From fragility to resilience: strengthening USAID’s self-reliance approach

This Brookings piece examines how USAID’s Journey to Self-Reliance can be strengthened by shifting from a narrow focus on fragility toward a more operational resilience agenda. The article frames self-reliance as a development objective in which partner countries gradually take on responsibility for their own development challenges without continued dependence on U.S. foreign assistance. It is useful to practitioners because it emphasizes implementation questions rather than abstract goals: how to align programming with local institutions, how to support adaptive capacity, and how to make development systems less brittle in the face of shocks. The piece is especially relevant for resilience planning because it treats resilience not as a standalone slogan but as a design principle that should shape aid strategy, program sequencing, and measurement. Although it is policy-oriented rather than a field case study, it offers concrete guidance on how development actors can reinforce local ownership, improve institutional durability, and better connect assistance to long-term self-sufficiency. For readers working in community preparedness, regenerative development, or place-based resilience, the main value is the argument that durable outcomes require strengthening local capability, governance, and learning systems rather than delivering isolated interventions. The article also helps situate resilience within broader development policy debates, showing how program design can either reinforce dependency or build a stronger base for local problem-solving. Because the source is a high-level policy analysis rather than an implementation manual, it is best read as a strategic framework for practitioners who want to connect resilience goals with self-reliance outcomes.