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Testimony: 

Before the Subcommittee on Government Management, Organization, and 
Procurement, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, House of 
Representatives: 

United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO: 

For Release on Delivery: 
Expected at 9:00 a.m. EDT:
Tuesday, April 28, 2009: 

USAID Acquisition and Assistance: 

Challenges Remain in Developing and Implementing a Strategic Workforce 
Plan: 

Statement of Thomas Melito: 
Director International Affairs and Trade: 

GAO-09-607T: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-09-607T, a testimony before the Subcommittee on 
Government Management, Organization, and Procurement, Committee on 
Oversight and Government Reform, House of Representatives. 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has shifted from 
conducting its own activities to managing acquisition and assistance 
(A&A) instruments—contracts, grants, and cooperative agreements—it 
awards to implementing organizations. From fiscal years 2002 through 
2008, USAID’s A&A obligations increased from about $5 billion to about 
$11 billion. A&A staff—contracting officers (COs) and A&A specialists—
are primarily responsible for managing A&A instruments. This testimony 
is based on a September 2008 GAO report that examined USAID’s capacity 
to develop and implement a strategic A&A workforce plan and the extent 
to which USAID has implemented a mechanism to evaluate its A&A 
function. 

What GAO Found: 

USAID lacks the capacity to develop and implement a strategic A&A 
workforce plan because it is missing two elements: (1) sufficiently 
reliable and up-to-date data on its overseas A&A staff levels and (2) 
comprehensive information on the competencies of its overseas A&A 
staff. Data on the numbers of overseas A&A specialists collected by two 
USAID offices were unreliable or out of date. GAO found significant 
discrepancies between these offices’ data sets and officials 
acknowledged that their A&A staff level data are neither reliable nor 
up-to-date. Also, USAID has not collected comprehensive competency 
information on its overseas A&A specialists. GAO’s model of strategic 
workforce planning notes the importance of these data in developing a 
plan that could enable the agency to better match staff levels to 
changing workloads. During fieldwork at 7 USAID missions, GAO found 
that the numbers and competencies of A&A staff did not match A&A 
workloads at some missions. The numbers of A&A staff with the needed 
competencies were less than adequate at some missions, while at others 
they were more than adequate. For example, officials at the mission in 
Mali said they had delayed time-sensitive projects because key A&A 
staff were not available when needed to approve contracts, while 
officials at the mission in Peru said the current number of A&A staff 
may be more than adequate. In GAO’s survey administered to USAID A&A 
staff in headquarters and overseas, most of the survey respondents 
overseas reported difficulty in altering staffing patterns to meet A&A 
workloads. USAID’s efforts to address its A&A workforce issues do not 
constitute a strategic A&A workforce plan that takes into account the 
entire A&A workforce. Without accurate and reliable A&A staff data, 
USAID does not have adequate information to address current workload 
imbalances. 

USAID has not implemented an evaluation mechanism to provide oversight 
of its A&A function. The Evaluation Division in the Office of 
Acquisition and Assistance is responsible for providing this oversight 
to ensure that A&A operations follow USAID policies, primarily by 
assessing A&A operations worldwide. In fiscal year 2007, the division 
developed an evaluation mechanism that combines scorecard evaluations, 
in which COs self-assess their A&A operations, and onsite visits by 
division staff to selected locations based on the scorecard results and 
other factors. The division has completed scorecard evaluations at 4 
missions and identified weaknesses in A&A operations. For example, the 
division found that one mission lacked resources to adequately monitor 
contractor performance. The division has set a goal of implementing 
this evaluation mechanism, including on-site visits to 5 missions 
within a 2-year period. However, according to agency officials, the 
division did not have the staff level needed to fully implement this 
evaluation mechanism. The division has increased its staff levels from 
4 staff in fiscal year 2008 to 9 staff as of April 2009 and completed 
two more evaluations. However, USAID officials told us that OAA has not 
implemented the evaluation mechanism due to other priorities. As a 
result, USAID cannot certify the adequacy and effectiveness of 
management controls for the A&A function. 

