. >> we've never contracted directly to usaid.tarted a company called farmerline in 2013. it provides a range of services to a wide spectrum of small farmers. on this day, conducting a seminar for a women's group on how to improve soil conditions. farmerline links client farmers to merchants it has vetted to insure good quality seeds and other inputs. and it purchases their harvests, selling them to larger agribusinesses. you midwife for the farmers, link them up with buyers. >> exactly. fred: in its 10 years, the group has grown to have 2.2 million client farmers in 50 countries, scale that he says would be much greater with access to u.s. aid funds. >> we're just not trusted with the resources. fred: what he sees as a lack of trust is reflected in the strict guidelines of federal government grant applications, intended to ensure accountability and protect against corruption. >> corruption is everywhere. you know, corruption is not just for locally led organizations or like developing countries. it is everywhere. fred: the large

fred: brian atwood was usaid administrator during the clinton administration.ome of the agency's current problems back to his tenure at the end of the cold war. >> people said they wanted a peace dividend. the peace dividend didn't come out of the defense department, it came out of usaid. and so, i lost 10% of our employees. fred: at the same time, the agency added all of europe's former eastern bloc nations to its workload, which continued to grow, he says. >> when i was aid administrator, the overall budget was around $12 billion. it's now more like $38 billion. and we haven't seen an equal increase in the amount of staffing, what they call operations expenses. and so, the consequence was they had to push everything out the door to larger organizations. fred: that outsourcing has become the norm today, atwood says, and it's easier to manage fewer, and therefore, larger grants with companies familiar with the process. all this has had the effect of shutting out a lot of innovation that could improve people's lives, says unlock aids walter kerr. >> you can look

reporter: brian atwood is a former usaid administrator.le are looking over the agency for every cent of the 30+ billion dollars it disburses each year. >> and it is taxpayers' money that you're using. so you have to be very careful. >> this is fear of corruption? >> fear of corruption, no question. reporter: he says a chronically under staffed agency is forced to outsource to contractors familiar with the complex process. but mpharma's rockson sees corruption in a status quo, where large private contractors work mostly within inefficient government systems in countries targeted for help. >> so the american taxpayer, you've said, is abetting a lot of corruption. >> exactly. you have people that move from usaid with the inside knowledge to join these big development contractors with the inside knowledge on how you win these bids. reporter: usaid administrator samantha power declined our invitation to appear in this report. in 2021, when she took office she pledged to increase the number of dollars that would go to locally led efforts to 20 5

inside knowledge on how you win these bets. >> usaid administrator samantha power declined to comment on the report. when she took office, she pledged to increase the number of dollars that would go to locally led efforts. 25% by 2025 and 50% by 2030. nearly 30 years on, that percentage has barely reached double digits. >> the agency has moved to simplify the application process and build capacity in local groups so they can apply for grants. that has -- they have so far made discernible progress in latin america. >> something like 1800 direct assistance grants have been offered to local organizations, and as a direct consequence of that investment, the migration coming from those countries has gone down considerably. that investment has paid off. >> if such initiatives can continue in the new trump administration is unknown at this point, but significantly, he says the efforts have the support of senator marco rubio, nominated to be the next secretary of state. geoff: fred's reporting is a partnership with the under told stories project at the university of st. thomas in minnesota. a

there is also central america service court, being funded by usaid. with these opportunities for young people, there is often a gap between secondary education and their ability to find a job. these opportunities for service are available through peace corps to americans are being made available to college-educated young people from the countries themselves and going out into the rural communities. and peace corps volunteers in malawi where he served as country director for five years help start up the corps africa program and are starting a side-by-side service model so our volunteers are going out into the community with their volunteers. lots of exciting things happening with international volunteers and organizations who are supporting volunteerism not just as a one day, let's go pick up trash kind of model, but as a real way to survey community over the long-term, develop real, transferable skills and provide an entrÉe into the job market. >> question over here, then we will come over here next. >> good morning. i work here at the csi. i'm curiou

it is said that during the vietnam war that usaid had more officers in the cords program that they had globally at the time of afghanistan. you talk a bit about the problem of corruption in contracting but can you just drill down briefly on the developmental costs that you see in handling our development portfolio through contractors vice through usaid directly. >> thanks for that question. i think you're hitting on a key point. i think sometimes the examples we look at are the most spectacular ones where we see this corruption happen. i would argue that there's actually even deeper structural flaws. just to give you an example, from something i've been thinking about recently, working at a college seeing an overhaul something like our registration process, there's two ways to do this. i can go to the office that does registration and ask them how they might do this and they'll say well this might be difficult. we do this, we do that. i can also find contractors who tell me i need to do this, they'll do it perfectly all for a price. so i think what one of the issues that we've heard co

this is a partnership with usaid that brings together youth climate champions for training and community development projects. and in other parts of the world we are supporting service opportunities for local youth through partnerships with organizations like core africa. on a trip to the region this past august, i joined volunteers in tonga in planting mangrove as trees as part of our first climate resilience cohort and in fiji, i had the opportunity to hear firsthand about the work of the blue pacific youth initiative directly from our volunteer megan and her counterpart who had taken place in a training around project design and management. she brought that training back to her community, went through a process of identifying local needs, and soon thereafter, the women's group was busy creating evacuation shelter, the men's group was examining housing structures and looking at how weather events had impacted housing in their community so they can reinforce and develop resilience from climate related disasters, and the youth group had used locally available materials to create trash bi

