Potential for Improving AID's Deobligation and Project Analysis Processes

Gao ID: ID-83-25 January 3, 1983

GAO examined aspects of the Agency for International Development's (AID) deobligation process, including efforts to identify and monitor projects which are potentially subject to deobligation, to consider issues which would help improve the management of AID projects.

AID has taken steps to meet its goal of increasing deobligations which are due to good project management actions, rather than those due to writeoffs or residual funds. A GAO review indicated that the use of the deobligation process as a management tool has not yet yielded significant results. Many deobligations occur because projects have been completed, leaving residual amounts to be cleared from the books. One difficulty seems to be the inconsistent ways in which AID bureaus identify troubled projects. Criteria, guidance, and procedures for identifying, monitoring, and reporting on potential problem projects and deobligations vary at each bureau and may change each year. Inconsistent procedures and reporting raise questions as to the comparability of data from year to year and the nature and extent of appropriate remedial actions. The application of existing criteria, controls, and limits by the bureaus and missions usually results in project extensions, rather than project deobligations. When AID has the option of terminating potential problem projects or extending them, guidance is needed to help the AID staff identify candidates for potential deobligation and projects and amounts to be actually deobligated by providing regional factors and country-specific factors which include relevant political, security, and economic considerations.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Samuel W. Bowlin Team: General Accounting Office: International Division Phone: (202) 275-5790


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