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'Afghanistan Development: USAID Continues to Face Challenges in
Managing and Overseeing U.S. Development Assistance Programs'
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Testimony:
Before the Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related
Programs, Committee on Appropriations:
United States Government Accountability Office:
GAO:
For Release on Delivery:
Expected at 10:00 a.m. EDT:
Thursday, July 15, 2010:
Afghanistan Development:
USAID Continues to Face Challenges in Managing and Overseeing U.S.
Development Assistance Programs:
Statement of Charles Michael Johnson Jr., Director:
International Affairs and Trade:
GAO-10-932T:
[End of section]
Madam Chairwoman and Members of the Subcommittee:
I am pleased to be here to discuss oversight of U.S. assistance
programs in Afghanistan.
Strengthening the Afghan economy through development assistance
efforts is critical to the counterinsurgency strategy and a key part
of the U.S Integrated Civilian-Military Campaign Plan for Afghanistan.
[Footnote 1] Since fiscal year 2002, the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID) has awarded over $11.5 billion in support of
development assistance programs in Afghanistan.
Since 2003, GAO has issued several reports and testimonies related to
U.S. security, governance, and development efforts in Afghanistan. In
addition to reviewing program planning and implementation, we have
focused on efforts to ensure proper management and oversight of the
U.S. investment, which are essential to reducing waste, fraud, and
abuse. Over the course of this work, we have identified improvements
that were needed, as well as many obstacles that have affected success
and should be considered in program management and oversight. While
drawing on past work relating to U.S. development efforts in
Afghanistan, I will focus much of my testimony today on findings in
our most recent report released yesterday on the USAID's management
and oversight of its agricultural programs in Afghanistan.[Footnote 2]
My statement today will address (1) the challenges the United States
faces in managing and overseeing development programs in Afghanistan;
and (2) the extent to which USAID has followed its established
performance management and evaluation procedures.
Summary:
Various factors challenge U.S. efforts to ensure proper management and
oversight of U.S. development efforts in Afghanistan. Among the most
significant has been the "high-threat" working environment, the
difficulties in preserving institutional knowledge due to the lack of
a formal mechanism for retaining and sharing information during staff
turnover, and the Afghan government ministries' lack of capacity and
corruption challenges. USAID has taken some steps to assess and begin
addressing the limited capacity and corruption challenges associated
with Afghan ministries. In addition, USAID has established performance
management and evaluation procedures for managing and overseeing its
assistance programs. These procedures, among other things, require (1)
the development of a Mission Performance Management Plan (PMP); (2)
the establishment and approval of implementing partner performance
indicators and targets; and (3) analyses and use of performance data.
Although USAID disseminated alternative monitoring methods for
projects in high-threat environments such as Afghanistan, USAID has
generally required the same performance management and evaluation
procedures in Afghanistan as it does in other countries in which it
operates.
USAID has not consistently followed its established performance
management and evaluation procedures. There were various areas in
which the USAID Mission to Afghanistan (Mission) needed to improve
upon. In particular, we found that the Mission had been operating
without an approved PMP to guide its management and oversight efforts
after 2008. In addition, while implementing partners have routinely
reported on the progress of USAID's programs, we found that USAID did
not always approve the performance indicators these partners were
using, and that USAID did not ensure, as its procedures require, that
its implementing partners establish targets for each performance
indicator. For example, only 2 of 7 USAID-funded agricultural programs
active during fiscal year 2009, included in our review, had targets
for all of their indicators. We also found that USAID could improve
its assessment and use of performance data submitted by implementing
partners or program evaluations to, among other things, help identify
strengths or weaknesses of ongoing or completed programs. Moreover,
USAID needs to improve documentation of its programmatic decisions and
put mechanisms in place for program managers to transfer knowledge to
their successors.
In the absence of consistent application of its existing performance
management and evaluation procedures, USAID programs are more
vulnerable to corruption, waste, fraud, and abuse. We reported in 2009
that USAID's failure to adhere to its existing policies severely
limited its ability to require expenditure documentation for
Afghanistan-related grants that were associated with findings of
alleged criminal actions and mismanaged funds.[Footnote 3] To enhance
the performance management of USAID's development assistance programs
in Afghanistan, we have recommended, among other things, that the
Administrator of USAID take steps to: (1) ensure programs have
performance indicators and targets; (2) fully assess and use program
data and evaluations to shape current programs and inform future
programs; (3) address preservation of institutional knowledge; and (4)
improve guidance for the use and management of USAID contractors.
