1) Promoting "transformational" development. Raising living standards and reducing poverty while at the same time promoting far-reaching, long-term changes in institutional capacity, human capacity, and economic structure.

2) Strengthening fragile states where basic services and security are denied to the population. The goal is to stabilize, reform, and recover in order to provide the foundation for the transformational development described above in 1.

3) Providing humanitarian relief through food aid and disaster assistance resources.

4) Supporting U.S. geostrategic interests in those important countries where the U.S. government is pursuing specific, high-priority objectives. As an important tool of U.S. foreign policy, foreign aid plays a crucial role in supporting U.S. interests abroad.

5) Lessening the threat to the U.S. from global and cross-border ills in an age when better communication and transportation increase the threat from disease, global environmental concerns, and international criminal activity.

"The United States has a long history of extending a helping hand to those people overseas struggling to make a better life, recover from a disaster or striving to live in a free and democratic country. It is this caring that stands as a hallmark of the United States around the world - and shows the world our true character as a nation."

– USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios.

President Kennedy signed into law the Foreign Assistance Act in 1961 and by executive order created USAID.

USAID has worked in Georgia since 1992 providing nearly $774 million in humanitarian and development assistance.