What GAO Recommends: 

In its September 2008 report, GAO recommended that the Administrator of 
USAID develop and implement a strategic A&A workforce plan that matches 
resources to priority needs, such as the evaluation of the A&A 
function. Specifically, GAO recommended that the plan includes a 
process to collect, analyze, and maintain sufficiently reliable and up-
to-date data on its A&A staff levels, and comprehensive information on 
the competencies of the A&A staff. USAID acknowledged that improvements 
are needed in the areas recommended. However, USAID continues to 
experience challenges with collecting data on A&A staff while working 
on its competency assessments. 

To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-607T]. For more 
information, contact Thomas Melito at (202) 512-9601 or 
melitot@gao.gov. 

[End of section] 

April 28, 2009: 

Madam Chairwoman and Members of the Subcommittee: 

I am pleased to be here to discuss the management challenges currently 
facing the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in 
developing and implementing a strategic acquisition and assistance 
(A&A) workforce plan. This hearing is of particular importance given 
that USAID is primarily responsible for managing U.S. humanitarian and 
development assistance efforts worldwide, and its total foreign 
assistance obligations has more than doubled from about $5 billion in 
fiscal year 2002 to about $11 billion in fiscal year 2008. 

Over the last few decades, as the U.S. government has increasingly come 
to rely on the private sector to perform various functions, USAID has 
shifted from conducting its own activities to managing A&A instruments, 
which are awarded to and implemented by nongovernmental organizations. 
For example, as we noted in previous work, USAID and other government 
agencies have increasingly relied on contractors in Afghanistan and 
Iraq to carry out their missions.[Footnote 1] USAID staff are 
responsible for monitoring the activities of A&A recipients to provide 
reasonable assurance that the funds provided are used in accordance 
with applicable regulations and policies and sound business practices. 
These staff include contracting officers (CO)--assisted by A&A 
specialists--who have primary responsibility for managing A&A 
instruments. In headquarters, these staff are part of USAID's Office of 
Acquisition and Assistance (OAA); abroad, they are part of USAID's 
missions. Cognizant technical officers (CTO), who work in USAID 
functional or geographic bureaus or overseas missions, also design and 
manage assistance activities. In addition, they share some of the 
responsibility of managing A&A instruments. 

My testimony today is based on a report we issued on September 26, 
2008. [Footnote 2] I will focus on three topics. First, I will discuss 
USAID's capacity to develop and implement a strategic A&A workforce 
plan. Second, I will describe the extent to which USAID has implemented 
a mechanism to evaluate its A&A function. Finally, I will summarize our 
recent recommendations regarding the importance of a workforce plan for 
the A&A function, as well as the actions that USAID has taken in 
response to our reported findings and recommendations. 

In preparing this testimony, we largely relied on our September 2008 
report and additional information provided by USAID in April 2009 on 
the management of USAID's A&A function. To address our objectives, we 
focused on USAID's administration of the A&A process. We analyzed 
USAID's documents related to the A&A function; conducted audit work at 
USAID headquarters in Washington, D.C., as well as at missions in 
Cambodia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Mali, Peru, and 
Thailand; conducted interviews with USAID and nongovernmental 
organization officials; and administered a survey to USAID A&A staff in 
headquarters and overseas, for which we received a response rate of 95 
percent--150 respondents out of a total of 158 surveyed. Both our prior 
and current performance audits were conducted in accordance with 
generally accepted government auditing standards. These standards 
require that we plan and perform audits to obtain sufficient, 
appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings, 
conclusions, and recommendations based on our audit objectives. We 
believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our 
findings, conclusions and recommendations based on our audit 
objectives. 