USAID concurred with these recommendations, and identified steps the
agency is taking to address them. We will continue to monitor and
follow up on the implementation of our recommendations.
The United States Faces Challenges in Managing and Overseeing Programs
in Afghanistan:
Various factors challenge U.S. efforts to ensure proper management and
oversight of U.S. development efforts in Afghanistan. Among the most
noteworthy has been the "high-threat" working environment U.S.
personnel and others face in Afghanistan, the difficulties in
preserving institutional knowledge due in part to a high rate of staff
turnover, and the Afghan government's lack of capacity and corruption
challenges.
High-Threat Security Environment Impedes Monitoring and Oversight:
As we have previously reported, Afghanistan has experienced annual
increases in the level of enemy-initiated attacks.[Footnote 4]
Although the pattern of enemy-initiated attacks remains seasonal,
generally peaking from June through September each year and then
declining during the winter months, the annual "peak" (high point) and
"trough" (low point) for each year have surpassed the peak and trough,
respectively, for the preceding year since September 2005. This
includes a rise in attacks against coalition forces and civilians, as
well as Afghan National Security Forces. The high-threat security
environment has challenged USAID's and others' ability to implement
assistance programs in Afghanistan, increasing implementation times
and costs for projects in nonsecure areas. For example, we found
during our review of the U.S. road reconstruction efforts that a key
road to the Kajaki dam was terminated after USAID had spent about $5
million after attacks prevented contractors from working on the
project.[Footnote 5] In addition, U.S. officials cited poor security
as having caused delays, disruptions, and even abandonment of certain
reconstruction projects. For example, a project to provide Afghan
women jobs in a tailoring business in southwest Afghanistan failed, in
part, because of the threat against the female employees.
The high-threat security environment has also limited the movement and
ability of U.S. personnel to directly monitor projects. USAID has
specifically cited the security environment in Afghanistan as a severe
impediment to its ability to directly monitor projects, noting that
USAID officials are generally required to travel with armored vehicles
and armed escorts to visit projects in much of the country. USAID
officials stated that their ability to arrange project visits can
become restricted if military forces cannot provide the necessary
vehicles or escorts because of other priorities. In 2009, USAID
documented site visits for two of the eight programs included in our
review (see fig. 1). We have experienced similar restrictions to
travel beyond the embassy compound during our visits to Afghanistan.
Figure 1: Agricultural Program Site Reports, Calendar Years 2005 to
2009:
[Refer to PDF for image: table]
Program: ADP-Northeast;
2005: USAID site reports;
2006: USAID site reports;
2007: USAID site reports;
2008: USAID site reports;
2009: No USAID site reports.
Program: ADP-South;
2005: No USAID site reports;
2006: USAID site reports;
2007: No USAID site reports;
2008: USAID site reports;
2009: USAID site reports.
Program: ADP-East;
2005: USAID site reports;
2006: USAID site reports;
2007: USAID site reports;
2008: No USAID site reports;
2009: No USAID site reports.
Program: Accelerating Sustainable Agriculture Program;
2005: Program not operational;
2006: No USAID site reports;
2007: USAID site reports;
2008: USAID site reports;
2009: No USAID site reports.
Program: ADP-Southwest;
2005: Program not operational;
2006: Program not operational;
2007: Program not operational;
2008: USAID site reports;
2009: No USAID site reports.
Program: Afghanistan Water, Agriculture, and Technology Transfer;
2005: Program not operational;
2006: Program not operational;
2007: Program not operational;
2008: No USAID site reports;
2009: No USAID site reports.
Program: Afghanistan Vouchers for Increased Production in Agriculture;
2005: Program not operational;
2006: Program not operational;
2007: Program not operational;
2008: No USAID site reports;
2009: No USAID site reports.
Program: Incentives Driving Economic Alternatives-North, East, and
West;
2005: Program not operational;
2006: Program not operational;
2007: Program not operational;
2008: Program not operational;
2009: USAID site reports.
Source: GAO analysis of USAID documentation.
