Employee-owned DAI is now a global development company with a record of delivering results in 160 countries. But it remains today what it was as a ...read more
start-up: innovative, alert, self-critical, and forward-looking—and driven by a powerful sense of corporate purpose. Our mission remains essentially unchanged from the days of the founders.
A Consistent Mission
DAI’s mission is to make a lasting difference in the world by helping people improve their lives. We envision a world in which communities and societies become more prosperous, fairer and better governed, safer, healthier, and environmentally more sustainable.
Incorporated in 1970 as Development Alternatives, Inc., DAI made its earliest mark through a series of analytical studies. In 1973, we won a contract to analyze 36 U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) projects in Latin America and Africa.
The resulting study, Strategies for Small Farmer Development, cemented the firm’s growing reputation, and we built on this momentum to seek more substantial assignments implementing projects in the field. Our first major project was to revitalize the agricultural economy in the North Shaba region of Zaire. Other implementation initiatives in rural and agricultural development followed in Sudan and elsewhere.
Among a new generation of DAI employees joining the firm in the 1980s was current CEO Jim Boomgard, a Ph.D. agricultural economist who played a key role in developing an approach to small business promotion in developing countries and managed a landmark multicountry study called Growth and Equity through Micro-enterprise Investments and Institutions (GEMINI).
Responding to Global Transformations
At the start of the 1990s, the collapse of the Soviet Union led to enterprise development, privatization, and governance projects for DAI in Eastern Europe. DAI also added a banking and financial services unit around this time. In 1995, we invested in London, U.K.-based Graham Bannock & Partners Ltd., which as the now wholly-owned DAI Europe would go on to give DAI a thriving presence as an implementing partner for European clients.
Following the 9/11 attacks of 2001 and the subsequent U.S. military actions, DAI was called on to lead a variety of challenging development projects in the midst of the counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, a country where we worked as early as 1977. Similarly, after the United States toppled the Iraqi regime in 2003, DAI won a project to help provide legitimate governance in the country. Other assignments in Iraq covered agriculture and, famously, the restoration of the Iraqi Marshlands.
The middle years of the decade also saw the company innovating in the health arena. As avian influenza assumed the dimensions of an emerging threat, we launched an AI practice at the intersection of our existing work in sanitary and phytosanitary standards (essentially animal and plant health), agricultural economics, community engagement, HIV/AIDS, and crisis response. The firm won USAID’s flagship AI control program, STOP AI, and subsequently a broader program called RESPOND, which builds the capacity of institutions in developing nations to respond to emerging infectious diseases and pandemic threats.
A Global Development Company
At the start of 2009, Jim Boomgard became DAI’s new CEO. The next year DAI celebrated its 40th birthday by publishing a 40 year retrospective.
The First 40: A History of DAI
“The next 10 years will determine whether we can make an American success story into a global success story,” wrote Boomgard in his foreword to the book. “Over the next 10 years, we’ll execute a new strategy designed to bring our strengths, our experience, and our commitment to a changing and in many ways expanding landscape of international development—a landscape that will see more development driven from the ground up, more decision making in countries that have traditionally been the recipients of donor assistance, and a more diverse and influential array of local actors in the development arena.”
In 2013, DAI joined forces with the distinguished British consultancy HTSPE Ltd., in a combination that offers enhanced capabilities and greater value for money to global—and especially European—development clients. Based out of our office in Apsley, Hertfordshire, DAI Europe quickly became a top supplier in the United Kingdom, and we subsequently launched DAI Brussels to bring us closer to European donors.
Over the past couple of years, we have also had success serving commercial clients, beginning in the extractive industries, getting a significant boost with the acquisition of Local Content Solutions, and culminating in the launch of our Sustainable Business Group in August 2017.
In addition, through our DAI Global Health unit we are steadily expanding our presence in the health arena, guided by a vision of tech-enabled, data-centric services to address the health and development challenges of the 21st century. In line with this vision, we have made strategic investments in two digital health start-ups—ThinkMD and MobileODT—and we welcomed Health Partners International to the DAI team in June 2017. Just three months later, we announced a groundbreaking strategic affiliation with the Chapel Hill, North Carolina-based IntraHealth International.
As a global development company we continue looking for ways to connect with customers across sectors and geographies, learn from them in ways that inform our work across clients and disciplines, and enhance our value as a global resource for diverse development actors.
DAI works on the frontlines of global development. Transforming ideas into action. Action into impact. We are committed to shaping a more livable world.
We tackle fundamental social and economic development problems caused by inefficient markets, ineffective governance, and instability. We work with a wide range of clients, including national and local governments, bilateral and multilateral donors, private corporations, and philanthropies.
Since 1970, we have worked in more than 150 countries—delivering results across the spectrum of international development contexts, from stable societies and high-growth economies to challenging environments racked by political or military conflict.
Global Impact
We partner with local people and institutions on scores of projects worldwide.
Integrated Solutions
Mission & Values
DAI’s mission is to make a lasting difference in the world by helping people improve their lives. We envision a world in which communities and societies become more prosperous, fairer and better governed, safer, healthier, and environmentally more sustainable.
To achieve this mission, we must be a great place to work and we must be a successful business. We need to attract and retain extraordinary talent, and provide our team with professional opportunity, fair salary and benefits, and a healthy work-life balance. We also must perform as a business so that we can meet our obligations, invest in our future, and reward our employee owners. The more successful we are as a business, the greater development impact we can have.
In everything we do, we live by four core values:
- Integrity: we have an uncompromising commitment to civility and ethical behavior. We play by the rules and do the right thing.
- Responsibility: we are accountable to our clients, our colleagues, and the communities where we work. If we fall short, we own up, fix the problem, and get it right the next time.
- Excellence: we demand of ourselves the highest technical and professional standards. We celebrate innovation, learning, and service. We have an unwavering desire to “stretch,” as individuals and as an organization.
- Global Citizenship: we are a global company with a global outlook. We depend on our diversity, respect the cultures in which we work, and treat everyone, everywhere with professionalism and dignity. We thrive on collaboration with our partners around the world, and share with them the hope that our work will leave the world a better place.
DAI Shaping a more livable world.
