nuanced during the 1990s. The
pioneering work in the field began, as it did in
microenterprise, with a comprehensive desk
study. Nearing the conclusion of a major USAID
irrigation support project, the agency asked
DAI’s Peter Reiss to produce a paper on collaborative
planning and conflict resolution in
water projects. Reiss sought the contributions
of a professional mediator and a well-known
academic, and produced a study that laid the
basis for USAID’s Fostering Resolution of Water
Resources Disputes Project (FORWARD) in the
Middle East. Beginning in 1996, the DAI team
helped resolve water disputes in Egypt, Jordan,
and Lebanon, and even consulted in the Middle
East peace process. Pleased with FORWARD’s
collaborative approach to problem-solving on
notoriously contentious issues affecting water
rights and uses, USAID eventually renewed the
five-year contract for another five years.
Public Opportunities,
Commercial Setbacks
Development professionals had long understood
that public sector performance—the effectiveness
of the civil service and government
institutions—could greatly help or hinder the
development process. But not until the 1990s
did DAI actively enter the domain of governance
and public sector management. This was an
area to which the Clinton administration and
USAID’s leadership were devoting lots of attention,
and political changes in Central Europe
and Eurasia had boosted demand for qualified
technical assistance in the field of governance.
DAI established a foothold by winning an IQC
for USAID’s Public Administration Assistance
Program in Eastern Europe, and the award of
the large local government contract in Poland
further raised its profile.
Leading this new push was Michael Morfit, who
had helped move USAID into the democracy
arena before joining DAI in 1996 to lead a new
practice devoted to public sector management.
His team helped strengthen local governments
in Poland to rationalize fiscal transfers, promote
cost-effective policies, and support infrastructure
development. In Albania, Estonia, and
Macedonia, DAI worked with citizen groups to
strengthen public budgeting, improve public
sector management, and stimulate economic
development. These new projects engaged
DAI, working with subcontractors including the
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