Background: 

USAID is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and has field locations in 
approximately 90 countries to provide economic, development, and 
humanitarian assistance worldwide in support of U.S. foreign policy 
goals. USAID's OAA has overall responsibility for the administration of 
A&A instruments in headquarters. Its A&A staff provide professional 
advice and technical support to USAID's functional and geographic 
bureaus for developing and managing A&A instruments. USAID A&A staff at 
overseas missions provide advice and support to mission staff who 
design and manage assistance activities; they also have overall 
responsibility for the administration of A&A instruments at overseas 
missions. A&A offices are typically headed by a CO who reports to the 
mission director or deputy mission director. At most bilateral 
missions, COs are co-located with A&A specialists and CTOs. However, 
under USAID's regional mission structure, COs often provide A&A support 
to more than one mission and are not necessarily co-located with either 
the CTOs or the A&A specialists who assist them. Some missions with no 
on-site CO may instead have on-site A&A specialists who provide A&A 
support to CTOs. Within USAID, the Office of Human Resources (OHR) is 
the primary office that defines and manages the agency's workforce 
planning process, including managing the human resources databases and 
directing the workforce planning program. 

USAID's total obligations for A&A instruments more than doubled from 
about $5 billion in fiscal year 2002 to about $11 billion in fiscal 
year 2008. Most notably, A&A obligations overseas increased by 600 
percent, from about $1 billion in fiscal year 2002 to about $6 billion 
in fiscal year 2008. In fiscal year 2008, A&A obligations managed by 
overseas missions made up a little more than half of A&A obligations. 
USAID's total number of A&A instruments from fiscal years 2002 through 
2008 also increased substantially, from about 6,000 to about 13,000. In 
fiscal year 2008, about 62 percent of the total number of A&A 
instruments was managed by overseas missions. 

USAID Lacks Sufficiently Reliable Human Capital Data Needed for a 
Strategic A&A Workforce Plan: 

USAID Lacks Sufficiently Reliable and Up-to-Date Data on A&A Staff 
Levels: 

In September 2008, we reported that USAID lacked the capacity to 
develop and implement an A&A strategic workforce plan because the 
agency lacked sufficiently reliable and up-to-date overseas A&A staff 
level data and comprehensive information on the competencies of its A&A 
staff, who play a critical role in assisting COs and CTOs in overseas 
missions.[Footnote 3] 

Two offices in USAID collect data on A&A staff levels--the Office of 
Human Resources (OHR) and the Office of Acquisition and Assistance 
(OAA). We found that the data collected by OHR was not sufficiently 
reliable and OHR officials acknowledged that they had concerns about 
the reliability and accuracy of overseas staffing level data reported 
by its overseas missions. These officials added that misclassification 
and inaccurate reporting of A&A staff levels may occur because mission 
staff may not have received adequate guidance for classifying overseas 
staff positions. Furthermore, OHR officials do not validate or confirm 
the data they collect from missions nor do they know if overseas 
missions validate the data before submitting it to OHR, according to 
these officials. 

We also noted that OAA does not systematically track the number of 
overseas A&A specialists, and its data on overseas A&A staff levels are 
out of date. According to OAA officials, the office's most recent data 
on the agency's entire A&A workforce are the result of a fiscal year 
2005 survey of all overseas missions to analyze workload and staffing 
within OAA. While OAA's data are not current, the OHR officials told us 
that OAA's data may still be more accurate than the data collected by 
OHR in fiscal year 2005. 

Our analysis of OAA's and OHR's separately collected data on overseas 
A&A staff levels for the end of fiscal year 2005 revealed substantial 
discrepancies. For example, comparing the two sets of data showed that 
OAA's reported total overseas A&A staff levels for fiscal year 2005 
were more than 78 percent higher than those reported by OHR--OAA 
reported 264 overseas A&A staff, while OHR reported 148. In addition, 
we found that, at certain missions, OHR's data showed no A&A 
specialists, whereas OAA's data indicated several A&A specialists. 

Although ready access to the OHR's databases would allow other USAID 
offices to identify and resolve discrepancies in their staffing data, 
the offices lack such access. To date, according to OHR officials, OAA 
has not specifically requested OHR staffing data in order to compare 
them to its own. 

