I 

114TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION H. R. 3766 

To direct the President to establish guidelines for United States foreign 

development and economic assistance programs, and for other purposes. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

OCTOBER 20, 2015 

Mr. POE of Texas (for himself and Mr. CONNOLLY) introduced the following 

bill; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs 

A BILL 

To direct the President to establish guidelines for United 

States foreign development and economic assistance programs, and for other purposes. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Foreign Aid Trans5 parency and Accountability Act of 2015’’. 

6 SEC. 2. GUIDELINES FOR UNITED STATES FOREIGN DEVEL7 OPMENT AND ECONOMIC ASSISTANCE PRO8 GRAMS. 

9 (a) PURPOSE.—The purpose of this section is to 

10 evaluate the performance of United States foreign developVerDate Sep 11 2014 01:51 Oct 21, 2015 Jkt 059200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H3766.IH H3766

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1 ment and economic assistance and its contribution to the 

2 policies, strategies, projects, program goals, and priorities 

3 undertaken by the Federal Government, to foster and pro4 mote innovative programs to improve effectiveness, and to 

5 coordinate the monitoring and evaluation processes of 

6 Federal departments and agencies that administer United 

7 States foreign development and economic assistance. 

8 (b) ESTABLISHMENT OF GUIDELINES.—Not later 

9 than 18 months after the date of the enactment of this 

10 Act, the President shall set forth guidelines for the estab11 lishment of measurable goals, performance metrics, and 

12 monitoring and evaluation plans that can be applied with 

13 reasonable consistency to United States foreign develop14 ment and economic assistance. Such guidelines shall be 

15 established according to best practices of monitoring and 

16 evaluation studies and analyses. 

17 (c) OBJECTIVES OF GUIDELINES.— 

18 (1) IN GENERAL.—The guidelines established 

19 under subsection (b) shall provide direction to Fed20 eral departments and agencies that administer 

21 United States foreign development and economic as22 sistance on monitoring the use of resources, evalu23 ating the outcomes and impacts of United States 

24 foreign development and economic assistance 

25 projects and programs, and applying the findings 


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1 and conclusions of such evaluations to proposed 

2 project and program design. 

3 (2) OBJECTIVES.—Specifically, the guidelines 

4 established under subsection (b) shall require Fed5 eral departments and agencies that administer 

6 United States foreign development and economic as7 sistance to take the following actions: 

8 (A) Establish annual monitoring and eval9 uation agendas and objectives to plan and man10 age the process of monitoring, evaluating, ana11 lyzing progress, and applying learning toward 

12 achieving results. 

13 (B) Develop specific project monitoring 

14 and evaluation plans, to include measurable 

15 goals and performance metrics, and identify the 

16 resources necessary to conduct such evalua17 tions, which should be covered by program 

18 costs, during project design. 

19 (C) Apply rigorous monitoring and evalua20 tion methodologies to such programs, including 

21 through the use of impact evaluations, ex-post 

22 evaluations, or other methods as appropriate, 

23 that clearly define program logic, inputs, out24 puts, intermediate outcomes, and end outcomes. 


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1 (D) Disseminate guidelines for the develop2 ment and implementation of monitoring and 

3 evaluation programs to all personnel, especially 

4 in the field, who are responsible for the design, 

5 implementation, and management of United 

6 States foreign development and economic assist7 ance programs. 

8 (E) Establish methodologies for the collec9 tion of data, including baseline data to serve as 

10 a reference point against which progress can be 

11 measured. 

12 (F) Evaluate at least once in their lifetime 

13 all programs whose dollar value equals or ex14 ceeds the median program size for the relevant 

15 office or bureau or an equivalent calculation to 

16 ensure the majority of program resources are 

17 evaluated. 

18 (G) Conduct impact evaluations on all pilot 

19 programs before replicating wherever possible, 

20 or provide a written justification for not con21 ducting an impact evaluation where such an 

22 evaluation was deemed inappropriate or impos23 sible. 

24 (H) Develop a clearinghouse capacity for 

25 the collection and dissemination of knowledge 


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1 and lessons learned that serve as benchmarks to 

2 guide future programs for United States devel3 opment professionals, implementing partners, 

4 the donor community, and aid recipient govern5 ments, and as a repository of knowledge on les6 sons learned. 

7 (I) Distribute evaluation reports internally. 

8 (J) Develop a summary of each evaluation, 

9 including a description of the evaluation meth10 odology and key findings and recommendations 

11 made in the evaluation within 90 days after the 

12 completion of the evaluation. 

