Bilateral and Multilateral Donors

Bilateral and multilateral donors, like USAID, and other providers of development assistance share decades of development knowledge and expertise and provide billions of dollars to help countries achieve their sustainable development goals.

The United States works with others to tackle the world’s development challenges. When we provide assistance to a developing country or respond to a humanitarian crisis or natural disaster, we do so in concert with: other countries like the United Kingdom, Japan and Sweden; multilateral organizations, such as the World Bank Group, other Multilateral Development Banks and the various United Nations Agencies; and other assistance providers, including countries that both receive and provide assistance, such as India, Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia. By coordinating and working closely with other partners, USAID can improve the delivery, impact and sustainability of development assistance, thereby maximizing development results both at the country level and globally.

Collaboration between USAID, other bilateral and multilateral donors and other assistance providers can take a variety of forms, including:

  • Coordinating diplomatic and political outreach, especially on policy reform;
  • Expanding existing programs to new areas or beneficiaries;
  • Implementing joint programs through pooled funding arrangements or other  mechanisms; and
  • Building partnership platforms to find solutions to significant development challenges.

USAID also partners with private foundations and other philanthropic efforts such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation. Likewise, we actively work to include local and international civil society and private sector actors. Building effective multi-stakeholder partnerships allows us to leverage the comparative advantages -- the knowledge, expertise, resources and capacities – of all development actors, and will be critical to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.