USAID Lacks Comprehensive Information on A&A Staff Competencies: 

We also reported that USAID has not collected comprehensive information 
on the competencies--including knowledge, skills, abilities, and 
experience levels--of its overseas A&A staff. In May 2008, OAA and OHR 
jointly conducted competency assessments for A&A staff in headquarters 
and COs in overseas missions. These assessments identified key A&A 
staff competencies, assessed A&A staff competency levels, and 
established strategies to reduce skill gaps through recruitment and 
training. However, USAID has not yet begun similar competency 
assessments of A&A specialists at overseas locations and, according to 
OHR officials, USAID will likely not begin implementation until fiscal 
year 2011 at the earliest. Without sufficiently reliable data on its 
entire A&A workforce--including A&A specialists overseas--USAID cannot 
collect comprehensive competency information; identify gaps in the 
numbers, skills, and competencies of its A&A workforce; and develop 
strategies to address them. 

USAID Has Not Matched A&A Staff to Workload at Missions We Visited: 

A possible effect of USAID's lack of reliable and up-to-date data on 
the level of A&A staffing at its overseas locations is that the numbers 
and competencies of A&A staff do not match A&A workload. At some 
missions we visited last year, the numbers of A&A staff with the 
necessary competencies were considerably less than adequate, while at 
other missions they were more than adequate, according to mission 
officials. 

Officials at five missions we visited--Thailand, Cambodia, Kazakhstan, 
the Kyrgyz Republic, and Mali--told us that at times their A&A staff 
could not provide adequate and timely support, such as providing 
guidance to CTOs and approving A&A documents, primarily because the 
numbers of A&A staff with the necessary competencies to manage their 
workloads were insufficient. We found several such examples, including 
the following: 

* A CO at the regional mission in Thailand said that she sometimes 
could not address some missions' needs in a timely manner because of 
competing workload demands. Staff at Cambodia, one of the missions for 
which the regional mission provides A&A support, told us that at times 
they have not received adequate A&A support, primarily due to a decline 
in A&A specialist staff levels as well as the inexperience of the 
mission's one remaining on-site A&A specialist. The mission director 
told us that, as a result, she has had to perform tasks that are among 
A&A staff's responsibilities, such as revising A&A documents. 

* The mission director and A&A staff in Kazakhstan--a regional mission 
responsible for A&A activities at missions in Kazakhstan and four other 
Central Asian countries that do not have on-site A&A specialists--told 
us that they could not adequately support A&A activities at those four 
missions because of a heavy workload and competing demands from other 
missions in the region. Staff at one such mission, in the Kyrgyz 
Republic, noted that A&A staff were unavailable when needed to provide 
more guidance to their less experienced CTOs. 

* Officials at the mission in Mali, which received A&A support from COs 
at the regional mission in Ghana, told us that these remotely located 
COs were sometimes not available to assist them in meeting their 
activities' goals. For example, they said they had delayed time-
sensitive seasonal agricultural projects because the CO was not 
available when needed to approve contracts. 

Our survey of A&A staff overseas generally supported these findings 
from our fieldwork. For example, about 70 percent of A&A respondents 
overseas reported that it was somewhat or very difficult to alter 
staffing patterns to meet the demands of changing workloads. Most 
notably, one respondent reported a disparity between the workload, 
numbers, and competencies of A&A staff levels at the missions to which 
she was previously and currently assigned. While the respondent found 
the workload to be less manageable at her prior mission with 
inexperienced A&A staff, she found the workload at her current mission 
more easily manageable because it had more experienced A&A staff. 

In contrast, we noted that two missions we visited--Peru and Indonesia--
had more than adequate numbers of A&A staff with the necessary 
competencies to manage their workload. Some staff even indicated to us 
that these missions may not need all of their assigned COs to 
adequately manage their A&A work. For example, a CO at the mission in 
Peru told us that because the mission had so many experienced or 
competent A&A staff, the A&A workload was more easily managed, and 
staff even had sufficient time to volunteer the mission as a location 
for USAID to pilot a new system through which USAID A&A instruments 
will be awarded. 