[End of figure]
In the Mission's 2008 and 2009 Federal Managers Financial Integrity
Act of 1982 Annual Certifications, the Mission reported its efforts to
monitor project implementation in Afghanistan as a significant
deficiency. These reports raised concerns that designated USAID staff
are "prevented from monitoring project implementation in an adequate
manner with the frequency required" and noted that there is a high
degree of potential for fraud, waste, and mismanagement of Mission
resources. USAID further noted that the deficiency in USAID's efforts
to monitor projects will remain unresolved until the security
situation in Afghanistan improves and stabilizes. The reports
identified several actions to address the limitations to monitor
project implementation, including, among others: placement of more
staff in the field; use of Afghan staff--who have greater mobility
than expatriate staff--to monitor projects; hiring of a contractor to
monitor the implementation of construction projects and conduct
regular site visits; and collecting of implementing partner video or
photographs--including aerial photographs.
USAID's Institutional Knowledge Challenged by High Staff Turnover:
Preserving institutional knowledge is vital to ensuring that new
Mission personnel are able to effectively manage and build on USAID
assistance efforts. We found, however, during our review of USAID's
road reconstruction efforts in 2008 and, most recently, our review of
USAID's agricultural development program that USAID had not taken
steps to mitigate challenges to maintaining institutional knowledge.
USAID did not consistently document decisions made. For example, staff
working in Afghanistan had no documented assessments for modifications
to the largest USAID-funded United Nations Office for Project Services
(UNOPS) project in Afghanistan--Rehabilitation of Secondary Roads--
even though these modifications increased the scope and budget of the
program by more than ten times its original amount.
Furthermore, USAID and other U.S. agencies in Afghanistan lack a
sufficient number of acquisition and oversight personnel with
experience working in contingency operations. This problem is
exacerbated by the lack of mechanisms for retaining and sharing
institutional knowledge during transitions of USAID personnel and the
rate at which USAID staff turn over, which USAID acknowledged as
hampering program design and implementation. In addition, the State
Department Office of Inspector General noted in its February 2010
inspection of the U.S. Embassy to Afghanistan and its staff that 1-
year assignments, coupled with multiple rest-and-recuperation breaks,
limited the development of expertise, contributed to a lack of
continuity, and required a higher number of personnel to achieve
strategic goals.[Footnote 6] The USAID monitoring officials for the
eight agricultural programs we focused on during our review of USAID's
agricultural development efforts in Afghanistan were in place, on
average, 7.5 months (see table 1). Moreover, the length of time that a
monitoring official was in place has declined. The two most recently
initiated agricultural programs have had monitoring officials in place
for an average of only 3 months each.
Table 1: USAID Monitoring Officials by Program, January 2005 to
September 2009:
Program: ADP-South;
Months of monitoring official oversight: 55;
Number of monitoring officials: 4;
Average months per monitoring official: 14.
Program: ADP-Northeast;
Months of monitoring official oversight: 55;
Number of monitoring officials: 6;
Average months per monitoring official: 9.
Program: ADP-East;
Months of monitoring official oversight: 55;
Number of monitoring officials: 6;
Average months per monitoring official: 9.
Program: Afghanistan Water, Agriculture, and Technology Transfer;
Months of monitoring official oversight: 19;
Number of monitoring officials: 2;
Average months per monitoring official: 9.
Program: Accelerating Sustainable Agriculture Program;
Months of monitoring official oversight: 34;
Number of monitoring officials: 6;
Average months per monitoring official: 6.
Program: ADP-Southwest;
Months of monitoring official oversight: 19;
Number of monitoring officials: 4;
Average months per monitoring official: 5.
Program: Afghanistan Vouchers for Increased Production in Agriculture;
Months of monitoring official oversight: 12;
Number of monitoring officials: 4;
Average months per monitoring official: 3.
Program: Incentives Driving Economic Alternatives--North, East, and
West;
Months of monitoring official oversight: 7;
Number of monitoring officials: 2;
Average months per monitoring official: 3.
Source: GAO analysis of USAID data.
Note: Numbers may not divide to averages because of rounding.
[End of table]
USAID officials noted that the effectiveness of passing information
from one monitoring official to another is dependent on how well the
current official has maintained his or her files and what guidance, if
any, is left for their successor. USAID officials noted that a lack of
documentation and knowledge transfer may have contributed to the loss
of institutional knowledge.
