a

GAO

United States Government Accountability Office

Report to Congressional Committees

March 2007 FOREIGN 

ASSISTANCE

Enhanced 

Coordination and 

Better Methods to 

Assess the Results of 

U.S. International 

Basic Education 

Efforts Are Needed

GAO-07-523
What GAO Found

United States Government Accountability Office

Why GAO Did This Study

Highlights

Accountability Integrity Reliability

March 2007

FOREIGN ASSISTANCE 

Enhanced Coordination and Better 

Methods to Assess the Results of U.S. 

International Basic Education Efforts Are 

Needed 

Highlights of GAO-07-523, a report to 

congressional committees 

Pub. L. No. 109-102, section 567, 

mandated that GAO analyze U.S.

international basic education 

efforts overseas. In this report,

GAO (1) describes U.S. agencies’

basic education activities and how 

the agencies plan them; (2)

examines U.S. coordination of 

basic education efforts among U.S.

agencies, and with host

governments and international

donors; and (3) examines how U.S.

agencies assess the results of their 

basic education programs. In

conducting this work, GAO

obtained and analyzed relevant

agencies’ documents and met with

U.S. and foreign government 

officials and nongovernmental

organizations, traveling to selected

recipient countries.

What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that the 

Secretary of State work with the

heads of other U.S. executive 

agencies in (1) improving 

interagency coordination of basic 

education efforts at headquarters in

Washington and in recipient 

countries and (2) developing a plan

to better assess the results of basic 

education programs, especially

those programs aimed at increasing 

educational quality. We received

written comments from State, 

USAID, and USDA indicating that 

they generally concurred with our 

recommendations. We also 

received technical comments, 

which we incorporated where

appropriate. 

Several U.S. agencies—the Departments of Agriculture (USDA), Defense 

(DOD), Labor (DOL), and State, as well as the Millennium Challenge 

Corporation (MCC), U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), 

and the Peace Corps—support basic education activities overseas. State and 

USAID have strategic goals specific to promoting improved education. 

Several other U.S. agencies support basic education-related activities as part 

of programs that address their broader mission goals. For example, DOL 

supports alternative school programs as a way to remove children from 

exploitative work, USDA provides school meals or take-home rations to 

students, and DOD constructs dormitories and schools to provide better 

access for children who have to travel long distances to attend classes. 

GAO found that agencies did not always coordinate in the planning or 

delivery of basic education-related activities. From 2001 to 2006, there was 

no government-wide mechanism to facilitate interagency collaboration and, 

as a result, GAO identified instances where agencies missed opportunities to 

collaborate and maximize U.S. resources. In addition, GAO found that the 

level of U.S. coordination with host governments and other donors in the 

eight visited countries varied. Without effective coordination, donors cannot 

easily monitor or assess the host government’s progress toward achieving 

international goals, such as Education for All by 2015, one of State-USAID’s 

strategic goals. 

While U.S. agencies GAO reviewed conduct basic education-related 

programs to achieve different goals, most collect and use output measures, 

such as the numbers of schools built or children enrolled, to assess and 

report on results. USAID is the only agency with an education-specific goal

of increasing access to quality basic education. However, in many instances, 

USAID faces challenges in collecting valid and reliable data needed to 

measure improvements in education quality. Without this information, 

agency officials cannot fully determine if the programs are achieving their 

strategic goals. 

Source: Mercy Corps for USDA. Source: GAO.

U.S. agencies provided school meals and computers to support basic education overseas.

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-523.

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact Jess T. Ford at 

(202) 512-4128 or fordj@gao.gov.
Page i GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

Contents

Letter 1

Results in Brief 3

Background 6

State and USAID Recently Developed Strategic Planning Goals 

Relating to Basic Education; Other Agencies Support Basic 

Education-Related Activities to Achieve Agency-Specific Mission 

Goals 12

Agencies Did Not Always Coordinate International Basic 

Education-Related Activities, Which Resulted in Some Missed 

Opportunities to Collaborate and Maximize Resources 28

Assessing Basic Education Programs’ Quality Results Is Difficult 36

Conclusions 46

Recommendations for Executive Action 47

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 47

Appendixes

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 49

Appendix II: Recipient Countries of Activities Related to International 

Basic Education During Fiscal Year 2006 52

Appendix III: Recipient Countries of USAID Basic Education Assistance, 

Funding Levels, and Selected World Bank’s Indicators 56

Appendix IV: List of International Basic Education Projects Reviewed 59

Appendix V: Analysis of the Performance Measures in Documentation for 

Selected International Basic Education Programs 63

Appendix VI: Comments from the Department of State 65

GAO Comments 69

Appendix VII: Comments from the U.S. Agency for International 

Development 70

Appendix VIII: Comments from the U.S. Department of Agriculture 71

GAO Comments 73

Appendix IX: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 74

Tables Table 1: Agencies’ Funding Allocations for Programs with 

International Basic Education-Related Activities 7
Contents

Page ii GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

Table 2: Other Agencies’ Funding Allocations for Programs with 

International Basic Education-Related Components That 

Support Broader Mission Goals 8

Table 3: Agency-Wide Reporting on Basic Education Activities 37

Table 4: Performance Measures in the Programs Selected 63

Table 5: Characteristics of the Outcome Measures 63

Table 6: Programs’ Use of Outcome Measures 64

Figures Figure 1: Recipient Countries of USAID Basic Education 

Assistance 10

Figure 2: Special Initiatives, Supported by the United States, 

Related to International Basic Education 11

Figure 3: MEPI Supported Dormitory for Moroccan Middle School 

Girls 14

Figure 4: Honduran Volunteer Teacher Using Prerecorded 

Interactive Compact Disk to Facilitate Seventh Grade 

Math Lesson 17

Figure 5: USAID-Funded Primary School Teacher Training in South 

Africa 18

Figure 6: Malian Teacher Demonstrating USAID-Funded 

Interactive Learning Method 18

Figure 7: USAID-Funded Portable Library for Sharing Among 

Peruvian Rural Schools 19

Figure 8: USDA’s Global Food for Education Program in the 

Dominican Republic 23

Figure 9: Restroom in Kyrgyzstan Primary School Prior to and 

After DOD Refurbishment 24

Figure 10: DOL-Funded Primary School in Bangladesh 25

Figure 11: Peace Corps Volunteers Using Interactive Radio 

Instruction in Teachers’ Workshop in Zambia 27
Contents

Page iii GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

Abbreviations

AR Annual Report Application 

DFA Director of Foreign Assistance

DOD Department of Defense

DOL Department of Labor

DSCA Defense Security Cooperation Agency

EGAT Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade Bureau

EI Child Labor Education Initiative

FACT Foreign Assistance Coordination and Tracking

FFE Food for Education

GFEI Global Food for Education Initiative 

GPRA Government Performance and Results Act

ILAB Bureau of International Labor Affairs

ILO-IPEC International Labor Organization’s International Program on the 

Elimination of Child Labor 

MCC Millennium Challenge Corporation

MEPI Middle East Partnership Initiative

NGO nongovernmental organization

OCFT Office of Child Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking 

OHDACA Overseas Humanitarian, Disaster, and Civic Aid

PPC Policy and Program Coordination

SPA Small Project Assistance

UN United Nations

UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural 

Organization

USDA United States Department of Agriculture

USAID United States Agency for International Development

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright protection in the 

United States. It may be reproduced and distributed in its entirety without further 

permission from GAO. However, because this work may contain copyrighted images or 

other material, permission from the copyright holder may be necessary if you wish to 

reproduce this material separately.
Page 1 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, D.C. 20548

A

March 30, 2007 Letr

The Honorable Patrick J. Leahy 

Chairman

The Honorable Judd Gregg

Ranking Minority Member

Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations,

and Related Programs 

Committee on Appropriations

United States Senate

The Honorable Nita M. Lowey

Chairwoman

The Honorable Frank R. Wolf

Ranking Minority Member

Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, 

and Related Programs

Committee on Appropriations

House of Representatives

Education contributes to the advancement of developmental goals 

worldwide as it impacts individual development, economic growth, poverty 

reduction, and democratic governance. According to the United Nations 

Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the 

international community has made progress in expanding access to basic 

education in the past 10 years in every region of the world. However, in 

2004, more than 77 million children worldwide, particularly those who live 

in rural areas and come from poor households, did not attend school. In 

addition, almost 780 million adults—one in five worldwide—two-thirds of 

whom are women, lack minimum literacy skills.1

 In some countries, 

improved access to basic education has been achieved through increasing 

student to teacher ratios—a factor that can negatively impact the quality of 

education. According to the United States Agency for International 

Development (USAID), poor educational quality causes many children to 

repeat grades and eventually drop out of school, often before gaining basic 

education skills such as numeracy and literacy.2

1

“Education for All Global Monitoring Report,” UNESCO, 2007.

2

“USAID Education Strategy, Improving Lives Through Learning,” USAID, April 2005.
Page 2 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

Several U.S. agencies, primarily USAID, fund and implement basic 

education-related programs overseas, using nongovernmental 

organizations (NGOs),3

 private organizations, and education service 

providers (such as universities) to implement the programs in country. 

These efforts include programs aimed at improving primary education, 

secondary education, literacy training for adults or out-of-school 

adolescents, early childhood development, or training for teachers at any of 

these levels.4

 From fiscal years 2001 through 2006, USAID, the Departments 

of State (State) and Defense (DOD), and the Millennium Challenge 

Corporation (MCC) allocated5

 more than $2.2 billion to support U.S. 

international basic education-related efforts. During this same period, the 

Departments of Agriculture (USDA) and Labor (DOL) allocated an 

estimated more than $1 billion to programs that included basic education 

as a component, along with support to other related aspects such as 

providing food to maternal health centers and providing job training for 

older children to combat child labor. 

As mandated in Pub. L. No. 109-102, section 567, this report provides an 

analysis of U.S.-funded international basic education programs. 

Specifically, this report (1) describes U.S. agencies’ basic education 

activities and how the agencies plan these activities; (2) examines U.S. 

coordination of basic education efforts among U.S. agencies, and with host 

governments and international donors; and (3) examines how U.S. agencies 

assess the results of their basic education programs.

In conducting our work, we analyzed strategic, budget, and programmatic 

documents describing U.S. international basic education programs and 

activities provided by State, USAID, USDA, DOD, DOL, the MCC, and the 

Peace Corps that covered fiscal years 2001 through 2006. In addition, we 

conducted audit work in Washington, D.C., as well as the Dominican 

Republic, Egypt, Honduras, Liberia,6

 Mali, Morocco, Peru, South Africa, 

3

A nongovernmental organization (NGO) is any nonprofit, voluntary citizens group, which is 

organized on a local, national, or international level. 

4

For the purpose of this report, we use USAID’s definition of basic education activities. 

5

For the purpose of this report, we use the term “allocations,” as defined by State and 

USAID, to refer to a component of approved appropriations set aside by agencies for 

specific purposes. 

6

The USAID mission in Liberia was in the initial phase of developing a country strategy and 

had not implemented any basic education activities at the time of our visit. 
Page 3 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

and Zambia. We selected a nonprobability sample of foreign countries 

designed to ensure geographic diversity and representation of basic 

education programs from multiple U.S. agencies and international donors.7

We met with representatives from State, USAID, USDA, DOD, DOL, the 

MCC, and the Peace Corps; officials representing embassies and USAID 

missions in the countries visited; officials administering international basic 

education programs; and officials from foreign governments, NGOs, the 

United Nations (UN), and other international organizations. Furthermore, 

to assess U.S. mechanisms for monitoring U.S. activities, we analyzed key 

project agreement documents, performance reports, and evaluations for 40 

ongoing basic education projects in the eight countries visited. We 

performed our work from December 2005 through March 2007 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Appendix I provides a more detailed description of our scope and 

methodology.

Results in Brief We identified seven U.S. agencies that support activities—in over 70 

countries from fiscal years 2001 through 2006—that are directly or 

indirectly related to increasing access to or improving the quality of basic 

education overseas. State and USAID have strategic goals specific to 

promoting improved education. The other five agencies conduct basic 

education-related activities in support of programs that address their 

broader mission goals. Basic education-related activities include, among 

other things, teacher training, student feeding, school construction, and 

efforts to raise awareness of the benefits of education. The State and 

USAID joint strategic plan for fiscal years 2004 to 2009 includes the broad 

goal of improving education globally, with a particular focus on the Muslim 

world, as well as support for programs to achieve the UN’s Millennium 

Declaration Goal of universal primary education by 2015. The two agencies 

have implemented basic education activities that align with these plans. 

State, for example, through its Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), 

supports activities that seek to improve access to basic education with a 

specific emphasis on girls and women in several North African and Middle 

Eastern countries and territories, while USAID supports various activities 

to increase access to and improve the quality of basic education and build 

the institutional capacity of host countries’ basic education systems. The 

7

Results from nonprobability samples cannot be used to make inferences about a population 

because, in a nonprobability sample, some elements of the population being studied have no 

chance or an unknown chance of being selected as part of the sample. 
Page 4 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

top recipients of USAID’s basic education funding are predominately 

Muslim countries and countries of strategic interest to U.S. policy goals, 

including Afghanistan, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Pakistan. Several 

other U.S. agencies support basic education-related activities as part of 

their overall mission goals. For example, DOL supports education 

programs such as alternative school programs as a way to remove children 

from exploitative work, USDA provides school meals or take-home rations 

to students, and DOD constructs dormitories and schools to provide better 

access for children who have to travel long distances to attend classes.

We found that agencies did not always coordinate in the planning or 

delivery of international basic education-related activities. From 2001 to 

2006, there was no government-wide mechanism to facilitate interagency 

collaboration and, as a result, we identified instances where agencies 

missed opportunities to collaborate and maximize U.S. resources. For 

example, USAID officials responsible for planning and managing USAID’s 

basic education programs were not present at key DOL and USDA meetings 

at which the planning of overseas education-related activities were 

discussed, or were not aware of some agencies’ basic education-related 

activities. In the eight countries we visited, we noted several instances 

where project implementers in the countries did not collaborate or take 

advantage of opportunities to maximize U.S. resources in areas in which 

they had similar objectives of improving the quality of education. For 

example, in several of these countries, DOL could have joined USAID’s 

efforts to effect policy reforms directed at rural youth by using USAID’s 

delivery mechanisms of radio and television programming, as well as 

printed materials to raise public awareness of child labor issues. Although 

State’s Director of Foreign Assistance (DFA) has begun to address the issue 

of better coordinating all U.S. foreign assistance by bringing together core 

teams to discuss U.S. development priorities in each recipient country, it is 

unclear to what extent these efforts will be accepted and implemented by 

agencies whose foreign assistance programs are not under DFA’s direct 

authority. In addition, we found that the level of U.S. coordination with host 

governments and other donors in the eight countries we visited also varied. 

We observed stronger coordination in countries with strong national 

commitments to education reform and formal donor working groups on 

education, as well as in those countries implementing activities in support 
Page 5 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

of the World Bank’s Education for All Fast Track Initiative.8 We observed 

weaker coordination in countries that lacked a lead donor or host 

government commitment to convening donor meetings. Most donors that 

we interviewed acknowledged that further improvements in coordination 

could result in more efficient delivery of assistance. Without effective 

coordination, donors cannot easily monitor or assess the host 

government’s progress toward achieving international goals, such as 

Education for All by 2015, one of State-USAID’s strategic goals.

