Foreign Assistance

GAO reviewed the Agency for International Development's (AID) role in monitoring the activities and administration of U.S. contributions to the International Fund for Ireland (IFI), established to promote economic and social reconstruction and development in Northern Ireland and Ireland.

GAO found that AID: (1) disbursed $120 million in congressional appropriations to the Fund for fiscal years (FY) 1986 through 1988 and planned to contribute between $10 million and $35 million for FY 1989; (2) stipulated that the Fund use the contribution to stimulate private-sector economic growth through activities that would produce visible and measurable results; (3) provided to Congress annual Fund activity status reports, based largely on Fund documents and not on independent evaluations; (4) encouraged the Fund's board of directors to collect relevant economic data in an appropriate format to improve AID ability to report on the Fund's achievements; (5) expressed uncertainty over its ability to measure the Fund's impact on social change, although it continued efforts to develop meaningful criteria for measuring social change; (6) did not assess whether the Fund immediately needed or used U.S. contributions; and (7) did not have the right to audit the Fund's activities, although an agreement between Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States stipulated that AID would receive audited financial reports on Fund operations and other information. GAO also found that the Fund's reports did address whether its activities complied with contributor intentions.

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.

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