We reported in April 2010 that USAID used contractors to help
administer its contracts and grants in Afghanistan, in part to address
frequent rotations of government personnel and security and logistical
concerns.[Footnote 7] Functions performed by these contractors
included on-site monitoring of other contractors' activities and
awarding and administering grants. While relying on contractors to
perform such functions can provide benefits, we found that USAID did
not always fully address related risks. For example, USAID did not
always include a contract clause required by agency policy to address
potential conflicts of interest, and USAID contracting officials
generally did not ensure enhanced oversight in accordance with federal
regulations for situations in which contractors provided services that
closely supported inherently governmental functions.
Limited Ministerial Capacity and Corruption Challenge Development
Efforts:
USAID has increasingly included and emphasized capacity building among
its programs to address the government of Afghanistan's lack of
capacity to sustain and maintain many of the programs and projects put
in place by donors. In 2009, USAID rated the capability of 14 of 19
Afghan ministries and institutions it works with as 1 or 2 on a scale
of 5, with 1 representing the need for substantial assistance across
all areas and 5 representing the ability to perform without
assistance. The Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock was
given a rating of 2--needing technical assistance to perform all but
routine functions--while the Ministry for Rural Rehabilitation and
Development was given a rating of 4--needing little technical
assistance. Although USAID has noted overall improvement among the
ministries and institutions in recent years, none was given a rating
of 5.
USAID has undertaken some steps to address the Afghan ministries'
limited capacity and corruption in Afghanistan by including a capacity-
building component in its more recent contracts. In 2009, the U.S.
government further emphasized capacity building by pursuing a policy
of Afghan-led development, or "Afghanization," to ensure that Afghans
lead efforts to secure and develop their country. At the national
level, the United States plans to channel more of its assistance
through the Afghan government's core budget. At the field level, the
United States plans to shift assistance to smaller, more flexible, and
faster contract and grant mechanisms to increase decentralized
decision making in the field. For example, the U.S. government
agricultural strategy stresses the importance of increasing the
Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock's capacity to
deliver services through direct budget and technical assistance.
USAID also recognized that, with a move toward direct budget
assistance to government ministries, USAID's vulnerability to waste
and corruption is anticipated to increase. According to USAID
officials, direct budget assistance to the Ministry of Agriculture,
Irrigation, and Livestock is dependent on the ability of the ministry
to demonstrate the capacity to handle the assistance. These officials
noted that an assessment of the Ministry's ability to manage direct
budget assistance was being completed. The U.S. Embassy has plans
under way to establish a unit at the embassy to receive and program
funds on behalf of the Ministry while building the Ministry's capacity
to manage the direct budget assistance on its own.
According to the Afghanistan's National Development Strategy,
Afghanistan's capacity problems are exacerbated by government
corruption, describing it as a significant and growing problem in the
country. The causes of corruption in Afghan government ministries,
according to the Afghanistan National Development Strategy, can be
attributed to, among other things, a lack of institutional capacity in
public administration, weak legislative and regulatory frameworks,
limited enforcement of laws and regulations, poor and nonmerit-based
qualifications of public officials, low salaries of public servants,
and a dysfunctional justice sector. Furthermore, the sudden influx of
donor money into a system already suffering from poorly regulated
procurement practices increases the risk of corruption. In April 2009,
USAID published an independent Assessment of Corruption in Afghanistan
that found that corruption was a significant and growing problem
across Afghanistan that undermined security, development, and
democracy-building objectives. According to the assessment, pervasive,
entrenched, and systemic corruption is at an unprecedented scope. The
USAID-sponsored assessment added that Afghanistan has or is developing
most of the institutions needed to combat corruption, but these
institutions, like the rest of the government, are limited by a lack
of capacity, rivalries, and poor integration. The assessment also
noted that the Afghan government's apparent unwillingness to pursue
and prosecute high-level corruption, an area of particular interest to
this Subcommittee, was also reported as particularly problematic. The
assessment noted that "substantial USAID assistance [was] already
designed to strengthen transparency, accountability, and
effectiveness--prime routes to combat corruption."