While U.S. agencies we reviewed conduct basic education-related 

programs to achieve different goals, most collect and use output measures 

to assess and report on the results of their activities. Output measures are 

the direct products and services delivered by a program, such as numbers 

of schools built or children enrolled. USAID is the only agency with an 

education-specific goal of increasing access to quality basic education, and 

while USAID can measure education access through outputs such as the 

numbers of students enrolled in primary school programs, it does not, in 

many instances, measure education quality—a key goal of its programs. 

Outcome measures are the results of products and services provided, such 

as increased literacy and numeracy rates, which are indicators of improved 

education quality. Our analysis showed that USAID can report on some 

quality-related outcomes, such as primary school retention rates. However, 

it faces challenges in collecting valid and reliable data on student learning 

in areas such as math and reading. According to USAID and the UNESCO, 

student testing results are a good outcome measure of increased 

educational quality. To better assess its goal of improving access to quality 

education, USAID is developing a standardized test that could provide data 

on primary-level reading ability and would be comparable across countries. 

In addition, State’s DFA plans to work toward developing methods to 

assess whether all foreign assistance programs are achieving their goals; 

however, these efforts are only in the early discussion phase. Without this 

information, agency officials cannot determine if the programs are 

achieving their strategic goals. 

8

Education for All is an international commitment to bring the benefits of education to every 

citizen in every society. In 2000 in Dakar, Senegal, 189 countries adopted the Education for 

All goals of (1) universal primary education by 2015 and (2) gender equity in education by 

2015 among the eight Millennium Development Goals. 
Page 6 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

This report contains several recommendations to the Secretary of State. 

Specifically, it recommends that the Secretary of State work with the heads 

of other U.S. executive agencies supporting international basic educationrelated activities in (1) improving interagency coordination of basic 

education efforts at headquarters in Washington and in recipient countries 

to facilitate better planning and allocation of U.S. resources and (2) 

developing a plan to identify indicators that would help U.S. agencies, to 

the extent practicable, track improvements in access to quality education.

We received written comments on the draft of this report from State, 

USAID, and USDA (see apps. VI, VII, and VIII) indicating that they generally 

concurred with our recommendations. We also received technical 

comments on this draft from State, USAID, DOL, the MCC, and the Peace 

Corps, which we incorporated where appropriate.

Background Basic education is defined in this report as all program efforts aimed at 

improving early childhood development, primary education, and secondary 

education, as well as training in literacy, numeracy, and other basic skills 

for adults or out-of-school youth. Basic education also includes efforts that 

facilitate and support such learning activities, including building host 

countries’ institutional capacity to manage basic education systems and 

measure results, constructing and rehabilitating schools, training teachers, 

increasing parent and community involvement in schools, providing 

learning materials, and developing curricula. 

Education for All is a major goal of the international donor community. At 

Jomtien, Thailand, in March 1990, representatives of the global education 

community held the “World Conference on Education for All” and declared 

universal access to education as a fundamental right of all people. In April 

2000, the “World Education Forum”9

 met in Dakar, Senegal, where 

delegates from 181 nations adopted a framework for action committing 

their governments to achieve quality basic education for all—including 

ensuring that by 2015, all children--especially girls, children in difficult 

circumstances, and those from ethnic minorities--have access to 

completely free primary education of good quality. The framework 

committed these nations to the attainment of six specific goals dealing with 

early childhood education, universal primary education, life-skills 

9

The forum is an interagency body established in 1990 by the UN Development Program; 

UNESCO; the UN Population Fund; the UN Children’s Fund; and the World Bank. 
Page 7 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

programs, adult literacy, gender disparities, and quality assurance. The 

United States supports this international commitment, as well as the UN’s 

Millennium Development Goal—to achieve universal completion of 

primary school by 2015. 

U.S. Agencies Fund 

International Basic 

Education-Related 

Programs

From fiscal years 2001 through 2006, USAID, State, DOD, and MCC 

allocated more than $2.2 billion to support U.S. international basic 

education-related efforts. See table 1 for these agencies’ funding 

allocations specifically for basic education-related programs. 

Table 1: Agencies’ Funding Allocations for Programs with International Basic Education-Related Activities 

Source: U.S. agencies’ data.

Note: $0 indicates no allocated amounts. The Peace Corps is not included because it does not track 

funding by program sector. 

a

Figures shown for USAID funding include funds transferred from State for USAID-implemented MEPI 

programs.

b

Figures shown for State’s funding include funds for State-implemented MEPI programs.

c

N/A: not applicable because the MCC was not established until 2004.

d

Totals may not add due to rounding.

During this same period, USDA and DOL allocated an estimated more than 

$1 billion to programs that included a basic education component that 

supported their broader mission goals. For example, funding for USDA’s 

Food for Education program includes basic education activities along with 

other components, such as providing maternal health centers. Similarly, 

DOL’s funding for its programs to combat child labor combines basic 

education-related efforts and other activities, such as job training for older 

children and income generation opportunities for parents. In addition, the 

Peace Corps could not identify funding levels specific to basic education 

because it does not track funding by individual program sectors, rather by 

Dollars in millions

Agency FY 2001 FY 2002 FY 2003 FY 2004 FY 2005 FY 2006 Totald

USAIDa $161.6 $232.0 $339.2 $520.4 $413.0 $504.0 $2,170.3

Stateb 0 0.8 14.7 8.9 2.8 2.0 $29.2

DOD 2.3 1.6 2.1 6.0 3.9 0.3 $16.2

MCC N/Ac N/A N/A 0 12.9 0 $12.9

Totald $163.9 $234.5 $356.1 $535.3 $432.6 $506.3 $2,228.6
Page 8 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

overall country programs. This is because volunteers sometimes 

implement projects in multiple program sectors. Furthermore, other than 

USAID, U.S. agencies do not have a standard, government-wide, formal 

definition of basic education or a requirement to report their funding of 

international basic education activities to a central U.S. government 

source. See table 2 for these agencies’ funding allocations for programs 

with international basic education-related components.

Table 2: Other Agencies’ Funding Allocations for Programs with International Basic Education-Related Components That 

Support Broader Mission Goals 

Source: U.S. agencies’ data.

a

Totals may not add due to rounding.

See appendix II for the countries receiving basic education-related 

assistance by implementing U.S. agency in fiscal year 2006.

USAID Funded the Vast Majority 

of International Basic Education 

Programs

From fiscal years 2001 through 2006, USAID funded the majority of U.S. 

international basic education programs, allocating more than $2.1 billion to 

implement programs in about 60 countries worldwide. USAID used 

appropriated funds designated by Congress for basic education and other 

supplemental appropriations.10 In addition to the congressionally 

Dollars in millions

Agency FY 2001 FY 2002 FY 2003 FY 2004 FY 2005 FY 2006 Totala

USDA $178.3 $89.9 $93.1 $49.6 $89.7 $98.7 $599.3

DOL 81.0 77.5 80.1 75.9 72.3 53.6 $440.4

Totala $259.3 $167.4 $173.2 $125.5 $162.0 $152.3 $1,039.6

10Funds appropriated for “basic education” and utilized by USAID include the: Foreign 

Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2006, Pub. L. No. 

109-102, § 567, 119 Stat. 2172, 2227 (2005); Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2005, Pub. L. 

No. 108-447, § 567, 118 Stat. 2809, 3024 (2004); Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2004, Pub. 

L. No. 108-199, Division D, Title II, 118 Stat. 3, 147; Consolidated Appropriations Resolution, 

2003, Pub. L. No. 108-7, Division E, Title II, 117 Stat. 11, 164; Foreign Operations, Export 

Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2002, Pub. L. No. 107-115, Title II, 115 

Stat. 2118, 2122; and Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs 

Appropriations Act, 2001, Pub. L. No. 106-429, Title II, 114 Stat. 1900, 1900A-5 (2000); see also

H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 109-72 at 132 (2005). 
Page 9 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

designated basic education funds,11 USAID used other appropriated funds, 

including supplemental appropriations12 and funding for MEPI activities, to 

fund basic education activities abroad. By region, Asia and the Near East 

received the highest level of USAID’s allocated basic education funds at 

approximately $1 billion, followed by Africa at almost $750 million, Latin 

America and the Caribbean at around $272 million, and Europe and Eurasia 

at about $51 million. See figure 1 for a map of the 60 recipient countries of 

USAID’s basic education funding, ranked by total basic education 

allocations from fiscal years 2001 through 2006. 

11For purposes of this report, congressionally designated appropriations covers 

appropriation specifically set aside by appropriating language for “basic education.” For 

example, the fiscal year 2006 appropriation specified a general provision of $465 million for 

basic education, of which $365 million of the Development Assistance (DA) account should 

be allocated for basic education (Pub. L. No. 109-102, 119 Stat. at 2177). Other accounts from 

which USAID allocated basic education funding from fiscal years 2001 through 2006 include 

the Andean Counterdrug Initiative (ACI), Assistance for Eastern Europe and the Baltic 

States (AEEB), Child Survival and Health (CSH), Economic Support Funds (ESF), and 

Freedom Support Act (FSA). 

12Supplemental appropriations include funding provided by Congress after the beginning of 

a fiscal year, such as the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense and for 

the Reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan (Pub. L. No. 109-234, Title I, sec. 1302, 120 Stat. 

418, 435 [2006]), and the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the 

Global War on Terror, and Hurricane Recovery (Pub. L. No. 108-106, Title II, Ch. 2, 117 Stat. 

1209, 1225 [2003]). 
Page 10 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

Figure 1: Recipient Countries of USAID Basic Education Assistance 

Special Initiatives Related to 

International Basic 

Education

Since fiscal year 2001, the United States has launched several major 

education initiatives that direct missions to focus on specific types of basic 

education activities in certain regions, such as Africa, Latin America and 

the Caribbean, and the Middle East, to address educational challenges in 

those regions. Figure 2 summarizes these initiatives.

Sources: USAID (data); Map Resources (map).

1. Egypt 

2. Iraq 

3. Afghanistan 

4. Pakistan 

5. Indonesia

6. Ethiopia

7. Ghana

8. Jordan 

9. Zambia

10. Uganda

11. Haiti

12. Honduras

13. Benin

14. Mali

15. Guinea

16. South Africa

17. Senegal

18. Sudan

19. Malawi

20. Nicaragua

21. India

22. Nigeria

23. El Salvador 

24. Jamaica

25. Philippines

26. Yemen

27. Macedonia

28. Morocco

29. Guatemala

30. Congo, Dem.Rep.

Top 10 countries Next 10 countries Other 40 countries

31. Bangladesh 

32. Namibia

33. Peru

34. Cambodia

35. Djibouti

36. Kenya

37. Liberia

38. Dominican Republic 

39. Tanzania

40. Turkey

41. Uzbekistan

42. Tajikistan

43. Kyrgyzstan

44. Mexico

45. Burma

46. Nepal

47. Somalia

48. Rwanda

49. Madagascar

50. Bolivia

51. China

52. Lebanon

53. Eritrea

54. Georgia

55. Armenia

56. Russia

57. Angola

57. Burundi

57. Turkmenistan

60. Kosovo
Page 11 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

Figure 2: Special Initiatives, Supported by the United States, Related to International Basic Education

0 50 100 150 200

Sources: GAO analysis of USAID and State data.

Centers of

Excellence

for Teacher

Training

Allocations to date

(FYs 2002-2006)

(Dollars in millions)

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

Africa 

Education 

Initiative

Middle East 

Partnership 

Initiative 

• USAID managed and implemented

• 14 Latin American and Caribbean countries

• Improve reading and writing instruction (grades 1-3) through teacher training

• USAID managed and implemented

• 40 sub-Saharan African countries

• Increase access to quality primary education through girls’ scholarships, textbooks, and teacher training 

• State managed, partly implemented through USAID

• 11 North African and Middle Eastern countries and territories

• Expand access to primary and secondary education through teacher training, curriculum 

content, community involvement, and digital readiness

$177

$35

$35

Education for 

All-Fast Track 

Initiative 

Centers of Excellence for Teacher Training

Africa Education Initiative

Middle East Partnership Initiative 

Education for All-Fast Track Initiative 

• USAID allocated funding to support Education for All

• 11 African, Asian, and Latin American countries

• Increase access to quality primary education

$74
Page 12 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

State and USAID 

Recently Developed 

Strategic Planning 

Goals Relating to Basic 

Education; Other 

Agencies Support 

Basic EducationRelated Activities to 

Achieve AgencySpecific Mission Goals

The State and USAID joint strategic plan for fiscal years 2004 to 2009 

includes the broad goal of improving education globally, with a particular 

focus on the Muslim world, as well as support for programs to achieve the 

United Nations’ Millennium Declaration Goal of universal primary 

education by 2015. State and USAID have implemented basic education 

activities that align with these goals. Several other U.S. agencies support 

activities that directly or indirectly relate to increasing access to or 

improving the quality of international basic education.

State and USAID Strategic 

Plan Includes Broad 

Education Goals

State and USAID have strategic goals specific to promoting improved 

education. Although State and USAID have supported assistance activities 

relating to education for decades, neither agency had agency-wide 

strategies to guide these activities until early 2000. Moreover, State’s 

September 2000 strategic plan only included references to improving 

education as part of the broader goal of promoting broad-based growth in 

developing and transitioning economies to raise standards of living, reduce 

poverty, and lessen disparities of wealth within and among countries. The 

State and USAID joint Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2004 to 2009,13

includes, for the first time for these agencies, education as a strategic goal. 

According to the strategic plan, State and USAID will promote improved 

education globally, with a particular focus on the Muslim world, as well as 

support the development goals of the UN’s Millennium Declaration call for 

universal primary education by 2015. Working toward this UN goal, the plan 

calls for State and USAID to support programs that do the following:

• Promote equal access to quality basic education. The strategy says that 

State and USAID would assist and encourage countries to improve their 

education policies, institutions, and practices in the classroom; give 

13The State and USAID Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2004 to 2009 sets forth the Secretary of 

State’s direction and priorities for both organizations, including how State and USAID will 

implement U.S. foreign policy and development assistance. The plan defines the primary 

aims of U.S. foreign policy and development assistance, as well as the agencies’ strategic 

objectives and associated goals. 
Page 13 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

families and communities a stronger role in educational decision 

making; and focus their efforts on reducing barriers to education for 

girls.

• Implement international education commitments. The strategy also 

states that both agencies will work with donor partners to implement 

the commitments made at the 2000 World Educational Forum in Dakar, 

the G–814 Summits at Genoa and Kananaskis, and at the UN Conference 

on Financing for Development in Monterrey. In addition, the agencies 

are to help developing countries build their capacity to achieve the 

global Education for All initiative.

State and USAID Have 

Implemented Basic 

Education Activities That 

Align with Their Strategic 

Plans

Consistent with the joint strategic plan’s education goals, State has 

implemented programs, mainly through MEPI, to target basic education in 

North Africa and the Middle East. As the largest provider of U.S. basic 

education assistance, USAID also supports activities that align with the 

joint strategic plan, as well as its 2005 education strategy that focuses on 

improving: (1) access to education, (2) quality of education, and (3) host 

governments’ capacity to manage education efforts. In addition, USAID has 

allocated resources toward strategically important countries, as noted in 

both strategy documents.

