USAID is a part of the US government that gives out money in poor and mid-income countries around the world. In Georgia, it just granted a Washington (or actually Bethesda) based company a million dollars a year to evaluate Georgia's USAID projects over the next five years. This seems crazy to me. Leaving aside better ways to do this, there are plenty of companies in Georgia who could do this job. Wouldn't a firm based in Georgia be better able to evaluate the effectiveness of these programs than a group of former senior USAID managers based along the Beltway in Washington? These evaluations are secret, or at least very well hidden. In fact USAID is less transparent than most parts of the Government of Georgia. A more open conversation would be a good thing for Georgia and for USAID.