"Reaffirming our commitment to advance common values, the United States and Russia will continue to work together to protect and advance human rights, tolerance, religious freedom, free speech and independent media, economic opportunity and the rule of law." -- Joint Statement by Presidents Bush and Putin, Crawford, Texas, November 13, 2001

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an agency of the U.S. Government whose mission is to implement the U.S. Government's economic and humanitarian assistance programs over 100 countries. As part of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, USAID/Russia works with the Russian people to create a society where citizens take an active part in a democratic society and ample opportunity to improve their well being and standard of living in a market economy.

Russia is a huge country. In no case does USAID fund self-contained activities that in themselves change Russian systems. Rather, we play a facilitative role. We have helped provide innovative models for replication. We have helped Russian reformers weigh options and refine technical solutions and helped build analytic capacity to challenge outmoded national policies. And we, along with other donors, have supported Russian-led reforms.

USAID/Russia's program focuses on:
• Supporting economic reform and improving economic infrastructure
• Strengthening small business and the investment environment
• Strengthening democratic institutions
• Improving health services
• Promoting environmental protection.
• Strengthening local governance

Economic initiatives promote the development of a market economy and give all Russians the opportunity to improve their standard of living. Democratic initiatives foster mechanisms for citizen participation in civil society, particularly through non-governmental organizations, and strengthen rule of law and respect for human rights. Environmental initiatives work to preserve Russia's rich natural heritage. Social sector initiatives aim to improve health care and other essential community services.

Most programs take place in "the regions" -- outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg -- and are implemented by local governments and non-governmental organizations, although USAID does finance some critically important technical cooperation with the Government of the Russian Federation - for example, for judicial reform, social and economic policy, health, and intergovernmental relations.

Throughout this portfolio of activities, several themes recur:

USAID relies on Russian people, NGOs, community organizations and businesses to implement its activities. Through technical cooperation, USAID works to strengthen Russian institutions so that they can take over all phases on a project or series of projects themselves as USAID scales back its participation.

USAID funds demonstration projects as models for broader impact. As successful projects are adopted by other cities and regions, the benefits of a single project are multiplied many times over in a variety of settings and can lead to changes in policy or performance. Some of these projects have helped change federal guidelines, spurred region-wide implementation of new approaches, and transferred individual oblasts' achievements to other areas through conferences, publications, web sites, and site visits.

USAID funds training both in the U.S. and in Russia, for entrepreneurs, business managers, accountants, judicial sector professionals, NGOs, health care professionals, government officials, environmental resource managers.

USAID promotes partnerships between the Russian and American people through exchanges between individuals and institutions. These partnerships strengthen the Russian implementation of USAID's activities. Even more important, they forge relationships that extend beyond the life and scope of the activities to permanently strengthen U.S.-Russian ties.

USAID often locates clusters of demonstration projects across the portfolio together in promising regions, so that these projects synergistically bring about changes that advance Russia's democratic and free market goals. These include, but are not limited to, the U.S. Government's current Regional Initiative site: the Russian Far East, Samara and Tomsk.

USAID advocates and supports Russian-led policy reform in such areas as economic policy, business development, health, local governance, and environmental protection.

USAID strives to consider gender as it designs and implements activities. Using gender as an additional lens through which to view and resolve technical issues makes for better targeted and more effective activities.

USAID closely coordinates its work with other elements of the U.S. Government, private foundations, international organizations, and other bilateral development cooperating agencies. By working together and learning from one another, we can better support Russia's goal of improving the lives of all its people.