State’s Programs Target the 

Middle East and Muslim 

Countries

State generally supports education programs that align with the agency’s 

broader foreign policy objectives such as promoting democracy and reform 

in the Muslim world. Primarily through MEPI, the agency supports 

international basic education activities aimed at increasing access to basic 

education, especially for girls and women, and improving the quality of 

basic education through teacher training, curriculum development, and 

community involvement in North African and Middle Eastern countries and 

territories. For example, through MEPI, State’s Bureau of Near Eastern 

Affairs supports a “scholarships for success” program in Morocco to 

increase access to secondary schools for girls living in remote rural 

communities through the creation of girls’ dormitories (see fig. 3). As an 

initiative directed by the administration, MEPI allocates resources for basic 

education programs in North African and Middle Eastern countries and 

territories. Under MEPI, basic education funds are allocated for country14The G-8 countries are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, 

and the United States.
Page 14 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

specific and regional programs based on information from U.S. embassies 

and other U.S. agencies with regional programs that can identify areas of 

need, and through conversations with host governments. Between fiscal 

years 2001 and 2006, the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs allocated about 

$35 million in MEPI funding for 23 basic education-related projects in 11 

North African and Middle Eastern countries and territories. In addition to 

MEPI, during the same period, State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural 

Affairs funded one basic education project that allocated, in Indonesia, a 

total of $2.4 million in fiscal years 2004 and 2005 to fund multiyear 

scholarships for Indonesian teachers at the secondary and university level 

to study education in the United States.

Figure 3: MEPI Supported Dormitory for Moroccan Middle School Girls

Source: GAO.
Page 15 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

USAID Programs Support 

Education Strategic Objectives; 

Resources Correspond with U.S. 

Strategic Priorities

In the eight countries we visited, we found that USAID implemented 

programs that targeted the agencies’ emphasized population of primarylevel students and girls and aligned with its three main strategic objectives. 

USAID’s resource allocations of top recipients of basic education funding 

from fiscal years 2001 through 2006 show consistency with U.S. priorities 

placed on strategic partner countries.

USAID Programs Support Education Strategy

Prior to 2005, USAID did not have an agency-wide education strategy and 

its education programming was generally guided over time by several 

agency strategies, policies, and operational directives. In April 2005, USAID 

issued an education strategy that prioritizes the broad education objective 

of increasing equitable access to quality education, with the more specific 

focuses on primary education and girls’ education. The strategy directs that 

USAID focus on (1) increasing access to basic education, (2) improving the 

quality of basic education, and (3) building the institutional capacity of the 

host countries’ basic education systems. This strategy also supports the 

broader State and USAID strategic goals of improving education globally 

with a particular emphasis on the Muslim world, as it emphasizes the 

importance of education in strategic countries, as well as implementing 

international education commitments, such as the Education for All by 

2015 initiative. 

In the eight countries we visited, we found that USAID generally 

implemented programs that aligned with its three main strategic objectives 

and targeted the agencies’ emphasized population of primary-level students 

and girls. According to USAID, as a matter of policy, USAID’s efforts focus 

on increasing children’s access to quality primary education because the 

quality and accessibility of primary education plays a critical role in 

determining whether children gain core skills, such as literacy and 

numeracy, and have a chance to gain further education.15 In addition, 

USAID has a special focus on girls’ education. Missions engaged in basic 

education are required to assess the extent of educational disadvantage 

faced by girls at the primary level in the host country and take further steps 

where this disadvantage is found to be significant. Seven of the eight 

15This policy may be superseded in a host country that has already resolved serious 

deficiencies in access and educational quality at the primary level. Likewise, it may be set 

aside if the mission concludes that agency resources would produce more valuable results 

in some other area of basic education. 
Page 16 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

missions we visited implemented projects to increase access and improve 

the quality of basic education for primary-school youth. However, USAID 

also recognizes the need for missions to have flexibility in planning and 

implementing programs, and taking into account both the conditions of the 

particular host countries and the activities of other donors in the country. 

For example, while the mission in Morocco continued to focus on girls’ 

education, its basic education assistance shifted more toward middle 

schools, since the mission determined that high dropout rates among 

primary-school students were often due to the lack of access to quality 

secondary schools where those students would have continued with their 

education and because other donors were already investing significant 

resources into primary education in the country. 

Following are details about USAID’s programs to support its three strategic 

goals: (1) increasing access to basic education, (2) improving the quality of 

basic education, and (3) building the institutional capacity of the host 

countries’ basic education systems.

• Access: To increase access to basic education, USAID supports a wide 

range of programs, such as distance learning, girls’ scholarships, and 

school construction, that increase the number of boys and girls who 

enter and remain in school, particularly underserved populations such 

as girls, the poor, children in rural areas, and out-of-school youth. To 

increase access, the agency often uses distance learning tools, such as 

radio, television, and other information and communication 

technologies, to deliver quality educational content to populations not 

accommodated by the traditional school system. Agency efforts to 

increase access to basic education also include, among other things, 

construction and rehabilitation of school facilities, girls’ scholarships, 

and adult literacy programs. In six of the eight countries we visited 

(Egypt, Honduras, South Africa, Mali, Morocco, and Zambia), we found 

that missions implemented programs in support of this strategic goal. 

For example, in Egypt, Honduras, South Africa, and Zambia, USAID 

used distance learning programs, such as prerecorded lessons, to 

deliver educational content to preprimary, primary, and secondary 

school youth--particularly girls, children from rural areas, and poor 

children. In Egypt, Mali, Morocco, South Africa, and Zambia, USAID 

implemented scholarship programs for girls, while the mission in Egypt 

also supported the construction of primary schools to increase access 

and enrollment of girls in underserved communities. See figure 4 for an 

example of a USAID program aimed at increasing education access. 
Page 17 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

Figure 4: Honduran Volunteer Teacher Using Prerecorded Interactive Compact Disk 

to Facilitate Seventh Grade Math Lesson 

• Quality: USAID also implements a wide array of programs to improve 

education quality. These programs are generally designed to improve 

teachers’ subject matter knowledge and pedagogical skills, ensure the 

curriculum includes specific knowledge and skills relevant to students’ 

lives, and provide learners with access to appropriate workbooks and 

other learning materials that complement and reinforce teachers’ 

efforts. Typical forms of assistance include training teachers, along with 

technical assistance to strengthen the capacity of local teacher training 

institutions; promoting the adoption of teaching methods that involve 

students in the learning process; promoting improvements in curriculum 

content; helping host countries develop methods of student assessment; 

and providing learning materials, such as textbooks and portable 

libraries. All eight missions we visited implemented programs to 

improve quality, using a variety of the approaches described above. See 

Source: GAO.
Page 18 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

figures 5 to 7 for examples of USAID projects aimed at improving 

education quality.

Figure 5: USAID-Funded Primary School Teacher Training in South Africa

Figure 6: Malian Teacher Demonstrating USAID-Funded Interactive Learning Method

Source: GAO.

Source: GAO.
Page 19 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

Figure 7: USAID-Funded Portable Library for Sharing Among Peruvian Rural 

Schools

• Capacity building: USAID implements a wide variety of basic 

education programs to build host countries’ institutional capacity to 

manage their basic education systems. Typical forms of assistance 

include training school principals in educational leadership and 

management; promoting the active participation by parents and parent 

associations in supporting school improvement; developing effective 

policy analysis units within education ministries; supporting the 

adoption and use of appropriate data and educational management 

information systems, as well as measures to enhance accountability and 

transparency in the use of public education funds; and the 

decentralization of educational decision making to local levels. All eight 

missions we visited implemented programs that either specifically 

focused on building the host countries’ educational capacity or 

contained a capacity-building component. For example, in Zambia, 

USAID implemented a project to decentralize administration of the 

country’s education management information systems. In Egypt, USAID 

Source: GAO.
Page 20 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

implemented a project to support the country’s decentralization efforts 

by rewarding schools and surrounding communities that are active in 

assessing their needs and successful in planning and implementing 

measures to improve education quality. 

Because many USAID programs simultaneously support multiple 

objectives, USAID could not provide a breakout of funding for its 

international basic education efforts by strategic objective, such as access 

or quality, or by program activity, such as teacher training. According to 

USAID, quality and access are interlinked in important ways, as when 

quality improvements lead to reduced grade repetition, accelerating 

children’s progress through school and increasing access for subsequent 

students. Missions decide whether to concentrate their efforts on 

increasing access or improving quality and which program approaches to 

use based on their assessment of how they can achieve the most valuable 

results in light of country conditions. For example, in Mali, a country in 

which only about 50 percent of primary school-aged children are enrolled 

in school, USAID decided to focus its strategy on improving the quality of 

basic education based on the rationale that the greatest impediment to 

achieving universal access is the poor quality of education. 

USAID Resources Directed at Strategic Partners of U.S. Foreign 

Priorities 

USAID’s resource allocations for basic education are consistent with 

USAID and State’s efforts to more closely align foreign policy and 

development goals. According to USAID’s April 2005 education strategy 

and USAID officials, the agency allocates resources based on the host 

country’s needs, commitment, and overall development progress, while 

acknowledging the importance of geo-strategic states, such as some 

predominantly Muslim countries. USAID and State’s joint strategic plan 

also states that their education programs will be particularly focused on 

Muslim countries following the September 11 attacks. For example, in Mali, 

a predominantly Muslim country, USAID implemented a girls’ scholarship 

program in which it focused on girls in traditional, religious communities 

and also tried to engage local religious Muslim leaders in discussions on 

how the scholarship program would be structured and invited them to 

become members of the local management committee. We found that 

USAID has implemented programs to target strategic states; specifically, 

from fiscal years 2001 through 2006, many of the top 10 recipient countries 

of USAID basic education assistance were strategic partners in achieving 

U.S. foreign policy objectives, including fighting the war against terrorism 
Page 21 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

and promoting regional stability and democracy. Among these top 10 

recipients were many predominantly Islamic countries, such as 

Afghanistan, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, and Pakistan, which did not receive 

any USAID basic education funding in fiscal year 2001, but received 

significant funding beginning in fiscal year 2002. These countries, along 

with Egypt and Ethiopia, all ranked among the top 10 recipients of basic 

education funding from fiscal years 2001 through 2006 and were all 

considered strategically important allies in the global war on terror, 

according to USAID officials and USAID and State operational plans. See 

appendix III for a list of recipient countries of USAID basic education 

funding from fiscal years 2001 through 2006 and selected educational 

indicators from the World Bank.16

USAID began basic education programs in the war-affected countries of 

Iraq and Afghanistan to support efforts to facilitate their transition to more 

stable, democratic, and productive states. In 2002, following the defeat of 

the Taliban, USAID started a basic education program in Afghanistan, 

which originally focused on four areas: textbook production and 

distribution, radio-based teacher training, accelerated learning for over-age 

and out-of-school students, and school construction and rehabilitation. 

USAID’s current efforts in Afghanistan focus on improving the quality of 

the country’s basic education system through teacher training. In May 2003, 

in the immediate aftermath of initial combat operations in Iraq, USAID 

program efforts supported the resumption of school through the 

rehabilitation of classrooms and the provision of educational materials. 

However, according to USAID officials, the mission’s efforts faced many 

challenges due to attacks on teachers and schools. While the USAID 

mission in Iraq has rehabilitated 2,962 primary and secondary schools since 

the conflict began in 2003, the mission does not know whether these 

schools are currently operating due to the hostile security environment. 

USAID’s basic education efforts in Iraq have also focused on improving the 

quality of Iraq’s basic education system through training primary and 

secondary school teachers, building the education ministry’s capacity to 

manage and reform its education system, and increasing access to basic 

education for out-of-school youth through an accelerated learning 

program. These basic education activities were funded through 

supplemental appropriations specifically for Iraq. USAID ended its basic 

education program in Iraq in 2005 due to a change in mission priorities. 

16We use 2004 data found in World Bank’s World Development Indicators: 

http://devdata.worldbank.org/dataonline.
Page 22 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

According to a USAID official, the mission’s current priorities are focused 

on community stabilization, local governance, economic governance, 

national capacity development, and private sector development.

Other Agencies Conduct 

Basic Education-Related 

Activities in Support of 

Their Missions

In addition to State and USAID, several other agencies implement activities 

that directly and indirectly support increasing access to and improving the 

quality of basic education in support of programs that address their 

broader mission goals.17 These agencies include USDA, DOD, and DOL, as 

well as the Peace Corps and MCC. 

Department of Agriculture USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service funds and administers basic 

education-related activities through the provision of food assistance as part 

of the agency’s broader mission to create economic opportunity for 

American agriculture by expanding global markets and to support food 

security worldwide. The agency supports basic education by providing 

school meals or take-home rations to students overseas and by facilitating 

the sale of food commodities to support basic education programs in 

communities. USDA’s efforts, which target low-income, food-deficit 

countries, particularly focus on girls since they tend to have much lower 

school attendance rates than boys in many of USDA’s recipient countries. 

In fiscal year 2001, USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service administered the 

Global Food for Education Initiative (GFEI), a pilot program with the 

overall goal of contributing to universal education by using school meals to 

attract primary-school children to school, keep them attending once 

enrolled, and improve learning. Through the program, USDA donated U.S. 

agricultural commodities and associated technical and financial assistance 

to the World Food Program, 13 private voluntary organizations, and one 

national government (the Dominican Republic, see fig. 8). The 

organizations then used the commodities in 48 school feeding projects in 38 

developing countries. For example, in the Dominican Republic, USDA 

donated wheat and crude soybean oil, which were sold locally, with 

17While the U.S. Department of Education does not fund or implement international basic 

education activities, it does conduct some related activities. For example, the Department’s 

international activities typically focus on sharing information on education policies and 

practices, exchanging educational experts, cooperation between U.S. and foreign 

educational institutions, and joint research activities, including participation in comparative 

international assessments of student performance. The Department also works in 

cooperation with international organizations that are active in the field of education, 

including UNESCO, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, AsiaPacific Economic Cooperation, and the Organization of American States. 
Page 23 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

proceeds used to carry out community-based school feeding and 

educational improvement programs managed by local NGOs. In fiscal year 

2003, the GFEI was continued under USDA’s McGovern-Dole International 

Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program (Food for Education). 

The Food for Education (FFE) program also provides nutrition programs 

for pregnant women, nursing mothers, infants, and preschool children to 

sustain and improve the health and learning capacity of children before 

they enter school. USDA allocates basic education resources to lowincome, food-deficit countries that are committed to universal education. 

From fiscal years 2001 through 2006, USDA allocated $599.3 million to 

implement the GFEI and the FFE program in 42 countries worldwide. 

Figure 8: USDA’s Global Food for Education Program in the Dominican Republic

Department of Defense DOD funds basic education activities through its Overseas Humanitarian, 

Disaster, and Civic Aid (OHDACA) program, as part of the program’s 

Source: USDA.
Page 24 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

broader goal to achieve U.S. security objectives, improve DOD’s access to 

areas not otherwise available to U.S. forces, build local capabilities and 

cooperative relationships with a host country’s civil society, and provide 

basic humanitarian aid and services to populations in need. DOD supports 

increased access to basic education through its construction of primary 

and secondary school buildings and refurbishment of existing school 

facilities (see fig. 9) in all of the Combatant Commanders’ areas of 

responsibility. According to one DOD command, it often uses the 

constructed school facilities as centers to manage and coordinate the 

Department’s natural disaster response activities. Recipient countries of 

DOD humanitarian assistance are identified through DOD guidance and 

with input from in-country U.S. agencies on host countries’ need. From 

fiscal years 2001 through 2006, DOD allocated $16.2 million to fund 232 

basic education projects in 50 countries worldwide. 