Additionally, we reported in 2009 that USAID's failure to adhere to
its existing policies severely limited its ability to require
expenditure documentation for Afghanistan-related grants that were
associated with findings of alleged criminal actions and mismanaged
funds. Specifically, in 2008, a United Nations procurement taskforce
found instances of fraud, embezzlement, conversion of public funds,
conflict of interest, and severe mismanagement of USAID-funded the
UNOPS projects in Afghanistan, including the $365.8 million
Rehabilitation of Secondary Roads project. The USAID Office of
Inspector General also reported in 2008 that UNOPS did not complete
projects as claimed and that projects had defects and warranty issues,
as well as numerous design errors, neglected repairs, and uninstalled
equipment and materials--all of which were billed as complete.
USAID Did Not Consistently Follow Established Performance Management
and Evaluation Procedures:
USAID's Mission to Afghanistan manages and oversees most U.S.
development assistance programs in Afghanistan and relies on
implementing partners to carry out its programs. USAID's Automated
Directives System (ADS) establishes performance management and
evaluation procedures for managing and overseeing its assistance
programs. These procedures, among other things, require (1) the
development of a Mission Performance Management Plan (PMP); (2) the
establishment of performance indicators and targets; and (3) analyses
and use of program performance data.
USAID had generally required the same performance management and
evaluation procedures in Afghanistan as it does in other countries in
which it operates. However, in October 2008, USAID approved new
guidance that proposed several alternative monitoring methods for
USAID projects in high-threat environments. This guidance was
disseminated in December 2009, but the Afghanistan Mission
agricultural office staff did not become aware of the guidance until
June 2010.
USAID Needs an Approved PMP to Guide Management and Oversight Efforts:
The ADS requires USAID officials to complete a Mission PMP for each of
its high-level objectives as a tool to manage its performance
management and evaluation procedures. While the Afghanistan Mission
had developed a PMP in 2006, covering the years 2006, 2007, and 2008,
the Afghanistan Mission has operated without a PMP to guide
development assistance efforts after 2008. According to USAID, the
Mission is in the process of developing a new Mission PMP that will
reflect the current Administration's priorities and strategic shift to
counterinsurgency. USAID expects the new PMP to be completed by the
end of fiscal year 2010. The Mission attributed the delay in creating
the new PMP to the process of developing new strategies in different
sectors and gaining approval from the Embassy in Afghanistan and from
agency headquarters in Washington.
Overall, we found that the 2006-2008 Mission PMP incorporated key
planning activities. For example, the PMP identified indicators and
established baselines and targets for the high-level objectives for
all USAID programs in Afghanistan, including its agricultural
programs, which are needed to assess program performance. In addition,
the PMP described regular site visits, random data checks, and data
quality assessments as the means to be used to verify and validate
information collected. The Mission PMP noted that it should enable
staff to systematically assess contributions to the Mission's program
results and take corrective action when necessary. Further, it noted
that indicators, when analyzed in combination with other information,
provide data for program decision making. The 2006-2008 Mission PMP,
however, did not include plans for evaluations of the high-level
objective that the agricultural programs in our review supported.
[Footnote 8]
USAID Needs to Consistently Approve and Establish Indicators and
Targets:
Under USAID's current policies, implementing partners working on USAID
development assistance projects in Afghanistan are required to develop
and submit monitoring and evaluation plans that include performance
indicators and targets to USAID for approval. However, during our most
recent review of USAID's agricultural development programs, we found
that USAID did not always approve implementing partner performance
indicators and targets. While the implementing partners for the eight
agricultural programs we reviewed did submit monitoring and evaluation
plans, which generally contained performance indicators and targets,
we found that USAID had not always approved these plans and did not
consistently require targets to be set for all of indicators as
required.[Footnote 9] For example, only 2 of 7 active agricultural
programs included in our review had set targets for all of their
indicators for fiscal year 2009. Figure 2 shows the number of
performance indicators with targets by fiscal year for the eight
agricultural programs we reviewed that the implementing partner
developed and submitted to USAID for approval.
Figure 2: Agricultural Programs in Afghanistan, Implementing Partner
Indicators with Targets, Fiscal Years 2005 to 2009:
[Refer to PDF for image: table]
N/T: Number of indicators with annual target/Total number of
indicators.