13 (K) Undertake collaborative partnerships 

14 and coordinate efforts with the academic com15 munity, implementing partners, and national 

16 and international institutions that have exper17 tise in program monitoring, evaluation, and 

18 analysis when such partnerships provide needed 

19 expertise or significantly improve the evaluation 

20 and analysis. 

21 (L) Ensure verifiable, valid, credible, pre22 cise, reliable, and timely data are available to 

23 monitoring and evaluation personnel to permit 

24 the objective evaluation of the effectiveness of 

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1 nomic assistance programs, including an assess2 ment of assumptions and limitations in such 

3 evaluations. 

4 (M) Ensure that standards of professional 

5 evaluation organizations for monitoring and 

6 evaluation efforts are employed, including en7 suring the integrity and independence of evalua8 tions, permitting and encouraging the exercise 

9 of professional judgment, and providing for 

10 quality control and assurance in the monitoring 

11 and evaluation process. 

12 (d) PRESIDENTIAL REPORT.—Not later than 18 

13 months after the date of the enactment of this Act, the 

14 President shall submit to the appropriate congressional 

15 committees a report that contains a detailed description 

16 of the guidelines established under subsection (b). The re17 port shall be submitted in unclassified form, but it may 

18 contain a classified annex. 

19 (e) COMPTROLLER GENERAL REPORT.—The Comp20 troller General of the United States shall, not later than 

21 1 year after the report required by subsection (d) is sub22 mitted to Congress, submit to the appropriate congres23 sional committees a report that analyzes— 

24 (1) the guidelines established pursuant to sub25 section (b); and 


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1 (2) a side-by-side comparison of the President’s 

2 budget request for that fiscal year of every oper3 ational unit that carries out United States foreign 

4 development and economic assistance and the per5 formance of such units during the prior fiscal year. 

6 SEC. 3. INFORMATION ON UNITED STATES FOREIGN DE7 VELOPMENT AND ECONOMIC ASSISTANCE 

8 PROGRAMS. 

9 (a) PUBLICATION OF INFORMATION.— 

10 (1) UPDATE OF EXISTING WEB SITE.—Not 

11 later than 90 days after the date of the enactment 

12 of this Act, the Secretary of State shall update the 

13 Department of State’s Internet Web site, 

14 ‘‘ForeignAssistance.gov’’, to make publicly available 

15 comprehensive, timely, and comparable information 

16 on United States foreign development and economic 

17 assistance programs, including all information re18 quired pursuant to subsection (b) of this section that 

19 is then available to the Secretary of State. 

20 (2) INFORMATION SHARING.—The head of each 

21 Federal department or agency that administers 

22 United States foreign development and economic as23 sistance shall, not later than 2 years after the date 

24 of the enactment of this Act, and on a quarterly 

25 basis thereafter, provide to the Secretary of State 


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1 comprehensive information about the United States 

2 foreign development and economic assistance pro3 grams carried out by such department or agency. 

4 (3) UPDATES TO WEB SITE.—Not later than 2 

5 years after the date of the enactment of this Act, the 

6 Secretary of State shall publish, through the 

7 ‘‘ForeignAssistance.gov’’ Web site or a successor on8 line publication, the information provided under sub9 section (b) of this section and shall update such in10 formation on a quarterly basis. 

11 (b) MATTERS TO BE INCLUDED.— 

12 (1) IN GENERAL.—The information described in 

13 subsection (a) shall be published on a detailed 

14 award-by-award and country-by-country basis unless 

15 assistance is provided on a regional level, in which 

16 case the information shall be published on an award17 by-award and region-by-region basis. 

18 (2) TYPES OF INFORMATION.— 

19 (A) IN GENERAL.—To ensure trans20 parency, accountability, and effectiveness of 

21 United States foreign development and eco22 nomic assistance programs, the information de23 scribed in subsection (a) shall include all re24 gional, country, and sector assistance strategies, 

25 annual budget documents, congressional budget 


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1 justifications, obligations, expenditures, evalua2 tions and summaries of evaluations as required 

3 under section 2(c)(2)(J), and basic descriptive 

4 summaries for United States foreign develop5 ment and economic assistance programs and 

6 awards under such programs. Each type of in7 formation described in this paragraph shall be 

8 published or updated on the Internet Web site 

9 not later than 90 days after the date of 

10 issuance of the information. 

11 (B) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.—Nothing in 

12 subparagraph (A) shall be construed to require 

13 a Federal department or agency that admin14 isters United States foreign development and 

15 economic assistance to provide any information 

16 that does not relate to or is not otherwise re17 quired by the United States foreign develop18 ment and economic assistance programs carried 

19 out by such department or agency. 