Figure 9: Restroom in Kyrgyzstan Primary School Prior to and After DOD 

Refurbishment

Department of Labor DOL’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) funds and administers 

international child labor projects with basic education components as part 

of its broader strategic goal to remove or prevent children from 

exploitative child labor and provide affected children with education, 

training, or both. Through its international child labor projects, DOL 

supports basic education by developing formal and transitional education 

systems that encourage working children and those at risk to attend 

school; raising awareness on the importance of education for all children 

and mobilizing support for improved and expanded educational 

Source: DOD.

Before renovation After renovation
Page 25 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

infrastructures; and strengthening national institutions and policies on 

education and child labor (see fig. 10). The ILAB uses two mechanisms to 

implement these projects: (1) the International Labor Organization’s 

International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (ILO-IPEC), which 

removes or prevents exploitative child labor and provides affected children 

with education or training or both, strengthens the ability of host countries 

to address child labor, and raises awareness on the hazards of child labor 

and the benefits of education; and (2) Child Labor Education Initiative (EI), 

which funds projects that promote access to quality basic education for 

children at risk or engaging in exploitative child labor. The Bureau 

allocates basic education resources to countries based on its assessment of 

where there are child labor needs going unaddressed, and where the 

agency will have the greatest impact. During fiscal years 2001 through 2006, 

the Bureau allocated $440.4 million to implement basic education activities 

in 77 countries worldwide. 

Figure 10: DOL-Funded Primary School in Bangladesh

The Peace Corps The Peace Corps supports basic education through the activities of its 

volunteers who work at the local level with host country governments, 

Source: Joel Grimes for DOL.
Page 26 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

NGOs, and communities on projects aimed at promoting sustainable 

development at the grassroots level and enhancing cross-cultural 

understanding. The Peace Corps provides volunteers to work in developing 

countries where they have been invited and determines which programs 

best address a host country’s need by consulting with host country 

officials. Education is the Peace Corps’ largest sector.18 The volunteers’ 

basic education projects include training and mentoring teachers in K-12 

schools, using radios to deliver educational content to HIV/AIDS orphans 

and vulnerable children, and strengthening preschool programs through 

teacher training and mentoring. For example, in Zambia, Peace Corps 

volunteers assist the country’s Ministry of Education in implementing a 

primary school interactive curriculum, which is broadcast over the national 

radio to increase access to basic education in rural settings (see fig. 11). 

During fiscal year 2006, 2,674 Peace Corps volunteers provided educational 

assistance in 52 countries worldwide.19

18Peace Corps volunteers commit to 2-year assignments in host communities where they 

work on projects, which fall into six general sectors: agriculture, business development, 

education, environment, health and HIV/AIDS, and youth.

19Peace Corps’ education sector activities may include some activities in which volunteers 

teach English as a second language, which does not fall under USAID’s definition of basic 

education. In addition, the Peace Corps indirectly supports basic education goals through its 

other sectors, particularly youth development. The Peace Corps sometimes includes, in its 

number of education volunteers, volunteers who have worked in its youth development 

sector. 
Page 27 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

Figure 11: Peace Corps Volunteers Using Interactive Radio Instruction in Teachers’ 

Workshop in Zambia 

In addition, the Peace Corps supports basic education activities through its 

Small Project Assistance (SPA) program, which provides hundreds of small 

grants to volunteers’ communities to increase the capabilities of local 

communities to conduct low-cost, grassroots, sustainable development 

projects. For example, in Morocco, Peace Corps volunteers used SPA 

funding to construct latrines to increase children’s attendance, particularly 

girls. This program operates under the terms of an inter-agency agreement 

between USAID and the Peace Corps. In fiscal year 2005, 57 Peace Corps 

posts approved about $766,000 to support 354 different SPA education 

projects. 

Millennium Challenge 

Corporation

MCC supports international basic education as part of its larger mission to 

reduce poverty through economic growth in developing countries that 

create and maintain sound policy environments. The MCC provides 

developing countries with monetary assistance—through compact 

Source: Peace Corps.
Page 28 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

agreements and threshold agreements20—to support a variety of 

development projects, including basic education. For a country to be 

selected as eligible for an MCC assistance program, it must demonstrate a 

commitment to policies that promote political and economic freedom, 

investments in education and health, control of corruption, and respect for 

civil liberties and the rule of law by performing well on 16 different policy 

indicators. For example, in fiscal year 2005, the MCC allocated $12.9 

million to Burkina Faso, through a threshold agreement to fund a USAIDimplemented pilot project with the objective to improve access to, and 

improve the quality of, primary education for girls in 10 provinces that have 

historically achieved the lowest levels of girls' primary education 

completion rates. The project entailed the construction of “girl-friendly” 

schools with canteens and community-managed child care centers; 

provision of textbooks, supplies, and take-home rations; teacher training; 

mentoring; literacy training for women; merit awards for teachers; and a 

societal awareness campaign on the benefits of educating girls. MCC also 

plans to provide funding for the implementation of basic education 

activities in Mali, Ghana, and El Salvador. 

Agencies Did Not 

Always Coordinate 

International Basic 

Education-Related 

Activities, Which 

Resulted in Some 

Missed Opportunities 

to Collaborate and 

Maximize Resources

We found that agencies did not always coordinate in the planning or 

delivery of international basic education-related activities. From fiscal 

years 2001 to 2006, there was no government-wide mechanism to facilitate 

interagency collaboration and, as a result, at the headquarters level we 

identified instances where agencies missed opportunities to collaborate 

and maximize U.S. resources. Further, in the eight countries that we 

visited, we noted several instances where agencies did not collaborate or 

take advantage of opportunities to maximize U.S. resources in areas in 

which they had similar objectives of improving the quality of education. In 

addition, we found that the level of U.S. coordination with host 

governments and other donors in the eight countries we visited also varied. 

Without effective coordination, donors cannot easily monitor or assess the 

host government’s progress toward achieving international goals, such as 

Education for All by 2015, one of State-USAID’s strategic goals.

20A compact is a multiyear agreement between the MCC and an eligible country to fund 

specific programs targeted at reducing poverty and stimulating economic growth. A 

threshold program is designed to assist countries that have not yet qualified for MCC 

compact funding, but are on the “threshold” of doing so, having demonstrated a significant 

commitment to improve their performance on the eligibility criteria for compact funding.
Page 29 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

The United States Lacked a 

Government-Wide 

Mechanism to Coordinate 

International Basic 

Education Activities 

We found that, for international basic education-related activities that we 

reviewed, between 2001 and 2006 there was no government-wide 

coordination mechanism to facilitate interagency planning and delivery of 

U.S. basic education assistance. While some agencies met periodically to 

discuss and plan specific basic education activities—usually those 

involving joint- or multiagency agreements—these activities often did not 

include all cognizant officials or agencies responsible for planning or 

delivering basic education assistance. As a result, at the headquarters level, 

interagency coordination was mixed and resulted in some missed 

opportunities to collaborate on the planning of U.S. basic education 

assistance. The following are some examples: 

• DOD guidance calls for Combatant Commands to coordinate 

Humanitarian Assistance Program projects with other agencies at the 

country level before they are submitted to the Defense Security 

Cooperation Agency (DSCA), which then forwards the program 

descriptions to State for review and concurrence. However, staff we 

spoke to within USAID’s Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade 

Bureau (EGAT), which manages USAID’s basic education activities, 

were not aware of DOD humanitarian assistance projects.

• USDA calls annual meetings with USAID’s Food for Peace Office, State, 

and Office of Management and Budget officials to discuss and 

coordinate upcoming projects for its McGovern-Dole International Food 

for Education Program. However, staff from USAID EGAT do not attend 

these meetings, even though some of USDA’s school feeding activities 

coincide with USAID’s basic education activities.

• DOL officials provided several examples of efforts to coordinate 

programs with other agencies, including USAID and State. For example, 

DOL’s Office of Child Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking 

(OCFT) convenes annual meetings with State and USAID to discuss its 

upcoming programs, including those related to DOL’s Child Labor 

Education Initiative. Until 2004, USAID had an informal focal point who 

attended these meetings. After this focal point retired in early 2004, DOL 

sent a letter to USAID in April 2004 requesting a formal point of contact. 

According to DOL officials, USAID never replied to this letter. Since 

then, although DOL has regularly requested the attendance of USAID 

desk officers and technical staff to brief them on its upcoming projects, 

those USAID staff did not always attend, and those that attended may 

not have been the most knowledgeable about existing basic education 

programs. Although one member of USAID EGAT attended the February 
Page 30 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

2007 coordination meeting, there is still no formal USAID focal point for 

these meetings. In addition, DOL copies State on letters to foreign 

governments regarding DOL programming in their countries.

• Peace Corps officials stated that the agency does not coordinate 

programming priorities with USAID in Washington because 

programming is determined by host governments, in collaboration with 

the Peace Corps, once the agency is invited to serve in country.21 

• Beyond USAID’s implementation of the single MCC basic education 

program in Burkina Faso, coordination between MCC and USAID was 

characterized by USAID and MCC officials as minimal, namely because 

MCC is not organized around technical sectors. However, MCC officials 

said that they share proposals and lessons learned with other U.S. 

agencies.

• State’s coordination of basic education activities with USAID at the 

headquarters level occurred primarily through the MEPI program, in 

which USAID serves as an administrative partner and manages over 

one-third of MEPI’s basic education programs. This coordination 

included formal and informal meetings to discuss the results of joint 

State and USAID strategic reviews of existing bilateral development 

assistance in the Middle East and North Africa and the identification of 

reform areas that were not being addressed by other U.S. agencies. 

We have previously reported on the importance of collaboration among 

executive agencies in maximizing performance.22 Officials at all of the 

agencies that we reviewed agreed that coordination of basic educationrelated activities could be enhanced. USAID officials believe that annual 

meetings involving all of the U.S. agencies involved in international basic 

education would produce better U.S. policy coherence. However, USAID 

does not have the authority to formally convene such a meeting. In June 

21USAID has a worldwide agreement with the Peace Corps to provide it with Small Project 

Assistance (SPA) funding to support small, community-based, self-help development 

activities. Although specific SPA funding is small in comparison to other program activities 

(for example, $80,000 total fiscal year 2006 SPA funding for Morocco), volunteers had used 

SPA funding to implement school-related activities in several countries we visited.

22GAO, Results-Oriented Government: Practices That Can Help Enhance and Sustain 

Collaboration among Federal Agencies, GAO-06-15 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 21, 2005).
Page 31 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

2004, in response to a fiscal year 2005 congressional directive,23 USAID 

informed State it would develop an agenda for such a meeting if State, as a 

cabinet-level agency, would convene it, but according to USAID, State has 

not yet convened an interagency meeting on international basic education. 

Although State’s DFA has begun to address the issue of better coordinating 

all U.S. foreign assistance by bringing together core teams to discuss U.S. 

development priorities in each recipient country, it is unclear to what 

extent these efforts will be accepted and implemented by agencies whose 

foreign assistance programs are not under DFA’s direct authority.

Interagency Coordination in 

the Eight Countries We 

Visited Varied

During our fieldwork, we found several examples of good coordination 

among U.S. agencies implementing basic education projects. Among these 

examples were the following: 

• In South Africa, the Peace Corps provided USAID with a volunteer to 

support the implementation of a USAID distance learning project. The 

volunteer assisted in improving teacher training models and in utilizing 

program content, in addition to providing ongoing technical feedback to 

the project implementer on the function and efficiency of the project’s 

media delivery system. Additionally, DOD and USAID cooperated to 

provide signs bearing the U.S. and South African flags for display at 

project sites, including schools.

• In Mali, USAID allocated SPA funding for the implementation of 

community-based projects in communities where Peace Corps 

volunteers were working. In addition, the Peace Corps provided USAID 

with one volunteer to assist in USAID’s implementation of a girls’ 

scholarship program in the northern region of the country. Also, the U.S. 

embassy purchased 750 radios for listening groups in the northern 

region, and 200 of the radios were distributed directly to a USAID 

distance-training program for teachers. 

• In Morocco, the Peace Corps has used SPA funding to construct a 

library, school latrines, and residential student housing.

• In Honduras, a regional DOL program seeking to provide educational 

opportunities to children engaged in, or at risk of, exploitative labor 

23H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 108-599 at 18 (2004).
Page 32 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

incorporated an existing USAID distance-learning program into its set of 

14 pilot projects. In the municipality of this particular pilot project, 

children, aged 13 to 16, were quitting school after the sixth grade in 

favor of working on the local coffee farms. The objectives of the local 

DOL implementer were to reduce the working hours of these children 

and provide them with an opportunity to complete their primary-level 

education. The USAID distance-learning program was particularly 

suited to these objectives, as it was capable of targeting children in 

seventh through ninth grade, was aligned with the national curriculum 

and certified by the Ministry of Education, came with predesigned 

materials, and could be tailored to fit participants’ scheduling needs. 

• In the Dominican Republic, USAID and USDA, along with the local host 

government, coordinated to provide school lunches in order to increase 

primary school student enrollment. Originally begun under the GFEI in 

2001, the program continued under USDA’s FFE program in 2004. In 

addition to the school lunches, activities under this program included 

repairs to existing schools, renovation of buildings and water systems, 

health and nutrition workshops, deworming, vitamin distribution to 

supplement nutrition, and animal husbandry activities to supplement 

incomes.

• In Zambia, the Peace Corps supplied over 20 volunteers to work with the 

USAID-funded implementer of a radio-based, primary-level, distance 

learning program. The volunteers focused on mentoring and training 

school committees in leadership and school management, with the hope 

that communities will become better equipped to support and maintain 

their own learning institutions. The volunteers also assisted the 

implementer in piloting new educational initiatives.

Despite these examples of good coordination, we also observed several 

instances where agencies, particularly USAID and DOL, missed 

opportunities to collaborate and maximize their program efforts. In some 

of the countries we visited, we found that USAID and DOL implementers of 

projects to increase children’s access to basic education did not take 

advantage of opportunities to collaborate and leverage resources when 

coordination of activities would have been of mutual benefit. In several of 

these countries, DOL could have joined USAID’s efforts to affect policy 

reforms directed at rural youth by using USAID’s delivery mechanisms of 

radio and television programming as well as printed materials to raise 

public awareness of child labor issues. Likewise, USAID could have utilized 

the Student Tracking System developed by DOL to monitor enrollment and 
Page 33 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

retention rates in its sponsored schools. Additional examples of 

coordination between USAID and other agencies follow.

USAID and DOL Country 

Coordination

Unlike USAID, which had education teams in the countries we visited to 

coordinate and manage implementation of its education-related activities, 

DOL does not have a physical presence in-country and attempts to 

coordinate through other means. Specifically, DOL coordinates as follows: 

• After holding their annual coordination meeting with USAID and State 

staff, DOL planners in Washington, D.C., communicate by cable 

activities planned for the fiscal year to State staff at overseas embassies. 

These cables list DOL’s planned projects, their prospective countries, 

estimated funding amounts, and a deadline for when the project 

Requests for Proposal will be made public. Although DOL’s fiscal years 

2004 and 2005 cables do not mention coordination with USAID incountry, the fiscal year 2006 cable lists one USAID/EGAT staff member 

as an addressee and requests that the information be passed to the local 

USAID mission “where applicable.” 

