Efforts To Improve Management of U.S. Foreign Aid--Changes Made and Changes Needed

The Agency for International Development (AID) has improved the management of its worldwide programs, but its efforts should be intensified to assure that the U.S. economic development assistance objectives are effectively achieved.

AID has improved its process for drawing up and evaluating its annual operating expense budget prior to submission to the Congress. However, the question of proper grade levels for Bureau controllers and the size and makeup of their staffs needs to be resolved. Although AID has taken several steps to improve property management, frequent staff turnovers and vacancies hamper the ability of the missions to comply with the new regulations. The most serious problem is lack of control by management over nonexpendable property. AID is improving internal controls over outstanding travel advances. AID is placing greater emphasis on awarding grants and contracts on a competitive basis and giving more consideration to firms owned by minorities and women. The AID policy to review annually the economic status of countries with significant outstanding loans balances with potential renegotiation for accelerated loan repayment in mind has not been carried out aggressively. Neither has AID developed adequate criteria for identifying countries economically capable of accelerating repayment of outstanding concessional loans.

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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