Economic Assistance

Ways to Reduce the Reprogramming Notification Burden and Improve Congressional Oversight Gao ID: NSIAD-89-202 September 21, 1989

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Agency for International Development's (AID) congressional notification procedures for reprogramming foreign assistance funds to determine whether changes in the process would reduce the administrative burden without unduly limiting congressional oversight.

GAO found that: (1) in 1987, AID submitted 700 notifications to Congress, representing 1,171 reprogramming actions; (2) reducing the submissions would be difficult because of widely diversified congressional interests; (3) AID could achieve some reductions without significantly limiting congressional oversight by eliminating notifications for actions that did not increase project funding, raising the reporting threshold, or adopting a dollar-value reporting threshold; and (4) AID could achieve greater reductions if Congress required it to justify its programs and submit notifications of only those reprogramming changes affecting country spending levels.



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