Program: ADP-Northeast
Number of indicators with targets (by fiscal year):
2005: Program operating with no established indicators;
2006: 15/15;
2007: 15/15;
2008: 14/14;
2009: NA.
Program: ADP-South;
Number of indicators with targets (by fiscal year):
2005: 0/37;
2006: 14/14;
2007: 14/14;
2008: 14/25[A];
2009: 5/25.
Program: ADP-East;
Number of indicators with targets (by fiscal year):
2005: 15/18;
2006: 14/14;
2007: 13/14;
2008: 13/14;
2009: 0/14.
Program: Accelerating Sustainable Agriculture Program;
Number of indicators with targets (by fiscal year):
2005: Program not operational;
2006: Program not operational;
2007: 2/13;
2008: 8/13;
2009: 6/6.
Program: ADP-Southwest;
Number of indicators with targets (by fiscal year):
2005: Program not operational;
2006: Program not operational;
2007: Program not operational;
2008: 21/21;
2009: 21/21.
Program: Afghanistan Water, Agriculture, and Technology Transfer;
Number of indicators with targets (by fiscal year):
2005: Program not operational;
2006: Program not operational;
2007: Program not operational;
2008: Program operating with no established indicators;
2009: 3/5.
Program: Afghanistan Vouchers for Increased Production in Agriculture;
Number of indicators with targets (by fiscal year):
2005: Program not operational;
2006: Program not operational;
2007: Program not operational;
2008: Program not operational;
2009: 2/10.
Program: Incentives Driving Economic Alternatives-North, East, and
West;
Number of indicators with targets (by fiscal year):
2005: Program not operational;
2006: Program not operational;
2007: Program not operational;
2008: Program not operational;
2009: 16/17.
Source: GAO analysis of USAID documentation.
[A] In 2008, ADP-South identified 11 additional indicators.
[End of figure]
USAID Could Improve Its Assessment and Use of Performance Data:
In addition to collecting performance data and assessing the data's
quality, ADS also includes the monitoring activities of analyzing and
interpreting performance data in order to make program adjustments,
inform higher-level decision making, and resource allocation. We found
that while USAID collects implementing partner performance data, or
information on targets and results, the agency did not fully analyze
and interpret this performance data for the eight agricultural
programs we reviewed. Some USAID officials in Afghanistan told us that
they reviewed the information reported in implementing partners'
quarterly reports in efforts to analyze and interpret a program's
performance for the eight programs, although they could not provide
any documentation of their efforts to analyze and interpret program
performance. Some USAID officials also said that they did not have
time to fully review the reports. In addition, in our 2008 report on
road reconstruction in Afghanistan, we reported that USAID officials
did not collect data for two completed road projects or for any active
road reconstruction projects in a manner to allow them to accurately
measure impact. As a result, it is unclear the extent to which USAID
uses performance data.
USAID is also required to report results to advance organizational
learning and demonstrate USAID's contribution to overall U.S.
government foreign assistance goals. While USAID did not fully analyze
and interpret program data, the Mission did meet semiannually to
examine and document strategic issues and determine whether the
results of USAID-supported agricultural activities are contributing to
progress toward high-level objectives. The Mission also reported
aggregate results in the Foreign Assistance Coordination and Tracking
System.[Footnote 10]
ADS also requires USAID to undertake at least one evaluation for each
of its high-level objectives, to disseminate the findings of
evaluations, and to use evaluation findings to further institutional
learning, inform current programs, and shape future planning. In May
2007, USAID initiated an evaluation covering three of the eight
agricultural programs in our review--ADP-Northeast, ADP-East, and ADP-
South. This evaluation intended to assess the progress toward
achieving program objectives and offer recommendations for the coming
years. The evaluators found insufficient data to evaluate whether the
programs were meeting objectives and targets, and, thus, shifted their
methodology to a qualitative review based on interviews and
discussions with key individuals. As required, USAID posted the
evaluation to its Internet site for dissemination. However, we are
uncertain of the extent to which USAID used the 2007 evaluation to
adapt current programs and plan future programs. Few staff were able
to discuss the evaluation's findings and recommendations and most
noted that they were not present when the evaluation of the three
programs was completed and, therefore, were not aware of the extent to
which changes were made to the programs. With regards to using lessons
learned to plan future programs, USAID officials could not provide
examples of how programs were modified as a result of the discussion.