and a lot of that is happening through a usaid program that i worked with the president on.ine more than a billion people now receive those treatments. and this is an extraordinary legacy of president, for the president. william: i want to play a clip from a 2010 story that my colleague, fred de sam lazaro, did. he went to south sudan with jimmy carter. this was on one of their guinea worm eradication missions there. and carter was describing how they wanted to use an insecticide in this pond to kill the guinea worm eggs and larva. but the locals there were resistant to it, because the pond was very, very precious to them. here's how carter solved that problem. pres. carter: in fact, the ponds of water were looked upon as sacred. if that particular rainfall pond hadn't been there, the village wouldn't have existed, they wouldn't be alive. and of course, we said that the pond was, in effect, sacred. but there was a curse on that pond. and if they would just help us remove those guinea worm eggs from their pond or from the drink of water that they took out of the pond, then th

we collaborate very close with h usaid which is also growing. it's drg and promotion on had correction assistance program. other bureaus in state department i should add that we have a collaborative strategy. in a distance to foreign assistance we are growing in the area of sanctions that are directly targeting the actors that are promoting democracy but we have the woman next to me which drl i'm actually 10 years ago when i was last in drl. the idea they were just limited to what had happened with this great human rights defender and opposition is to russia could be repeated and iterated on globally. appreciated the tool because it allows us to have a smart sanction that the drivers entrepreneurs shall we say and some of the systems promoting the authoritarianism correction. happy these services are held accountable sit look, they are doing terrible things to their people. if they are stealing money, if they are repressing dissident and civil society. to stop it from getting. it's a state department's purview to give at will. so we're using the

fans belting out usaid chants at the sugar bowl, but one didn't want to show it and jack brewer reactst. protect against rsv with arexvy. arexvy is a vaccine used to prevent lower respiratory disease from rsv in people 60 years and older. arexvy does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients. those with weakened immune systems may have a lower response to the vaccine. the most common side effects are injection site pain, fatigue, muscle pain, headache and joint pain. arexvy is number one in rsv vaccine shots. rsv? make it arexvy. let's say you're deep in a show or a game or the game. on a train, at home, at work. okay, maybe not at work. point is at xfinity. we're constantly engineering new ways to get the entertainment you love to you faster and easier than ever. that's what i do. is that love island? >> ashley: over 50,000 football fans filled the superdome for the sugar bowl in the first massive gathering in new orleans since deadly terrorist attacks. before the game, inspiring moment as patriotic fans made their voice is. watch. [ch

and africa is the one i mentioned and there's also a central american service corps funded by usaid. and these opportunities for young people, there's often a gap between secondary education and their ability to find a job and these opportunities for service are available to go through peace corps to americans are now being made available to college educated young people from the countries themselves and going out into the real communities and peace corps volunteers in malawi, where i served for five years started up the program and now the service models, going out into the communities with volunteers from africa. lots of exciting things happening with volunteer organizations and local organizations who are supporting. volunteers are not just, you know, as one-day, you know, let's go up and pick up trash kind of model, but as a real way to serve the community over the long-term, develop real transferrable skills and provide an entree into the job market. >> a question over here and then we'll come over here next. >> good morning, i work here at csis. i'm curious about whether you've

unfair deceptive practices and within and dozens of studies from those ensuring the accuracy of meeting usaidabels to those protecting kids privacy online. the ftc fits within of more broad to duration of anti- monopoly in america and that recognition and recognition of her liberty the freedom from economic oration, and foron the arbitrary exercise of anacapa ballpark ftc work securing their artisan competitive market means we can enjoy basic protection the place pretty can be sure that foster's a monopolist, will be held too account. altering america's economy remains the envy of the world from a place for entrepreneurs and get ahead by delivering breakthrough ideas and innovations rather than be held back by join engagement exploiting their privilege in recent decades have shown that there serious costs for this commitment to economic an opportunity and freedom in pursuing policies that favor consolidated and centralized markets over competitive ones and keeping he will pay more for less and that people earn less whatn working more and can meas that it simple disaster leads to a major short

and one thing i point out as well is the famine early warning system has suggested this is a usaid organizationine is hitting very hard in the north right now as well. so those numbers that you saw in the lancet, in terms of 69,000, if there's not food that enters in and there's not this ceasefire that takes place, those numbers are going to continue to rise, and we're going to be left with an apocalyptic scene in gaza. >> all right. doctor ahmed, doctor ahmed, thank you so much for joining us. and again, i greatly appreciate your insights as always. >> thank you, amy. appreciate it. >> and one quick programing note tomorrow, andrea mitchell, my colleague sits down with secretary of state antony blinken. with just days left for the blinken and biden administration. you can catch that conversation on andrea mitchell reports starting at noon eastern only on msnbc, a noon easubject 1: who'snbc, a new coming in the driveway?ter a subject 2: dad! dad! dad, we missed you! daddy, hi! subject 3: goodness! my daughter is being treated for leukemia. i hope that she lives a long, great, happy life and tha

jake sullivan, my friends and colleagues from across the administration, the secretary of defense, usaid, secretary-treasurer, commerce and so on. all these partnerships we built, we built with teams that made a difference. to all of my colleagues, thank you. thank you for your friendship. thank you for your for partnership. as one other reason we've been able to be engaged in our diplomacy. worcester president, that is you. you have never wavered in the conviction where america leads, it's engagement there is little we cannot accomplish. this country remains a force for good, a force for progress around the world. your unshakable belief in the promise of america has inspired me for more than 20 years, inspired so many people in around the world. it's for the privilege of my lifetime. to work with you, to work with his extraordinary team you have assembled. and it is the honor of a lifetime to introduce one more time 46th president of the united states, joe biden. [applause] [cheering] thank you, thank you, thank you. thank you. [applause] thank you, thank you, thank you. it's good to ba