20 (3) REPORT IN LIEU OF INCLUSION.— 

21 (A) HEALTH OR SECURITY OF IMPLE22 MENTING PARTNERS.—If the head of a Federal 

23 department or agency makes a determination 

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1 rity of an implementing partner or program 

2 beneficiary or would require the release of pro3 prietary information of an implementing part4 ner or program beneficiary, the head of the 

5 Federal department or agency shall provide 

6 such determination in writing to the appro7 priate congressional committees, including the 

8 basis for such determination and shall— 

9 (i) provide a briefing to the appro10 priate congressional committees on such 

11 information; or 

12 (ii) submit to the appropriate congres13 sional committees such information in a 

14 written report. 

15 (B) NATIONAL INTERESTS OF THE UNITED

16 STATES.—If the Secretary of State makes a de17 termination that the inclusion of a required 

18 item of information online would be detrimental 

19 to the national interests of the United States, 

20 the Secretary of State shall provide such deter21 mination in writing to the appropriate congres22 sional committees, including the basis for such 

23 determination and shall— 


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1 (i) provide a briefing to the appro2 priate congressional committees on such 

3 information; or 

4 (ii) submit to the appropriate congres5 sional committees the item of information 

6 in a written report. 

7 (C) FORM.—Any briefing or item of infor8 mation provided under this paragraph may be 

9 provided in classified form, as appropriate. 

10 (4) FAILURE TO COMPLY.—If a Federal depart11 ment or agency fails to comply with the require12 ments of subsection (a), paragraph (1) or (2) of this 

13 subsection, or subsection (c) with respect to pro14 viding information described in subsection (a), and 

15 the information is not subject to a determination 

16 under subparagraph (A) or (B) of paragraph (3) of 

17 this subsection not to make the information pub18 lically available, the Director of the Office of Man19 agement and Budget, in consultation with the head 

20 of such department or agency, shall submit to the 

21 appropriate congressional committees not later than 

22 September 1, 2016, a consolidated report describing, 

23 with respect to each required item of information 

24 not made publicly available— 


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1 (A) a detailed explanation of the failure of 

2 not making such information publicly available; 

3 and 

4 (B) the department’s or agency’s plan and 

5 timeline for immediately making such informa6 tion publicly available, and for ensuring that 

7 such failures do not take place in following 

8 years. 

9 (c) SCOPE OF INFORMATION.—The online publication 

10 required by subsection (a) shall, at a minimum, provide 

11 the information required by subsection (b)— 

12 (1) in each fiscal year from 2016 through 2019, 

13 such information for fiscal years 2012 through the 

14 current fiscal year; and 

15 (2) for fiscal year 2020 and each fiscal year 

16 thereafter, such information for the immediately pre17 ceding five fiscal years in a fully searchable form. 

18 SEC. 4. DEFINITIONS. 

19 In this Act: 

20 (1) APPROPRIATE CONGRESSIONAL COMMIT21 TEES.—The term ‘‘appropriate congressional com22 mittees’’ means— 

23 (A) the Committee on Foreign Relations 

24 and the Committee on Appropriations of the 

25 Senate; and 


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1 (B) the Committee on Foreign Affairs and 

2 the Committee on Appropriations of the House 

3 of Representatives. 

4 (2) EVALUATION.—The term ‘‘evaluation’’ 

5 means, with respect to a United States foreign de6 velopment and economic assistance program, the 

7 systematic collection and analysis of information 

8 about the characteristics and outcomes of the pro9 gram, including projects conducted under such pro10 gram, as a basis for making judgments and evalua11 tions regarding the program, to improve program ef12 fectiveness, and to inform decisions about current 

13 and future programming. 

14 (3) UNITED STATES FOREIGN DEVELOPMENT

15 AND ECONOMIC ASSISTANCE.—The term ‘‘United 

16 States foreign development and economic assistance’’ 

17 means assistance provided primarily for the purposes 

18 of foreign development and economic support, in19 cluding assistance authorized under— 

20 (A) part I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 

21 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2151 et seq.), other than— 

22 (i) title IV of chapter 2 of such part 

23 (relating to the Overseas Private Invest24 ment Corporation); 


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1 (ii) chapter 3 of such part (relating to 

2 International Organizations and Pro3 grams); and 

4 (iii) chapter 8 of such part (relating 

5 to International Narcotics Control); 

6 (B) chapter 4 of part II of the Foreign As7 sistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2346 et seq.; 

8 relating to Economic Support Fund); 

9 (C) the Millennium Challenge Act of 2003 

10 (22 U.S.C. 7701 et seq.); and 

11 (D) the Food for Peace Act (7 U.S.C. 

12 1721 et seq.). 

Æ 


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