USAID has planned evaluations for seven of the eight agricultural
programs included in our review during fiscal year 2010.
Madam Chairwoman and members of the subcommittee, this concludes my
prepared statement. I will be happy to answer any questions you may
have.
Scope and Methodology:
To address our objectives, we reviewed past GAO reports and
testimonies, examining U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, including reviews
of USAID's agricultural and road reconstruction projects. We reviewed
U.S. government performance management and evaluation, funding; and
reporting documents related to USAID programs in Afghanistan. Our
reports and testimonies include analysis of documents and other
information from USAID and other U.S. agencies, as well as private
contractors and other implementing partners working on U.S.-funded
programs in Washington, D.C., and Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, we also
met with officials from the United Nations and the governments of
Afghanistan and the United Kingdom. We traveled to Afghanistan to meet
with U.S. and Afghan officials, implementing partners, and aid
recipients to discuss several U.S.-funded projects. We analyzed
program budget data provided by USAID to report on program funding, as
well as changes in USAID's program monitoring officials over time. We
analyzed program data provided by USAID and its implementing partners
to track performance against targets over time. We took steps to
assess the reliability of the budget and performance and determined
they were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this report. Our
work was conducted in accordance with generally accepted government
auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform
the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a
reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit
objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a
reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit
objectives. A more detailed description of our scope and methodologies
can be found in the reports cited throughout this statement.
GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
For questions regarding this testimony, please contact Charles Michael
Johnson Jr., at (202) 512-7331 or johnsoncm@gao.gov. Individuals
making key contributions to this statement include: Jeffrey Baldwin-
Bott, Thomas Costa, Aniruddha Dasgupta, David Hancock, John Hutton,
Hynek Kalkus, Farahnaaz Khakoo, Bruce Kutnick, Anne McDonough-Hughes,
and Jim Michels.
[End of section]
Footnotes:
[1] GAO, The Strategic Framework for U.S. Efforts in Afghanistan, GAO-
10-655R (Washington, D.C.: June 15, 2010).
[2] GAO, Afghanistan Development: Enhancements to Performance
Management and Evaluation Efforts Could Improve USAID's Agricultural
Programs, GAO-10-368 (Washington, D.C.: July 14, 2010). We focused our
review on the eight USAID agricultural programs that were active
between 2007 and 2009 and had total awards greater than $15 million.
These programs represent about 75 percent of all USAID agricultural
awards since 2002.
[3] GAO, UN Office for Project Services: Management Reforms Proceeding
but Effectiveness Not Assessed, and USAID's Oversight of Grants Has
Weaknesses, GAO-10-168 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 19, 2009).
[4] GAO, Afghanistan's Security Environment, GAO-10-613R (Washington,
D.C.: May 5, 2010).
[5] GAO, Afghanistan Reconstruction: Progress Made in Constructing
Roads, but Assessments for Determining Impact and a Sustainable
Maintenance Program Are Needed, GAO-08-689 (Washington, D.C.: July 8,
2008)
[6] See United States Department of State and the Broadcasting Board
of Governors' Office of Inspector General, Report of Inspection:
Embassy Kabul, Afghanistan, Report Number ISP-I-10-32A (February 2010).
[7] GAO, Contingency Contracting: Improvements Needed in Management of
Contractors Supporting Contract and Grant Administration in Iraq and
Afghanistan, GAO-10-357 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 12, 2010).
[8] The agricultural programs we reviewed all fell under the objective
of supporting a thriving licit economy led by the private sector.
[9] A 2008 USAID Regional Inspector General report found that USAID
delayed its approval of ADP-South's 2006 work plan by 9 months, and
the delay became a contributing factor to the program not achieving
its planned activities for the first year of operation. See USAID
Office of Inspector General, Audit of USAID/Afghanistan's Alternative
Development Programs--Southern Region, Audit Report No. 5-306-08-003-P
(Manila, Philippines, Mar. 17, 2008).
[10] The Foreign Assistance Coordination and Tracking System is used
to collect foreign assistance planning and reporting data, including
plans for implementing current-year appropriated budgets and
performance planning and reporting data from the Department of State
and USAID.
[End of section]
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