• DOL is represented in country by selected State embassy staff that it 

informs of its upcoming projects through cables. State representatives 

serving in these positions that we interviewed appeared to have general 

knowledge of DOL’s basic education activities in-country but did not 

appear to have detailed project knowledge that would be required to 

coordinate effectively with USAID. This means that DOL must rely on 

either these State embassy staff or its project implementers to 

coordinate with the local USAID mission. 

• In its Solicitation for Grant Applications for basic education projects, 

DOL informs potential applicants of ongoing USAID efforts and expects 

applicants to implement programs that complement, and do not 

duplicate, existing efforts.

Despite these efforts, coordination between local USAID missions and DOL 

project implementers varied across the countries we visited. For example, 

in Honduras, DOL’s implementer was collaborating with the USAID mission 

in country to adapt the mission’s distance-learning program to a child labor 

project. However, in Peru, the USAID mission lost its institutional 

knowledge of an existing DOL program upon the departure of its education 

team leader. The remaining USAID education team remained unaware of 

this project until the DOL implementer briefed the new USAID education 

contact 3 years into the project’s implementation. Additionally, in Peru, the 
Page 34 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

USAID mission was not aware of a public DOL Request for Proposal to 

conduct new basic education activities in country. In Morocco, USAID and 

the local DOL implementers were aware of each other’s programs but did 

not directly coordinate beyond minimal information exchanges. By 

contrast, in South Africa, a DOL implementer was unaware that USAID was 

also conducting basic education activities in-country. Similarly, in Zambia, 

the local USAID mission knew of a DOL EI program in country, but was 

unaware that the ILO-IPEC program also operating in country was DOLfunded. The turnover of agency and implementer staff in overseas locations 

may lead to challenges in coordination efforts. 

USAID and Peace Corps In Morocco, the USAID mission’s strategy stated that projects to create 

rural dormitories for girls may be implemented in partnership with Peace 

Corps volunteers who would assist with the community’s management of 

the dormitories and development of after school programs. However, the 

Peace Corps and USAID senior staff we spoke with in country had not 

considered such an idea during the actual planning and implementation of 

the girls’ scholarship program. 

USAID and DOD USAID and DOD almost missed an opportunity to coordinate their 

construction of school dormitories in Morocco. Prior to 1999, the local 

USAID mission did not know that DOD was implementing humanitarian 

assistance projects in Morocco. At the time, USAID’s basic education 

program in country had concluded that one reason rural girls were 

dropping out of school before sixth grade was that the middle schools were 

too far away from their homes. According to USAID officials, parents had 

safety concerns about sending their daughters to attend school so far away 

and were reluctant to make the financial sacrifice of having their daughter 

finish primary school if she could not also attend secondary school. 

Subsequently, USAID and DOD coordinated with local communities to 

build school dormitories for middle school girls in three towns. According 

to the USAID officer responsible for coordinating this initiative, the 

coordination between USAID and DOD resulted in DOD building five 

dormitories. 

The Level of U.S. 

Coordination with Host 

Governments and Other 

Donors Varied

Coordination between the United States, host governments, and donors 

varied in the countries we visited. Coordination was stronger in countries, 

such as Egypt, Mali, Zambia, and Honduras, that possessed a combination 

of strong host government commitment to education reform, formal donorled working groups specifically for education, and systems of mutual 
Page 35 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

accountability, such as the World Bank’s Education for All-Fast Track 

Initiative. For example, in Egypt, the host government was working closely 

with international donors to develop a new National Strategic Plan for 

Education. Under the leadership of USAID, each donor had assumed 

responsibility for developing a portion of this plan. Additionally, the major 

education donors in Egypt met monthly to discuss division of 

responsibilities and upcoming efforts. We observed a similar situation in 

Mali, where the host government had allocated 30 percent of its budget 

toward education—60 percent of which went to basic education—and 

worked with donors to establish a framework through which the donors 

could invest in specific education sectors. These education donors in Mali 

held monthly meetings among themselves, as well as separate meetings 

with the host government, and collaborated on strategic planning, action 

plans, and common progress indicators, among other issues. 

At the time of our review, Mali, Zambia, and Honduras had also 

implemented, or were in the process of implementing, systems of mutual 

accountability associated with the World Bank’s Education for All-Fast 

Track Initiative. The Initiative provides for mutual accountability, where 

international donors provide coordinated and increased financial and 

technical support in a transparent and predictable manner, while host 

governments commit to primary education reform through the 

development of national education strategies in concert with the donors. 

Donors in Honduras met monthly and pooled their funding to provide 

direct budget support to the education sector to accelerate progress. 

According to donors, the pooled funding gave donors a means to ensure 

that the host government continued to implement the national education 

strategy. They stated that this is very important in countries where there is 

frequent political turnover. Although USAID usually does not give funds 

directly to government institutions, in Zambia, the USAID mission provides 

some funds to the Ministry of Education to support policy reform. The 

USAID mission also participates in high-level meetings and contributes to 

the decision-making process. 

Coordination between the United States, host governments, and donors 

was weaker in countries lacking a lead donor or host government 

committed to coordinating donor assistance. This included the Dominican 

Republic, Morocco, South Africa, and Peru. For example, in recent years 

donors have sought to strengthen local ownership of the education reform 

process by assigning host governments a key role in the donor coordination 

process, according to USAID. However, governments in several countries 

we visited lacked the capacity or will to hold such meetings. In Peru, for 
Page 36 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

example, officials from bilateral donors and the host government stated 

that the concentration of donor efforts in rural areas working with regional 

administrators had isolated those projects from the national government, 

which tended to view project schools as “donor schools” unconnected to 

the larger education system. According to these officials, the disconnect 

between the central government and the bilateral programs inhibited the 

expansion of these programs to other areas and threatened their long-term 

sustainability. Similarly, in South Africa, the host government Ministry of 

Education had not called a donor meeting in almost a year and was not 

aware of all ongoing donor activities in basic education. In Morocco, one 

donor was unaware of the details of USAID’s basic education activities, and 

both agencies had independently developed their own matrices of other 

donors’ basic education projects, neither of which were updated or 

complete. By contrast, the host government in the Dominican Republic did 

call high-level donor meetings but discouraged the donors from meeting on 

their own. None of these countries had strong, donor-led coordination 

groups, with the exception of Peru, where donors had formed a formal 

coordination group, as well as an informal group of three donors, including 

the United States, focusing on decentralizing the host government’s 

education system.

According to USAID, host government commitment, the development of 

sound education strategies, and effective donor coordination are essential 

to reforming basic education. Most donors we spoke to acknowledged that 

further improvements in coordination could result in more efficient 

delivery of assistance. Without good coordination, donors, including the 

United States, cannot easily monitor or assess host governments’ progress 

toward achieving Education For All by 2015—which is a strategic goal 

shared by State and USAID. 

Assessing Basic 

Education Programs’ 

Quality Results Is 

Difficult

While U.S. agencies we reviewed conduct basic education-related activities 

to achieve different goals, most assess and report on the results of their 

activities by collecting and using output measures–-or the direct products 

and services delivered by a program, such as numbers of schools built or 

children enrolled. While USAID can measure education access through 

outputs such as the numbers of students enrolled in primary school 

programs, it does not, in many instances, measure education quality, a key 

program outcome measure–-or result of products and services provided, 

such as increased literacy rates. Our analysis showed that USAID can 

report on some outcomes such as primary school retention rates but faces 

challenges in collecting valid and reliable data on student learning in areas 
Page 37 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

such as math and reading, which, according to USAID, provides the most 

direct outcome measure of increased educational quality. Furthermore, 

USAID cannot compare its program results between countries. To better 

assess its goal of improving education quality, USAID is developing a 

standardized test that could provide data on primary-level reading ability 

and would be comparable across countries. Other agencies measure 

progress in relation to their respective missions. In addition, State’s Office 

of the Director of Foreign Assistance plans to work toward developing 

methods to assess outcomes of all foreign assistance; however, these 

efforts are only in the early discussion phase. Without this information, 

agency officials cannot determine if programs are achieving their strategic 

goals.

Most Agencies Use Output 

Measures to Assess Results

We have previously reported that both output and outcome measures are 

extremely valuable for determining success of federally funded programs. 

Table 3 shows the measures reported by U.S. agencies in their fiscal year 

2006 Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) performance and 

accountability reports.

Table 3: Agency-Wide Reporting on Basic Education Activities

Source: FY 2006 Annual Performance and Accountability Reports.

Note: Peace Corps’ small-scale, individual volunteer activities in basic education do not lend 

themselves to systematic measurement, and are not addressed in the GPRA reporting.

a

State and USAID share a joint strategy with the same goal of increased access to quality basic 

education. State assigns responsibility for accomplishing this goal to USAID.

b

DOD does not have specific goals for, or report on the educational effects of its assistance.

USAID and Statea DOL USDA DODb MCC

• students enrolled 

in primary school

• students 

completing primary 

school

• adult learners 

completing basic 

education

• children removed or 

prevented from 

exploitive work

• countries with 

increased capacity to 

combat child labor

• number of mothers, infants 

and schoolchildren receiving 

daily meals and take-home 

rations through the 

McGovern-Dole 

International Food for 

Education Program

• number of schools built 

or renovated in Iraq, 

Afghanistan, and the 

Horn of Africa

Broad “Rate of Reform for 

Investing in People” 

calculated through changes 

in: 

• total public expenditure on 

health 

• total public expenditure on 

primary education

• immunization rates

• girls’ primary education 

completion rates 
Page 38 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

USAID’s Process for Collecting 

and Using Performance 

Measures

USAID works with its project implementers to establish project 

performance measures before an activity is approved. These measures vary 

according to the objectives of the specific activities. The implementers 

then collect information on the required measures and submit quarterly or 

annual reports detailing progress against those measures to technical 

officers at the local USAID mission. Missions are then required to submit 

annual reports summarizing the progress of their activities, which often 

contain both specific output and outcome measures. Some of these 

measures are input to the Annual Report Application (AR) system,24 which 

currently serves as the repository of USAID performance data from all 

USAID missions. Information in the AR system is used in USAID 

headquarters to support strategic planning, budget preparation, and 

performance reporting requirements. To report on its agency-wide 

progress, USAID reports on students enrolled in primary school, students 

completing primary school, and adult learners completing basic education. 

These output measures have also been used to determine which education 

programs have not met, met, or exceeded their output objectives. Some of 

the programs that have exceeded these output objectives have been 

terminated. For example, the joint State-USAID Congressional Budget 

Justification for the 2007 budget request showed that India and South 

Africa had exceeded their program goals for basic education. These 

countries were eliminated from the list of countries proposed to receive 

basic education allocations in the 2008 budget request.

USAID Faces Challenges 

Assessing Quality-Related 

Outcomes 

USAID, the primary provider of U.S. basic education assistance, is the only 

agency to track progress toward an agency-wide, education-specific goal—

promoting increased access to quality basic education. However, USAID 

faces challenges collecting data on student learning, such as levels of 

reading comprehension, and cannot compare the results between 

countries. As a consequence, USAID is unable to report on the overall 

results of its basic education activities on the quality of education, which 

can deny planners valuable information needed to prioritize and fund 

future programs. Prior GAO work on assessing performance measures for 

federally funded programs shows that both output and outcome measures 

are extremely valuable for determining program success. USAID has begun 

to address this issue by developing systematic methods to compare 

24The AR system contains a variety of country-level performance indicators such as 

enrollment rates, number of teachers trained, host-country policy reforms, and qualitative 

narratives on such things as the impact of USAID capacity building efforts. 
Page 39 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

education quality across countries and working with donors to identify 

common indicators for assessing student learning. In addition, USAID is 

considering the development and administration of new tests to assess 

learning outcomes in a select number of countries.

Collecting Country-Level Data on 

Quality Remains a Challenge for 

USAID

According to USAID and UNESCO, testing of student achievement is a 

good measure of educational quality—particularly tests that assess 

learning in core subjects such as reading and basic mathematics. However, 

obtaining this type of data remains a challenge for various reasons. 

According to USAID, designing tools to assess student learning and, 

particularly, deciding on which methodology or standards to apply, can be 

time-consuming and expensive when done independently by USAID 

implementers and may also not be cost-effective given the objectives of a 

program. For example, a USAID official at one mission stated that a change 

in teacher practices resulting from a teacher training program would be 

significant in itself and that not all basic education interventions should be 

expected to result in improved student achievement. Poor host-country 

infrastructure, unfriendly geography, or both can also make systematic 

nationwide testing expensive and difficult. In countries where the USAID 

mission has the benefit of working with an existing national student 

examination, those exams may not test to existing international standards, 

and any changes to the national examination and its underlying curriculum 

can be politically sensitive. However, in some countries such as the 

Dominican Republic, teachers’ unions can be resistant to the use of tests to 

evaluate student learning for fear that they will be held accountable for the 

results. Even if a national exam is successfully administered, the host 

government may not have the methodological expertise necessary to 

reliably compile and analyze the resulting statistics. 

We examined 40 basic education programs in the eight countries we 

visited—including both USAID basic education programs and DOL 

programs to combat child labor through the provision of quality primary 

education—and found that about half of the 40 programs utilized outcome 

performance measures, or the results of products and services. These 

included, among other things, increased student performance, improved 

instructional methods, and increased community participation. Not all of 

these outcome measures were related to education quality. For example, 

DOL projects contained outcome measures specific to child labor, such as 

media coverage and local awareness of child labor issues. Most of the 

programs that utilized outcome measures set baselines and targets for 

these measures. All 12 of the Department of Labor programs we examined 

reported outcome measures compared with approximately one-third of the 
Page 40 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

28 USAID programs that did so. The remaining 19 USAID programs did not 

use outcome measures. See appendix V for more details on our analysis.

According to USAID and UNESCO, testing of student achievement is a 

good measure of educational quality. USAID programs aimed at improving 

educational quality varied in their measurement of student achievement.25

Several lacked means to fully gauge student performance. For example,

• In South Africa, one teacher training program could not monitor student 

achievement in its preservice training component due to insufficient 

funds, although the program’s in-service component did contain student 

testing. In addition, a distance-learning program in one country province 

contained no means to assess teacher performance or student 

achievement, yet was planned to be expanded to a second province. 

• In Zambia, a teacher training program contained output indicators 

mandated by the Africa Education Initiative and the President’s 

Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, such as the number of teachers 

trained, but these initiatives did not require an evaluation of teacher or 

student performance. The program independently added an additional 

measure to evaluate teachers on their implementation of the program 

materials and used student pass rates on the host-country’s seventh 

grade graduation test as a substitute, or proxy, measure of student 

achievement. Such graduation tests are designed to identify students 

who will advance to the next phase of schooling but are not necessarily 

designed to provide data on trends in student learning.

• In Peru, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic, a regional Latin 

American teacher training program begun in 2002 did not require 

implementers to begin measuring impact on student performance until 

2005. 

Other programs we examined, however, did have or were developing 

student assessment components, as follows: 

25Although the DOL projects focused on withdrawing children from exploitative work and 

promoting host-country capacity to address child labor, several programs tracked qualityrelated indicators, such as graduation rates, retention rates, and implementation of teaching 

methodology. 
Page 41 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

• In Egypt, we observed perhaps the most extensive evaluation 

component for a program that was working closely with the hostgovernment’s Ministry of Education to develop tools for assessing 

student learning, teacher performance, and school management 

capacity nationwide. The student learning assessment tool specifically 

measured critical thinking capacity, problem solving skills, and subject 

matter knowledge in Arabic, science, and math. 

