Success Stories Assistance Areas SEED Reports Contact Information Last updated: Wednesday, 13-Mar-2002 10:46:42 EST

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), created by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to provide foreign assistance throughout the world, completed its aid programs in Poland in 2000. Rarely has a country receiving U.S. foreign assistance made so much progress in so little time.

On this website we try to bring together a wide variety of documents highlighting what USAID and the people of Poland worked together to achieve in bringing this country of almost 40 million inhabitants from economic collapse and totalitarian rule in 1989, to NATO membership and the brink of membership of the European Union in 2000. For those in a hurry, our basic fact sheet may be enough, but for those craving more detail about this remarkable transformation, there is a lot to choose from:

• USAID and the Polish Decade includes a timeline that puts the multitude of assistance activities into the context of Poland’s development over the decade;
• we have gathered a number of success stories to illustrate some of those cases we felt the assistance made significant impact;
• the USAID staff in Warsaw have written up their view of the work done in Poland, both chronologically and broken up by assistance areas – private business development, local government, housing, energy and environment, the financial and banking sector, and other special projects;
• and since USAID used U.S. taxpayer monies to carry out the work in Poland, we provided annual reports to Congress.

Yet the end of USAID assistance to Poland in no way ends the many links forged between Poland and the United States. Several institutions continue to cooperate with Poland to continue USAID’s work of strengthening civil society and developing its economy - check out our list of contact information and see what they have to offer. And the USAID-funded Development Experience Clearinghouse gives you access not only to over 350 reports regarding Poland, but also thousands of other reports and documents regarding USAID’s work throughout the world.