USAID works to address numerous development and humanitarian challenges, and for each challenge, it can consider a variety of programming options. Understanding and acting on the trade-offs across these options allows USAID to achieve the greatest impact possible with available resources. Cost-effectiveness —a measure of impact achieved per dollar spent on an intervention, for a particular population (see ADS 201.6)—is central to this endeavor. Shifting from less to more cost-effective interventions allows the same budget to generate deeper impact for a given population and/or reach more people by expanding the scale of critical development or humanitarian assistance.