• In Honduras, one program was developing primary school learning 

standards to strengthen the host government’s national student testing 

process. Additionally, according to USAID, one distance learning 

program is developing standardized testing to monitor variations in 

student achievement.

• In the Dominican Republic, a similar program was developing test 

instruments and analytical techniques to build the evaluation capacity of 

the host government’s educational system. 

• In Peru, one pilot program conducted student testing solely in its 

sponsored schools specifically to demonstrate the effectiveness of the 

program to the host government’s Ministry of Education.

USAID Is Developing Methods to 

Better Measure Improved 

Educational Quality 

In the absence of an indicator to illustrate improved quality across 

countries, USAID uses primary school completion rates as a proxy measure 

in its agency-wide reporting. However, USAID acknowledges that 

completion rates do not directly correlate to educational quality. As 

described earlier, according to USAID and UNESCO, testing of student 

achievement is a good measure of educational quality. However, while 

national examinations may exist in certain countries, the curricula these 

tests are based on vary widely in their subject matter and academic 

standards. Additionally, very few developing countries incorporate existing 

international standards for student learning in their testing. These factors 

prevent meaningful comparisons of educational quality between countries, 

which could inform funding and programmatic decisions at the 

headquarters level. 

For fiscal year 2005, USAID’s Bureau for Policy and Program Coordination 

(PPC) began collecting data to better allow USAID to find an appropriate 

indicator to measure quality outcomes of its basic education programs. The 

information that USAID began collecting in its annual reporting system 

database included, to the extent available, results of host country nationallevel testing systems and USAID attempts to measure learning 
Page 42 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

achievement. However, this information was never fully analyzed, and 

USAID’s database for the information will be terminated in fiscal year 2007, 

and replaced by a new joint State-USAID performance measures database 

called the Foreign Assistance Coordination and Tracking (FACT) system, 

which will be managed by the DFA. According to DFA officials, the FACT 

system is meant to primarily contain numerical output indicators common 

across State and USAID missions and not include the mission-specific 

outcome indicators contained in USAID’s former annual reporting system. 

These indicators contained in the FACT system will be used to develop 

policy priorities, assess performance, and inform resource decisions. 

USAID, independent of the DFA process, began a new initiative in 

September 2006 to develop a better measure of educational quality across 

countries through the development of new testing instruments. These 

instruments are designed to provide data on primary-level reading 

comprehension comparable across countries. This project grew out of a 

World Bank Initiative in Peru that developed a Spanish-language reading 

comprehension test. USAID is attempting to build on the World Bank’s 

success by developing a simple screening instrument, which can provide 

general information on literacy within a given community, and an in-depth 

assessment instrument intended to provide cross-country comparisons of 

the degree of reading skill acquisition, determination of the grade at which 

a country’s education system is able to impart the capacity to read, and 

identification of the specific areas of weakness. According to the contract 

for the instruments, performance data provided by the new tests should 

permit comparison across countries and the tracking of changes in 

performance over time and should also be adaptable across languages and 

cultures to the degree possible. USAID plans to field test the instruments in 

English, Spanish, or French and is in negotiations with two host 

governments to begin pilot testing. USAID plans for the contract 

implementer to submit a report on the pilot tests’ results and their 

implications by September 30, 2007. According to one USAID official, it is 

expected that these new instruments, if successful, will allow USAID to 

better measure and compare educational quality across countries where it 

conducts basic education activities. USAID has also initiated discussion 

with other Education for All-Fast Track Initiative donors on how donors 

can assess the collective impact of their basic education assistance on 

learning outcomes. 

Additionally, in an effort to collect better data on education quality, 

USAID’s Education Office is considering the development and 

administration of new tests to assess learning outcomes in 10 countries 
Page 43 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

over 12 months. The goal is to produce an assessment that will better 

demonstrate the impact of projects to improve educational quality, but that 

can be adapted by different missions facing different educational 

circumstances. The proposal recommends identifying two or three 

countries from each of the new foreign assistance categories,26 with 

representatives from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The tests would 

cover literacy and mathematics and target fourth and eighth grade 

students, but would be adjustable for different grades and ages. The 12-

month activity would cover initial development, and country applications 

would occur through mission buy-in into the activity. Although the primary 

purpose of this assessment would not be to directly compare different 

programs or countries with respect to what students know, the proposal 

estimates that, for cost-effectiveness, likely two-thirds of the test materials 

would be portable across countries, with the remaining items unique to 

local circumstances. 

Other Agencies Measure 

Progress Related to Their 

Respective Missions

While USAID, as noted earlier, is the only agency to track progress toward 

an education-specific goal, other agencies track progress related to their 

agency-specific missions or do not address their basic education activities 

in their agency-wide performance reporting because these activities are not 

directly related to their overall agency objectives.27 For example, agencies 

track progress as follows: 

• DOL and USDA report performance measures related to their particular 

agency objectives. For example, DOL primarily uses education activities 

as a mechanism for alleviating child labor and reports on children 

removed or prevented from exploitive work. USDA reports on the 

number of beneficiaries of its school lunch program. Both of these 

measures are tied to enrollment and attendance rates collected at the 

26As part of the ongoing reorganization of foreign assistance, the DFA has created new 

foreign assistance categories that group countries based on characteristics and goals similar 

to those the United States seeks to achieve. These include Rebuilding, Developing, 

Transforming, Sustaining Partner, and Reforming countries.

27GAO previously noted some deficiencies in USDA assessing the effectiveness of its basic 

education-related programs. See GAO, Foreign Assistance: Global Food for Education 

Initiative Faces Challenges for Successful Implementation, GAO-02-328 (Washington, D.C.: 

Feb. 28, 2002). GAO also reported that project monitoring of State’s MEPI programs needs 

improvement. See GAO, Foreign Assistance: Middle East Partnership Initiative Offers 

Tools for Supporting Reform, but Project Monitoring Needs Improvement, GAO-05-711

(Washington, D.C.: Aug. 8, 2005).
Page 44 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

project-level and are, therefore, related to educational access. DOL 

programs include project-level quality indicators, such as primary 

school completion rates.

• The MCC initially reported a single “rate of reform” measure based on 

multiple outcome-based health and education-related indicators, 

including total public expenditure on primary education and girls’ 

primary education completion rates. MCC now breaks these individual 

indicators to compare performance among countries with threshold 

programs and compacts, as well as to determine the eligibility of 

countries for MCC assistance. 

• DOD provides basic humanitarian aid and services to avert political and 

humanitarian crises, as well as promote democratic development and 

regional stability. It collects information on how many projects it has 

funded and their costs, but does not address the educational impact of 

these projects. A DOD official stated that he would like to see the 

Humanitarian Assistance Program begin to measure its impact on 

countering terrorism, promoting goodwill, stabilizing the country, and 

increasing economic growth. 

• Although the Peace Corps tracks the number and location of its 

volunteers, it does not assess the impact of its basic education activities 

because, according to Peace Corps officials, these activities are too 

small in scale to be suitable for such monitoring.

State’s Office of the DFA Is 

Planning to Address 

Improving Interagency 

Coordination and 

Performance Measures for 

All Foreign Assistance

In January 2006, the Secretary of State appointed a DFA and charged him 

with directing the transformation of the U.S. government’s approach to 

foreign assistance and ensuring that foreign assistance is used as 

effectively as possible to meet broad foreign policy objectives.28

Specifically, the DFA:

• has authority over all State and USAID foreign assistance funding and 

programs, with continued participation in program planning, 

implementation, and oversight from the various bureaus and offices 

within State and USAID, as part of the integrated interagency planning, 

coordination, and implementation mechanisms; 

28The DFA holds a rank equivalent to Deputy Secretary and serves concurrently as USAID 

Administrator.
Page 45 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

• has created and directed, through a foreign assistance framework, 

consolidated policy, planning, budget, and implementation mechanisms 

and staff functions required to provide umbrella leadership to foreign 

assistance; 

• plans to develop a coordinated U.S. government foreign assistance 

strategy, including multiyear, country-specific assistance strategies and 

annual country-specific assistance operational plans; and

• plans to provide guidance to foreign assistance delivered through other 

agencies and entities of the U.S. government, including MCC and the 

Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator.

According to a DFA official, the DFA’s office spent its first year developing 

the foreign assistance framework, preparing the proposed 2008 

consolidated State and USAID budget, and providing guidance for country 

teams to develop operational plans. The foreign assistance framework 

includes five objectives: (1) peace and security, (2) governing justly and 

democratically, (3) investing in people, (4) economic growth, and (5) 

humanitarian assistance. Basic education falls under the objective of 

investing in people. According to a State official, the new budget and 

planning process is intended to give the Secretary of State the ability to 

evaluate the effectiveness of foreign assistance to improve effectiveness, 

impact, and efficiency through better coordination, at every level. Looking 

forward, the DFA is examining ways to improve (1) coordination of foreign 

assistance, including basic education and (2) measurement of program 

outcomes.

DFA Plans to Improve 

Coordination of Foreign 

Assistance, Including Basic 

Education

While the DFA has begun to address the issue of better coordinating all U.S. 

foreign assistance by bringing together core teams to discuss U.S. 

development priorities in each recipient country, it is unclear to what 

extent these efforts will be accepted and implemented by agencies whose 

foreign assistance programs are not under DFA’s direct authority. 

According to DFA officials, during the first phase of coordination efforts, 

USAID, State, and DOD (as an implementing partner of certain USAID and 

State programs) have been meeting to discuss coordination of assistance. 

The DFA plans to engage other agencies such as USDA and DOL in the 

coordination discussions. However, DFA officials stated that there is no 

requirement for other agencies to participate in these dialogues. 

DFA Is Considering Methods for 

Measuring Program Outcomes

DFA acknowledges the need for outcome measures to better describe the 

impact of basic education, as well as other foreign assistance areas. 
Page 46 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

According to a DFA official, developing outcome indicators for all 

assistance programs is difficult because of the differing program objectives 

those programs may possess. For example, some programs may meet the 

political objectives of the United States, while others may meet purely 

development objectives. DFA plans to use as many outcome measures as 

possible generated by third parties, such as World Bank statistics and 

UNESCO literacy rates. Also, DFA plans for missions to submit “Foreign 

Assistance Reports” back to Washington, which would combine their FACT 

data with locally generated outcome measures to demonstrate the 

cumulative effects of their programs. However, this process and the 

outcome measures it might contain have not been developed, and DFA 

does not currently have a timetable for implementing these initiatives. 

Although an agency can use outputs, outcomes, or some combination of 

the two to reflect the agency’s intended performance, the GPRA is clearly 

outcome-oriented and thus an agency’s performance plan should include 

outcome goals whenever possible.29 DFA officials acknowledged that the 

new performance reporting system as it currently stands will not report the 

outcome results of basic education programs to managers in headquarters.

Conclusions Without a government-wide mechanism to systematically coordinate all 

agency efforts in basic education at the headquarters level, agencies’ 

programs may not maximize the effectiveness of U.S. assistance. The new 

State DFA efforts to implement a country-wide program planning and 

budgeting process, which is designed to better manage the delivery of 

foreign assistance, may improve coordination of basic education programs 

at the country level, but this process is still evolving, and it is yet to be 

determined what impact these efforts will have on future strategic planning 

of education-related assistance. Moreover, having reliable and systematic 

methods to determine if basic education programs are meeting their goals 

could help better inform U.S. agencies’ decisions regarding the planning 

and execution of basic education-related assistance. Although the DFA 

plans to work toward developing methods to assess outcomes of all foreign 

assistance, these efforts are only in the early discussion phase.

29See GAO, The Results Act: An Evaluator’s Guide to Assessing Agency Annual 

Performance Plans, GAO/GGD-10.1.20 (Washington, D.C.: April 1998).
Page 47 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

Recommendations for 

Executive Action

To enhance efforts to coordinate and better assess the results of U.S. 

international basic education-related activities, we are making three 

recommendations:

• to improve interagency coordination of basic education efforts at 

headquarters in Washington, we recommend that the Secretary of State 

work with the heads of executive branch agencies responsible for 

international basic education-related assistance to convene formal, 

periodic meetings at the headquarters level amongst cognizant officials;

• to improve interagency coordination in recipient countries, we 

recommend that the Secretary of State direct the relevant countries’ 

Ambassadors to establish a mechanism to formally coordinate U.S. 

agencies’ implementation of international basic education-related 

activities in the relevant country; and

• to better assess the results of U.S. basic education assistance, we 

recommend that the Secretary of State, through the DFA, work with 

USAID and to the extent practicable, with other U.S. agencies providing 

basic education related-assistance to develop a plan to identify 

indicators that would help agencies track improvements in access to 

quality education. Indicators could include:

• output measures, such as the numbers of U.S. programs designed to 

improve curriculum and teacher training, and to develop and validate 

student tests; and 

• outcome measures, such as literacy and numeracy assessments of 

student achievement. 

Agency Comments and 

Our Evaluation

We provided a draft of this report to State, USAID, USDA, DOD, DOL, MCC, 

and the Peace Corps. We obtained written comments on the draft of this 

report from State, USAID, and USDA (see apps. VI, VII, and VIII). State 

generally concurred with our recommendations and noted that its Office of 

the Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance is in the process of developing 

mechanisms to ensure coordination of U.S. assistance programs with other 

federal agencies, implementers, and stakeholders. In addition, State’s 

Office of the Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance is working with USAID, 

State, and others in the international community to develop appropriate 

measures for learning outcomes. We agree that these are positive steps 
Page 48 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

toward improving the coordination of U.S. supported basic education 

programs and the ability to measure whether basic education programs 

abroad are achieving their goals, and we encourage State to continue to 

work with the heads of executive agencies to this end. USAID concurred 

with our recommendations and agreed with the need for greater U.S. 

government coordination and that more needs to be done in the areas to 

improve education outcomes in country and to better understand the 

impact of U.S. support to basic education. USDA concurred with our 

recommendations and indicated that it will work with the Department of 

State in the manner which the report recommends. We also received 

technical comments on this draft from State, USAID, DOL, MCC, and the 

Peace Corps, which we incorporated where appropriate.

We are sending copies of this report to appropriate Members of Congress, 

the Secretaries of the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Labor, and 

State, as well as the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International 

Development, the Director of the Peace Corps, and the Chief Executive 

Officer of the Millennium Challenge Corporation. We also will make copies 

available to others upon request. In addition, this report will be available at 

no charge on the GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff has any questions concerning this report, please contact 

me at (202) 512-4128 or fordj@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of 

Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page 

of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to this report are 

listed in appendix IX. 

Jess T. Ford

Director, International Affairs and Trade
Page 49 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

Appendix I

Scope and Methodology AAppenednxidexiIs

To describe U.S. agencies’ basic education activities and how the activities 

are planned, we obtained and analyzed strategic, budget, and 

programmatic documents for fiscal years 2001 through 2006 from the 

Departments of Agriculture (USDA), Defense (DOD), Labor (DOL), and 

State (State), as well as the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), the 

United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the 

Peace Corps. The documentation included, when available, strategic plans 

at the mission, country, regional, and global levels. We also interviewed 

program officials and requested data from these agencies in Washington, 

D.C., to identify the types of basic education-related activities, the recipient 

countries of these activities, and the estimated funding levels of the 

programs. These included educational activities that corresponded to 

USAID’s definition of basic education, such as primary education, 

secondary education, early childhood development, and adult literacy. 

