American Taxpayers often have questions about how funds for foreign aid work. In early 2025 there has also been claims — and false information — by Congress and social media about an overall lack of transparency about this aid.
The primary or lead aid agency for the US Government is the United States Agency for International Development or USAID. In tracking the tens of thousands of projects that have been funded, USAID has maintained a public, transparent, free, easy, searchable database, called the “Development Experience Clearinghouse”, or DEC. Indeed, World Hunger Education Service has turned to the DEC many times in the last few decades to help provide educational content to the public.
The Development Experience Clearinghouse (DEC) is large database of several hundred thousand reports for sharing and accessing USAID-funded technical and program documentation, including reports, evaluations, studies, and other resources related to international development. Most of the independent rigorous evaluations conducted of USAID activities can be freely download or read from this site. In addition to serving as a historical record of USAID’s work, it also fosters knowledge sharing about American solutions to problems and technical advances between countries. There is no comparably comprehensive, one-stop-shop source of information about development insights, for instance by the UN or in Europe or the UN.
Reports on the DEC are typically written by groups implementing programs overseas, including American nonprofits, universities, research groups and other independent specialists or front-line implementers summarizing their programs.
Ironically, during the January/February 2025 period of claims by some Congresspeople that USAID is not transparent, the new Administration shut down the DEC, so that it is no longer accessible for American citizens, including students or Congresspersons, to learn from. No explanation has been given about why the new Administration is blocking transparent access to details about USAID-funded programs.