USAID's Recent Planning Efforts Do Not Comprehensively Address Its 
Strategic A&A Workforce Planning Needs: 

USAID has launched some ad hoc attempts to address its A&A workforce 
issues. However, as the following indicates, these efforts lack 
critical elements of a strategic A&A workforce plan, particularly 
comprehensive information on its A&A specialists overseas: 

* Proposal to increase OAA staff levels. In May 2008, OAA officials 
proposed to the Management Bureau an increase in staff from 133 to 218 
in OAA headquarters. According to Management Bureau officials, OAA has 
been approved for 154 positions for fiscal year 2008. This proposal 
only addresses A&A staff levels in headquarters, however, and does not 
consider A&A staff levels overseas. 

* Development Leadership Initiative. This agencywide, multiyear effort 
is intended to recruit U.S. staff to be placed overseas. Under this 
initiative, USAID plans to hire 120 staff, including 15 COs, in fiscal 
year 2008. However, this initiative only seeks to increase the levels 
of overseas COs, not the levels of A&A specialists. 

* A&A Workforce Capability Assessment. As mentioned earlier, this was a 
May 2008 effort to identify and assess the competencies of all COs, as 
well as A&A specialists in headquarters. Competency assessments of A&A 
specialists overseas are not expected to begin until fiscal year 2011 
at the earliest. 

* Workforce planning model. This agencywide management tool projects 
the number, type, and location of staff needed to accomplish the 
agency's mission, based on expectations for future program funds as 
well as the size and location of overseas missions. However, the model 
does not incorporate data on either the current A&A staffing levels or 
the competencies of existing A&A staff. 

Effective workforce planning entails that an agency determine the 
number of staff, and critical competencies of those staff, to achieve 
the agency's goals. [Footnote 4] Taken together, these efforts do not 
constitute a strategic A&A workforce plan that takes into account the 
entire A&A workforce. USAID has yet to take an integrated approach to 
develop and implement such a workforce plan. 

USAID Has Not Implemented the Evaluation Mechanism of Its A&A Function: 

USAID has not implemented an evaluation mechanism to provide adequate 
oversight of its A&A function. OAA's Evaluation Division is responsible 
for providing this oversight to ensure that A&A operations follow USAID 
policies, primarily by assessing the agency's A&A operations worldwide. 
GAO's internal control standards emphasize the importance of 
evaluations--whether in the form of self-assessments or other means--to 
ensure an agency's operational effectiveness and compliance with 
applicable policies. In fiscal year 2007, the Evaluation Division 
developed an annual scorecard evaluation, intended to be completed by 
all COs as a self-assessment of their A&A operations. The division was 
to review the scorecard evaluations and use a risk-based approach to 
determine locations for further on-site visits. The division has 
finished piloting the scorecard evaluations at four missions and 
identified weaknesses in A&A operations. For example, the division 
found that one mission lacked resources to adequately monitor 
contractor performance. The division has set a goal of implementing the 
scorecard evaluation and on-site visits to at least 5 missions within a 
2-year period. However, agency officials informed us that the 
Evaluation Division did not have the staff needed to fully implement 
the evaluation mechanism. In addition, officials told us that the 
agency lacked a system that contains all the missions' A&A files, which 
could facilitate the evaluation process. Without implementing the 
evaluation mechanism it has developed, USAID cannot certify the overall 
adequacy and effectiveness of management controls for the A&A function. 