These activities also included those implemented under special or 

administration-directed initiatives related to basic education. We assessed 

the reliability of the funding data by reviewing existing information about 

the data and the system that produced them and interviewing agency 

officials knowledgeable about the data. USDA and DOL did not 

disaggregate funds specifically allocated to the basic education 

components of their larger programs. We found all agencies’ data 

sufficiently reliable for representing the nature and extent of their program 

funding and activities. We did not assess the reliability of the World Bank’s 

selected indicator data because they were used for background purposes 

only. 

To learn about the implementation of international basic education 

assistance overseas, we observed ongoing program activity in the following 

eight countries: Dominican Republic, Egypt, Honduras, Mali, Morocco, 

Peru, South Africa, and Zambia.1

 We selected a nonprobability sample of 

foreign countries designed to ensure geographic diversity and 

representation of basic education programs from multiple U.S. agencies 

and international donors. In addition to geographic diversity and 

representation of multiple agencies and international donors, our sample 

was designed to include countries that implement special or 

administration-directed initiatives related to basic education. In the 

countries, we met with representatives from State, USAID, USDA, DOD, 

1

In addition, we visited Liberia. However, the USAID mission in Liberia was in the initial 

phase of developing a country strategy and had not implemented any basic education 

activities at the time of our visit.
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 50 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

DOL, the MCC, and the Peace Corps; officials representing embassies and 

USAID missions in the countries visited; officials administering 

international basic education programs; and officials from foreign 

governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the United Nations 

(UN), and other international organizations. Within each country, we 

examined all U.S. agency basic education activities ongoing at the time of 

our visit and discussed these activities with relevant agency officials. 

To determine the mechanisms the United States uses to coordinate national 

and international basic education assistance, we analyzed agency 

coordination documents and interviewed relevant U.S. agency, host 

government, and international donor officials in our eight sample 

countries. Documentation we examined included e-mails, meeting minutes, 

memoranda of understanding, policy agendas, host government education 

sector strategies, and other supplemental documentation. We met with 

officials from State, USAID, USDA, DOL, DOD, the Peace Corps, and the 

MCC in Washington, D.C., to discuss interagency coordination at the 

headquarters level. In each of our eight sample countries, we discussed 

coordination of international basic education assistance with relevant 

officials from U.S. agencies, U.S. program implementers, host countries’ 

Ministries of Education, and international donors with basic education 

programs in-country. 

To evaluate how U.S. agencies monitor and assess the results of their 

international basic education programs, we obtained and examined 

contractual and monitoring and evaluation documents for each of the basic 

education projects we visited. For each ongoing project, we interviewed 

officials from the implementing organizations, as well as any U.S. agency 

official(s) monitoring the implementer’s progress. In our interviews, we 

discussed project monitoring, data baselines, and progress indicators. We 

supplemented these interviews with a review of reporting documentation 

associated with 40 of the basic education projects we discussed with 

program implementers. This sample included all ongoing projects that we 

visited in our eight sample countries. The documentation that we reviewed 

included the contracts, cooperative agreements, statements of work 

(program descriptions), performance monitoring plans, and monitoring 

reports for the 40 projects. Furthermore, to describe USAID’s process for 

collecting and using performance measures, we interviewed USAID 

officials and analyzed agency documents. To describe the new planning 

process for foreign assistance and its impact on collecting indicator data, 

we interviewed State and USAID officials and analyzed relevant 

documentation.
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 51 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

To determine the extent to which the projects had outcome measures, used 

baselines, and set targets, we identified and analyzed the performance 

measures in the programs’ documentation. We coded performance 

measures as outcomes if they were linked to program objectives and had 

clearly reported results. We also assessed whether the outcome measures 

we identified established clear baselines and set targets. To ensure 

accuracy in our coding, two coders independently reviewed the program 

documentation and met to reconcile any initial differences in their coding. 

In addition, another staff member independently reviewed the coding 

decisions. 

Although the findings from our site visits in each country and our review of 

ongoing basic education projects are not generalizable to the population of 

basic education programs, we determined that the selection of the 

countries and programs reviewed was appropriate for our design and 

objectives.

We conducted our fieldwork in Washington, D.C., and in the Dominican 

Republic, Egypt, Honduras, Liberia, Mali, Morocco, Peru, South Africa, and 

Zambia from December 2005 to March 2007 in accordance with generally 

accepted government auditing standards.
Page 52 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

Appendix II

Recipient Countries of Activities Related to 

International Basic Education During Fiscal 

Year 2006 ApendxiI

 USAID USDOL USDA State Peace Corps MCC DOD

Africa 

Angola x N/A 

Benin x x x 

Botswana x N/A 

Burkina Fasoa x x x 

Burundi x x N/A 

Cameroona x x N/A 

Cape Verde x 

Chad N/A 

Cote d'Ivoire x x N/A 

Democratic Republic Of Congo x x N/A 

Djiboutia x N/A 

Eritrea x N/A 

Ethiopiaa x x N/A x

Gabon x N/A 

The Gambiaa x N/A 

Ghanaa xx x x

Guineaa x x x N/A 

Guinea-Bissau x 

Kenyaa x x x x 

Lesothoa x x 

Liberia x x N/A 

Madagascara xx x 

Malawi x x x 

Malia xx x x

Mauritaniaa x N/A 

Mozambiquea x x 

Namibia x x x 

Nigera x x 

Nigeria x x N/A 

Republic of Congo x N/A 

Rwandaa xx 

Senegala xx 

Sierra Leone x N/A 

Somalia x N/A 
Appendix II

Recipient Countries of Activities Related to 

International Basic Education During Fiscal 

Year 2006

Page 53 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

South Africa x x x N/A 

Sudan x N/A 

Swaziland x N/A 

Tanzania x x x 

Togo x x N/A 

Uganda x x x x 

Zambia x x x 

Asia and the Near East 

Afghanistan x x x N/A 

Algeria x N/A 

Bahrain x N/A 

Bangladesh x x N/A 

Cambodiaa x x N/A 

China x x N/A 

East Timora 

Egypt x x x N/A 

India x x N/A 

Indonesia x x 

Jordan x x x x 

Kiribati x N/A 

Lebanon x x x x N/A 

Libya x N/A 

Mongoliaa x x 

Morocco x x x x 

Nepal x x x N/A 

Oman x N/A 

Pakistan x x x N/A 

Philippines x x x 

Samoa x N/A 

Sri Lanka x 

Thailand x x N/A 

Tonga x N/A 

Vanuatu x 

Vietnama x x N/A 

Yemena xx x 

Europe and Eurasia 

Albaniaa x x 

(Continued From Previous Page)

 USAID USDOL USDA State Peace Corps MCC DOD
Appendix II

Recipient Countries of Activities Related to 

International Basic Education During Fiscal 

Year 2006

Page 54 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

Armenia x x 

Azerbaijan x N/A 

Bulgaria x x N/A x

Georgia x x 

Kosovo x N/A x

Kazakhstan x x N/A 

Kyrgyz Republica x x x x 

Macedonia x x N/A x

Moldovaa x x x x

Romania x x N/A 

Tajikistana x x N/A 

Turkey x N/A 

Turkmenistan x N/A 

Ukraine x x 

Uzbekistan x x N/A 

Latin America and the Caribbean 

Belize x x N/A 

Bolivia x x 

Brazil x N/A 

Chile x N/A 

Colombia x N/A 

Costa Rica x x N/A 

Dominican Republic x x x N/A 

Ecuador x N/A 

El Salvador x x 

Guatemala x x x N/A 

Guyanaa x x 

Haiti x N/A 

Hondurasa x x x 

Jamaica x x N/A 

Mexico x x x N/A 

Nicaraguaa x x x x 

Panama x N/A 

Paraguay x x 

Peru x x 

Suriname x N/A 

(Continued From Previous Page)

 USAID USDOL USDA State Peace Corps MCC DOD
Appendix II

Recipient Countries of Activities Related to 

International Basic Education During Fiscal 

Year 2006

Page 55 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

Legend

N/A=Countries that are not eligible for MCC funding

Source: U.S. agencies’ data.

Note: Some of USAID's regional activities are not included. 

a

Fast Track Initiative countries.
Page 56 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

Appendix III

Recipient Countries of USAID Basic 

Education Assistance, Funding Levels, and 

Selected World Bank’s Indicators ApendxiI

Funding to recipient countries based on USAID's 

allocations Selected World Bank's 2004 indicator data

Recipient 

country

Total funding 

levels FY 2001 

through 2006

Funding 

levels for 

FY 2001

Funding 

levels for 

FY 2004

Funding 

levels for 

FY 2006

Adult literacy 

rate 

(percentage 

of people 

aged 15 and 

above), 2004

Primary 

completion 

rate 

(percentage 

of relevant 

age group), 

2004

Primary school 

enrollment 

(percentage net, 

using definition of 

primary school 

age for all 

countries), 2004

Afghanistan $170,904,000 $0 $89,205,000 $35,762,000 28% N/A N/A 

Angola $500,000 0 0 0 67 N/A N/A 

Armenia $678,000 0 328,000 350,000 99 107% 94% 

Bangladesh $17,810,000 1,500,000 4,000,000 3,960,000 N/A 76 94 

Benin $37,470,000 5,720,000 7,163,000 3,978,000 35 49 83 

Bolivia $2,773,000 0 1,000,000 882,000 87 100 95 

Burundi $500,000 0 0 500,000 59 33 57 

Cambodia $14,480,000 0 2,000,000 1,980,000 74 82 98 

China $1,980,000 0 0 1,980,000 91 N/A N/A 

Congo, Dem. 

Rep. $18,245,000 0 3,243,000 3,672,000 67 N/A N/A 

Djibouti $14,400,000 0 0 3,500,000 N/A 29 33 

Dominican 

Republic $8,641,000 0 2,300,000 1,568,000 87 91 86 

Egypt, Arab Rep. $186,715,000 54,981,000 10,489,000 54,408,000 71 95 95 

El Salvador $23,416,000 7,788,000 1,543,000 4,257,000 N/A 86 92 

Eritrea $1,207,000 0 600,000 0 N/A 44 48 

Ethiopia $66,135,000 11,622,000 10,445,000 10,416,000 N/A 51 46 

Georgia $857,000 0 0 320,000 N/A 86 93 

Ghana $59,494,000 5,857,000 9,420,000 18,689,000 58 65 58 

Guatemala $18,918,000 0 3,399,000 4,259,000 69 70 93 

Guinea $34,815,000 4,994,000 6,189,000 4,878,000 29 48 64 

Haiti $39,860,000 4,057,000 14,500,000 7,973,000 N/A N/A N/A 

Honduras $37,909,000 3,294,000 5,800,000 11,880,000 80 79 91 

India $27,526,000 858,000 8,412,000 4,428,000 61 89 90 

Indonesia $84,743,000 0 23,000,000 31,916,000 90 101 94 

Iraq $176,213,000 0 110,754,000 0 74 74 88 

Jamaica $22,412,000 2,969,000 4,677,000 3,430,000 80 84 91 

Jordan $58,895,000 0 5,000,000 14,000,000 90 97 91 

Kenya $11,747,000 0 2,914,000 4,019,000 74 92 76 
Appendix III

Recipient Countries of USAID Basic 

Education Assistance, Funding Levels, and 

Selected World Bank’s Indicators

Page 57 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

Kosovo $111,000 0 0 0 N/A N/A N/A 

Kyrgyz Republic $5,657,000 0 155,000 120,000 99 93 90 

Lebanon $1,900,000 650,000 0 600,000 N/A 94 93 

Liberia $10,724,000 0 0 7,724,000 N/A N/A N/A 

Macedonia, FYR $19,719,000 126,000 5,300,000 6,539,000 96 96 92 

Madagascar $3,183,000 0 500,000 983,000 71 45 89 

Malawi $30,532,000 4,011,000 3,632,000 4,738,000 64 58 95 

Mali $36,937,000 5,266,000 6,505,000 4,738,000 19 44 46 

Mexico $5,245,000 0 1,500,000 2,062,000 91 99 98 

Morocco $19,196,000 1,488,000 2,000,000 4,752,000 52 75 86 

Myanmar/Burma $4,570,000 993,000 2,257,000 0 90 75 87 

Namibia $16,332,000 2,898,000 2,713,000 2,467,000 85 N/A N/A 

Nepal $3,750,000 0 0 3,358,000 49 71 N/A 

Nicaragua $28,829,000 1,990,000 5,295,000 5,940,000 77 73 88 

Nigeria $26,759,000 3,163,000 4,896,000 6,277,000 N/A 75 60 

Pakistan $165,642,000 0 22,000,000 63,380,000 50 N/A 66 

Peru $15,090,000 1,507,000 2,624,000 2,700,000 88 100 97 

Philippines $21,240,000 0 3,300,000 7,860,000 93 97 94 

Russian 

Federation $610,000 0 310,000 0 99 N/A 91 

Rwanda $3,614,000 0 420,000 983,000 65 37 73 

Senegal $31,068,000 0 4,070,000 16,485,000 39 45 66 

Somalia $3,678,000 0 529,000 500,000 N/A N/A N/A 

South Africa $31,803,000 3,000,000 6,983,000 7,909,000 82 N/A N/A 

Sudan $31,022,000 0 6,922,000 8,700,000 61 49 N/A 

Tajikistan $6,740,000 0 300,000 210,000 99 92 97 

Tanzania $8,499,000 0 2,264,000 2,021,000 69 57 86 

Turkey $7,020,000 0 7,020,000 0 87 88 89 

Turkmenistan $500,000 0 0 0 99 N/A N/A 

Uganda $45,006,000 8,799,000 7,483,000 5,925,000 67 57 N/A 

Uzbekistan $6,960,000 0 250,000 250,000 N/A 97 N/A 

(Continued From Previous Page)

Funding to recipient countries based on USAID's 

allocations Selected World Bank's 2004 indicator data

Recipient 

country

Total funding 

levels FY 2001 

through 2006

Funding 

levels for 

FY 2001

Funding 

levels for 

FY 2004

Funding 

levels for 

FY 2006

Adult literacy 

rate 

(percentage 

of people 

aged 15 and 

above), 2004

Primary 

completion 

rate 

(percentage 

of relevant 

age group), 

2004

Primary school 

enrollment 

(percentage net, 

using definition of 

primary school 

age for all 

countries), 2004
Appendix III

Recipient Countries of USAID Basic 

Education Assistance, Funding Levels, and 

Selected World Bank’s Indicators

Page 58 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

Legend

N/A=Data not available

Source: USAID data from the Annual Report System and World Bank's World Development Indicators data from 

http://devdata.worldbank.org/dataonline/.

Note: Funding figures include those allocated directly to USAID missions in country. Funding does not 

include regional funding, which may distribute basic education funds to countries through 

headquarters.

