AID Management

As of September 1991, women and minorities in the Agency for International Development's (AID) civil and foreign services were underrepresented in many professional and administrative jobs and at more senior grade levels. In most cases, these groups were under-represented by only a small number of individuals; underrepresentation by white females, however, was significantly higher. AID lacks a recruitment plan targeting specific areas of underrepresentation. Although AID did not collect and analyze hiring, assignment, and promotion data, the information available on AID's hiring practices reveals that minorities had been adversely affected. AID has not determined the reasons for the disparities. GAO found that white females were generally not adversely affected by AID's hiring, assignment, and promotion practices and that this group often had the highest selection rate. AID's Equal Employment Opportunity Oversight Board has not met since June 1986, and AID did not create two alternative review groups until 1990 and 1991. Also, senior managers were not held accountable for accomplishing action items listed in AID's affirmative action plan, and AID lacked an effective system to report progress in correcting underrepresentation of women and minorities.

GAO found that: (1) in AID professional, administrative, technical, clerical and other (PATCO) job categories, women and minorities were underrepresented in 22 of 40 categories and, in the AID foreign service workforce, EEO groups were underrepresented in 12 of 20 categories; (2) in major occupational categories, EEO groups, except black males, were underrepresented in 44 of 80 categories; (3) at senior grade levels, EEO groups were underrepresented in 25 of 40 civil service categories, and in 53 of 80 foreign service categories; (4) AID did not have a formal written plan for recruiting and hiring underrepresented EEO groups; (5) external recruitment efforts focused mainly on black and Hispanic institutions; (6) AID internal recruitment efforts comprised of two foreign service programs leading to career candidate status; (7) AID internal recruitment efforts were not integrated into its affirmative action plan; (8) most EEO groups were hired at representative rates for entry level positions in both services, while mid-level position rates were mixed; (9) AID did not meet its numerical hiring goals for underrepresented occupations from 1989 to 1991; (10) most EEO groups were adversely affected by AID civil service hiring procedures, but not by foreign service procedures; (11) AID did not routinely collect and analyze data to determine the adverse impact of hiring procedures or attempt to ascertain if adverse impact was due to inadequate recruitment efforts or to agency selection procedures; (12) all EEO groups, plus white males, were adversely affected by AID assignment and promotion practices, and AID did not follow Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) requirements for briefing promotion panels; (13) a minority recruitment advisory group and an EEO task force assumed the functions of the EEO oversight board; (14) senior managers' performance objectives did not include the agency's affirmative action plan items, so they were not measured on their EEO performance; and (15) managers were not given adequate information or EEOC criteria for setting representation goals.

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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