Summary

This document presents selected results of GAO's survey of all 243 Emergency Action Committees (EAC) at State embassies and consulates (posts) worldwide. EACs are responsible for crisis management at post and are therefore best qualified to discuss crisis management activities, including preparing for and implementing evacuations. The survey consisted of 49 questions covering a range of topics on how posts plan, prepare for, and implement evacuations, as well as how lessons learned are reported. The survey was sent to the principal officer at each post (typically the deputy chief of mission or consul general). GAO requested that the survey be completed collectively by members of a post's EAC, and completed surveys were intended to reflect the views of the EAC as a whole. We received 210 completed surveys, for an overall response rate of 86 percent. We did not include responses for all survey questions; specifically, this document does not include narrative responses that we received. The percentages in each survey response may not sum to 100 in all cases, due to rounding. A more detailed discussion of our scope and methodology is contained in our report STATE DEPARTMENT: Evacuation Planning and Preparations for Overseas Posts Can Be Improved, GAO-08-23 (Washington, D.C.: October 19, 2007). We administered the survey from January 2007 to April 2007 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.