Conclusions: 

As USAID increasingly relies on nongovernmental organizations to 
implement its activities, the agency's responsibility to effectively 
manage the implemented activities gains in importance. Critical to its 
success in this area is USAID's management of the A&A function. As the 
amount of its A&A obligations and the number of A&A instruments 
continue to increase, especially at overseas missions, USAID should 
work to ensure that the appropriate number of staff, with the requisite 
competencies and skills, are available to manage A&A operations. 
Without sufficiently reliable and up-to-date data on its overseas A&A 
staff levels and comprehensive information on the competencies of the 
A&A staff, which are key elements of federal workforce planning models, 
USAID cannot identify its critical staffing needs and adjust its 
staffing patterns to meet those needs. In addition, a critical 
component of USAID's oversight of its A&A operations is the successful 
implementation of its new evaluation mechanism. The mechanism is 
designed to ensure that A&A operations follow USAID policies, primarily 
by assessing A&A operations that manage about $11 billion worldwide. 
However, until USAID has the capacity to implement the evaluation 
mechanism, it lacks the ability to ensure that potential weaknesses in 
the A&A process are quickly identified and corrected. 

GAO Recommendations and Agency Response: 

To address the concerns I have just summarized, we recommended in our 
September 2008 report that the Administrator of USAID develop and 
implement a strategic A&A workforce plan that matches resources to 
priority needs, such as the evaluation of the A&A function. 
Specifically, we recommended that the strategic A&A workforce plan 
includes a process to collect, analyze, and maintain (1) sufficiently 
reliable and up-to-date data on the agency's A&A staff levels and (2) 
comprehensive information on the competencies of the A&A staff. 

USAID informed us that, as of April 2009, USAID continues to experience 
challenges with collecting information needed to develop a strategic 
A&A workforce plan. USAID agreed that it needed to put in place a 
strategic A&A workforce plan that includes all of USAID's A&A staff at 
overseas missions. OAA has not updated staffing data on its entire A&A 
workforce since fiscal year 2005; rather, OAA relies on the staffing 
data collected by OHR. While OHR officials informed us that they have 
improved guidance to missions for preparing staffing data, they cannot 
ensure that all missions are accurately capturing these data or that 
missions have instituted procedures to ensure that the data reported to 
OHR are reliable. OHR and OAA officials also told us that they have 
collected competency information for 85 percent of its A&A staff in 
headquarters and its COs at overseas missions and have established a 
training schedule for A&A staff to address some competencies. However, 
OHR and OAA do not expect to begin collecting competency information 
for A&A specialists overseas until 2011, at the earliest. Under the 
Development Leadership Initiative, USAID planned to hire 15 COs to be 
placed overseas. To date, USAID has hired 12 COs who will soon be 
deployed overseas and it expects to fill the other three positions by 
the end of fiscal year 2009. Finally, the Evaluation Division has 
increased its staff levels from 4 staff in fiscal year 2008 to 9 staff 
as of April 2009. However, according to USAID officials, OAA has not 
fully implemented the evaluation mechanism of its A&A function and has 
completed evaluations of only two additional missions since the time of 
our report. OAA officials said they have been unable to make further 
advances due to other priorities. 

Madam Chairwoman and members of the subcommittee, this concludes my 
prepared statement. I will be happy to answer any questions you may 
have. 

GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

For questions regarding this testimony, please contact Thomas Melito at 
(202) 512-9601 or melitot@gao.gov. Other major contributors to this 
testimony were Zina Merritt, Acting Director; Debbie Chung; Mark 
Dowling; Joel Grossman; Victoria Lin; and James Strus. 

[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] GAO, Contingency Contacting: DOD, State, and USAID Are Taking 
Actions to Track Contracts and Contractor Personnel in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-538T] 
(Washington, D.C.: Apr. 1, 2009). 

[2] GAO, USAID Acquisition and Assistance: Actions Needed to Develop 
and Implement a Strategic Workforce Plan, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-1059] (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 26, 
2008). 

[3] In our April 1, 2009 testimony, we also noted that USAID's ability 
to make informed resource allocation decisions was impaired by not 
considering contractor resources when developing an assistance strategy 
for Afghanistan. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-538T]. 

[4] GAO, Human Capital: Key Principles for Effective Strategic 
Workforce Planning, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-39] 
(Washington, D.C.: Dec. 11, 2003). 

[End of section] 

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