Yemen, Rep. $21,198,000 2,994,000 3,270,000 2,445,000 N/A 62 75 

Zambia $46,419,000 $4,965,000 $5,722,000 $17,393,000 68% 66% 80% 

(Continued From Previous Page)

Funding to recipient countries based on USAID's 

allocations Selected World Bank's 2004 indicator data

Recipient 

country

Total funding 

levels FY 2001 

through 2006

Funding 

levels for 

FY 2001

Funding 

levels for 

FY 2004

Funding 

levels for 

FY 2006

Adult literacy 

rate 

(percentage 

of people 

aged 15 and 

above), 2004

Primary 

completion 

rate 

(percentage 

of relevant 

age group), 

2004

Primary school 

enrollment 

(percentage net, 

using definition of 

primary school 

age for all 

countries), 2004
Page 59 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

Appendix IV

List of International Basic Education Projects 

Reviewed ApendxiIV

Country Agency Project Implementer

Amount of funding 

planned to 

support basic 

education for the 

life of the project

Period of 

performance

Dominican 

Republic

 USAID Invest in Education for Competitiveness Program American 

Chamber of 

Commerce

$250,000 2006

 USAID Monitoring and Evaluation of Educational 

Opportunities and Learning in USAID Sponsored 

Projects in the Dominican Republic 

University at 

Albany-State 

University of New 

York

1,781,459 2003-2007

 DOL Combating the Worst Forms of Child Labor in the 

Dominican Republic-Supporting the Time-bound 

Program for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of 

Child Labor in the Dominican Republic 

International 

Labor 

Organization’s 

International 

Program on the 

Elimination of 

Child Labor 

(ILO/IPEC)

4,400,000 2002-2006

Egypt 

 USAID Alam Simsim Sesame 

Workshop

8,000,000 2004-2007

 USAID Educational Reform Program American 

Institutes for 

Research and 

Academy for 

Educational 

Development

114,833,279 2004-2009

 USAID National Book Program for Schools Academy for 

Educational 

Development

98,900,000 2005-2009

 USAID New Schools Program CARE 39,000,000 2000-2008

 USAID School Team Excellence Awards Program Development 

Associates

11,268,477 2005-2007

Honduras 

 USAID Central American and Dominican Republic 

Centers of Excellence for Teacher Training 

Universidad 

Pedagogica 

Nacional 

Francisco 

Morazan

8,497,683a 2002-2007
Appendix IV

List of International Basic Education 

Projects Reviewed

Page 60 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

 USAID EDUCATODOS Alternative Basic Education 

Project

Honduran 

Ministry of 

Education

22,085,529 1995-2009

 USAID Measuring Student Achievement Project Academy for 

Educational 

Development, 

American 

Institutes for 

Research, and 

the National 

Association of 

Former Peace 

Scholarship 

Recipients

9,173,851 2004-2007

 DOL Combating Child Labor Through Education in 

Central America and the Dominican Republic, 

“Primero Aprendo” 

CARE 5,500,000a 2004-2008

Mali 

 USAID Africa Education Initiative-Ambassadors' Girls' 

Scholarship Program 

World Education 3,799,000b 2004-2008

 USAID Improved Quality of Education Activity World Education 12,475,021 2003-2007

 USAID Regional Action Planning-Decision-Making Academy for 

Educational 

Development & 

the Education 

Development 

Center

4,028,843 2004-2007

 USAID Shared Governance Program Management 

Systems 

International

962,000c 2003-2007

 USAID Teacher Training via Radio Educational 

Development 

Center

3,580,555 2004-2007

 DOL A Better Future for Mali’s Children: Combating 

Child Trafficking through Education 

CARE 3,000,000 2003-2007

 DOL Combating the Trafficking of Children for Labour 

Exploitation in West and Central Africa

ILO/IPEC 5,000,000 2001-2007

 DOL Community-based Innovations to Reduce Child 

Labor through Education 

Winrock 

International

5,000,000a 2002-2006

Morocco 

 State 

Dept.

Scholarships for Success USAID 40,000 2004-2007

(Continued From Previous Page)

Country Agency Project Implementer

Amount of funding 

planned to 

support basic 

education for the 

life of the project

Period of 

performance
Appendix IV

List of International Basic Education 

Projects Reviewed

Page 61 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

 USAID Advancing Learning and Employability for a Better 

Future

Academy for 

Educational 

Development

9,872,697 2004-2008

 DOL ADROS: Combating Child Labor Through 

Education in Morocco

Management 

Systems 

International

3,000,000 2003-2007

 DOL Combating Child Labour in Morocco by Creating 

an Enabling National Environment and 

Developing Direct Action against Worst Forms of 

Child Labour in Rural Areas

ILO/IPEC 2,081,069 2003-2006

Peru 

 USAID Andean Centers of Excellence for Teacher 

Training

Universidad 

Peruana 

Cayetano Heredia

5,050,567 2002-2009

 USAID Innovations in Decentralization and Active 

Schools (AprenDes)

Academy for 

Educational 

Development

10,642,097 2003-2007

 DOL EduFuturo: Educating Artisanal Mining Children 

in Peru for a Dignified Future

World Learning 1,500,000 2002-2006

South 

Africa

 

 USAID Africa Education Initiative-Ambassadors' Girls' 

Scholarship Program 

Winrock 

International

1,668,000b 2004-2008

 USAID Africa Education Initiative-Textbooks and 

Learning Materials Program 

University of 

Texas at San 

Antonio

3,000,000 2005-2008

 USAID Integrated Education Program Research 

Triangle Institute

22,906,334 2004-2008

 USAID Mindset Primary Schools Channel Mindset Network 3,550,000 2004-2007

 DOL Reducing Exploitative Child Labor in South Africa 

through Education 

American 

Institutes for 

Research

9,000,000 2004-2008

 DOL Supporting the Time-Bound Programme to 

Eliminate the Worst Forms of Child Labour in 

South Africa’s Child Labour Action Programme 

and Laying the Basis for Concerted Action 

against Worst Forms of Child Labour in 

Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland

ILO/IPEC 5,000,000 2003-2006

Zambia 

 USAID Africa Education Initiative-Ambassadors' Girls' 

Scholarship Program 

Winrock 

International

1,432,000b 2004-2008

(Continued From Previous Page)

Country Agency Project Implementer

Amount of funding 

planned to 

support basic 

education for the 

life of the project

Period of 

performance
Appendix IV

List of International Basic Education 

Projects Reviewed

Page 62 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

Source: U.S. agencies’ data.

a

Funding covers global or regional projects.

b

Funding amounts represent the approximate distribution of scholarship funds across countries.

c

Funding amounts only cover the basic education component of the project.

 USAID Africa Education Initiative-Textbooks and 

Learning Materials Program

Mississippi 

Consortium for

International 

Development

2,999,614 2005-2008

 USAID Communities Supporting Health, HIV/AIDS, 

Nutrition, Gender and Equity Education in 

Schools 2 

American 

Institutes for 

Research

21,220,000 2005-2009

 USAID Educational Quality Improvement Program Academy for 

Educational 

Development

16,473,991 2004-2010

 USAID Quality Education Services Through Technology Educational 

Development 

Center

12,729,816 2004-2009

 DOL Combating and Preventing HIV/AIDS-induced 

Child Labour in Sub-Saharan Africa: Pilot Action 

in Uganda and Zambia 

ILO/IPEC 3,000,000 2004-2007

 DOL Combating Child Labour Through Education - An 

Education Initiative (Child and Community 

Participatory Approach for Impact and 

Sustainability)

Jesus Cares 

Ministries

750,000 2005-2008

(Continued From Previous Page)

Country Agency Project Implementer

Amount of funding 

planned to 

support basic 

education for the 

life of the project

Period of 

performance
Page 63 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

Appendix V

Analysis of the Performance Measures in 

Documentation for Selected International 

Basic Education Programs ApendxiV

We studied 40 programs from the eight countries visited during fieldwork. 

The programs had multiple performance measures and often included a 

mix of outcome and output measures. We identified measures using criteria 

that required them to be clearly identified as performance measures, have 

clearly reported results, and be clearly linked to program objectives. See 

appendix I for more details about how the programs were selected for 

study and about the methodology we used to analyze their measures. Table 

4 below shows the type of measures contained in the programs we 

examined. Table 5 shows the characteristics of the outcome measures 

being used by the programs, and Table 6 shows how these outcome 

measures were used. 

Table 4: Performance Measures in the Programs Selected

Source: GAO analysis of USAID and DOL project documentation.

a

Some of these programs did list activities or provide descriptions of their progress; however, these 

activities did not meet our criteria for clearly identified performance measures that linked to objectives. 

Table 5: Characteristics of the Outcome Measures

Source: GAO analysis of USAID and DOL project documentation.

Note: We analyzed the 21 programs that we identified as having clear outcome measures. Many 

programs had multiple outcome measures. For this analysis, we determined that the program had 

outcome measures that were quantitative, or set baselines or targets, if any one of their outcome 

measures had that characteristic. See appendix I for more details about how we selected the programs 

and the methodology we used to analyze the measures.

Disposition Number

Programs with outcome measures 21

Programs without outcome measures but with output measures 10

Programs with no clear performance measures reporteda 6

Programs early in implementation with no clearly reported performance 

measures 3

Total number of programs reviewed 40

Disposition Number 

Programs that used quantitative measures 21

Programs that set baselines 14

Programs that set targets 18
Appendix V

Analysis of the Performance Measures in 

Documentation for Selected International 

Basic Education Programs

Page 64 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

Table 6: Programs’ Use of Outcome Measures

Source: GAO analysis of USAID and DOL project documentation.

Note: This analysis was conducted of the 21 programs that we identified as having clear outcome 

measures. We analyzed the measures according to whether they followed USAID’s criteria for access, 

quality, and capacity. Many programs had multiple outcome measures. For this analysis, we 

determined that the program had outcome measures that addressed access, capacity, or quality if any 

one of their outcome measures had that characteristic. As a result, programs can have measures that 

address more than one dimension; for example, as stated above, eight programs had measures that 

addressed access, capacity and quality issues. See appendix I for more details about how the 

programs were selected for study and about the methodology we used to analyze their measures. 

Disposition Number

Programs with measures that addressed access issues 16

Programs with measures that addressed capacity issues 15

Programs with measures that addressed quality issues 12

Programs with measures that addressed access, capacity, and 

quality issues 8
Page 65 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

Appendix VI

Comments from the Department of State ApendxiVI

Note: GAO comments 

supplementing those in 

the report text appear 

at the end of this 

appendix.
Appendix VI

Comments from the Department of State

Page 66 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

See comment 1.
Appendix VI

Comments from the Department of State

Page 67 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

See comment 2.
Appendix VI

Comments from the Department of State

Page 68 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education
Appendix VI

Comments from the Department of State

Page 69 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

The following are our comments on the Department of State’s letter dated 

March 26, 2007.

GAO Comments 1. State said that its Office of the Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance over 

the past year has undertaken a process to ensure the kind of 

coordination necessary for coherent U.S. government assistance 

programs in all areas, including basic education. Also, State said that its 

experience to date has demonstrated willingness by other federal 

agencies such as the Department of Defense, U.S. Trade 

Representatives, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation to work 

with us within the Foreign Assistance framework. In addition, the fiscal 

year 2008 operational planning process is expected to be the first year 

wherein there is full participation by other agency implementers and 

stakeholders. At the time of our review, some of the other agency 

officials that we met with in Washington said that their respective 

agencies have not yet been invited to participate in such coordination 

efforts. Therefore, we believe that State should continue towards this 

end to improve coordination, both at the headquarters and in recipient 

countries, among all agencies involved in international basic educationrelated activities.

2. State said that USAID, State, and others in the international community 

are working together to try to develop appropriate measures for 

learning outcomes that would address the question of whether a quality 

education is being provided. Also, State noted that its Office of the 

Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance is building on the long history and 

best practices that USAID and other agencies have accumulated from 

many years of performance management and thorough evaluation. Our 

report notes the efforts of State, USAID, and the international 

community in this regard and that these efforts have just begun. 

However, we maintain that a plan should be developed to better guide 

these efforts to help agencies track improvements in the access to 

quality education.
Page 70 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

Appendix VII

Comments from the U.S. Agency for 

International Development ApendxiVI
Page 71 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

Appendix VIII

Comments from the U.S. Department of 

Agriculture ApendxiVI

Note: GAO comments 

supplementing those in 

the report text appear 

at the end of this 

appendix.

See comment 1.

See comment 2.
Appendix VIII

Comments from the U.S. Department of 

Agriculture

Page 72 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education
Appendix VIII

Comments from the U.S. Department of 

Agriculture

Page 73 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

The following are our comments on the Department of Agriculture’s letter 

dated March 22, 2007.

GAO Comments 1. We deleted the statement that “USDA. . . can not disaggregate the 

amount of funds allocated specifically for basic education related 

activities.” from the report. Also, in the report we explain that USDA 

funding allocations include basic education components that support 

its broader mission goals and provide examples accordingly.

2. We acknowledge USDA’s coordination efforts with State, USAID, and 

the Office of Management and Budget as a good example of interagency 

coordination.
Page 74 GAO-07-523 International Basic Education

Appendix IX

GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments ApendxiIX

GAO Contact Jess Ford, (202) 512-4128, fordj@gao.gov

Staff 

Acknowledgments

In addition to the individual named above, Zina Merritt, Assistant Director; 

Virginia Chanley; Martin de Alteriis; Harriet Ganson; Emily Gupta; David 

Hancock; Victoria Lin; Grace Lui; Grant Mallie; Patricia Martin; Deborah 

Owolabi; and Anne Welch made key contributions to this report. The team 

benefited from the expert advice and assistance of Joseph Carney, 

Elizabeth Curda, Joyce Evans, Etana Finkler, Bruce Kutnick, Jena 

Sinkfield, and Cynthia Taylor.

(320399)
GAO’s Mission The Government Accountability Office, the audit, evaluation and 

investigative arm of Congress, exists to support Congress in meeting its 

constitutional responsibilities and to help improve the performance and 

accountability of the federal government for the American people. GAO 

examines the use of public funds; evaluates federal programs and policies; 

and provides analyses, recommendations, and other assistance to help

Congress make informed oversight, policy, and funding decisions. GAO’s 

commitment to good government is reflected in its core values of 

accountability, integrity, and reliability. 

The fastest and easiest way to obtain copies of GAO documents at no cost

is through GAO’s Web site (www.gao.gov). Each weekday, GAO posts 

newly released reports, testimony, and correspondence on its Web site. To

have GAO e-mail you a list of newly posted products every afternoon, go 

to www.gao.gov and select “Subscribe to Updates.” 

The first copy of each printed report is free. Additional copies are $2 each. 

A check or money order should be made out to the Superintendent of 

Documents. GAO also accepts VISA and Mastercard. Orders for 100 or 

more copies mailed to a single address are discounted 25 percent. Orders 

should be sent to: 

U.S. Government Accountability Office 

441 G Street NW, Room LM 

Washington, D.C. 20548 

To order by Phone: Voice: (202) 512-6000 

TDD: (202) 512-2537 

Fax: (202) 512-6061 

Contact: 

Web site: www.gao.gov/fraudnet/fraudnet.htm

E-mail: fraudnet@gao.gov

Automated answering system: (800) 424-5454 or (202) 512-7470 

Gloria Jarmon, Managing Director, JarmonG@gao.gov (202) 512-4400 

U.S. Government Accountability Office, 441 G Street NW, Room 7125 

Washington, D.C. 20548 

Paul Anderson, Managing Director, AndersonP1@gao.gov (202) 512-4800

U.S. Government Accountability Office, 441 G Street NW, Room 7149 

Washington, D.C. 20548 

Obtaining Copies of 

GAO Reports and 

Testimony

Order by Mail or Phone 

To Report Fraud,

Waste, and Abuse in 

Federal Programs 

Congressional 

Relations 

Public Affairs 

PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER