United States Government Accountability Office

GAO Testimony 

Before the Subcommittee on Science, the 

Departments of State, Justice, and 

Commerce, and Related Agencies, House 

Committee on Appropriations 

U.S. PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

State Department Efforts 

Lack Certain 

Communication Elements 

and Face Persistent 

Challenges 

Statement of Jess T. Ford, Director 

International Affairs and Trade 

For Release on Delivery

Expected at 10:00 a.m. EDT 

Wednesday, May 3, 2006

 

GAO-06-707T 
What GAO Found

United States Government Accountability Office

Why GAO Did This Study

Highlights

Accountability Integrity Reliability

May 3, 2006

U.S. PUBLIC DIPLOMACY 

State Department Efforts Lack Certain 

Communication Elements and Face 

Persistent Challenges 

Highlights of GAO-06-707T, a testimony 

before the Subcommittee on Science, the 

Departments of State, Justice, and 

Commerce, and Related Agencies, 

Committee on Appropriations, House of 

Representatives 

Public opinion polls have shown

continued negative sentiments

toward the United States in the 

Muslim world. Public diplomacy 

activities—led by the State

Department (State)—are designed

to counter such sentiments by 

explaining U.S. foreign policy 

actions, countering misinformation,

and advancing mutual

understanding between nations. 

Since 2003, we have issued three 

reports on U.S. public diplomacy 

efforts that examined (1) changes 

in public diplomacy resources

since September 11, 2001; (2) 

strategic planning and coordination 

of public diplomacy efforts; and (3)

the challenges facing these efforts. 

What GAO Recommends

We have made several 

recommendations in the last 3 

years to the Secretary of State to 

address strategic planning issues,

private sector engagement, and

staffing challenges related to public

diplomacy. For example, today’s 

report recommends that the 

Secretary develop written guidance 

detailing how the department 

intends to implement its public

diplomacy goals as they apply to 

the Muslim world. State has 

consistently concurred with our 

findings and recommendations for

improving public diplomacy, and 

the department, in several cases, is 

taking appropriate actions. 

However, the department has not 

established a timetable for many of 

these actions. 

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, State has expanded its 

public diplomacy efforts globally, focusing particularly on countries in the 

Muslim world considered to be of strategic importance in the war on 

terrorism. Since 2001, State has increased its public diplomacy resources, 

particularly in regions with significant Muslim populations. That funding 

trend has continued more recently, with increases of 25 percent for the Near 

East and 39 percent for South Asia from 2004 to 2006, though public 

diplomacy staffing levels have remained largely the same during that period. 

The Secretary of State recently announced plans to reposition some staff to 

better reflect the department’s strategic priorities, including plans to shift 28 

public diplomacy officers from posts in Europe and Washington, D.C., to 

China, India, and Latin America, as well as to the Muslim world. 

In 2003 and again in 2005, we reported that the government lacked an 

interagency communication strategy to guide governmentwide public 

diplomacy activities, and it continues to lack this strategy. We also noted 

that State did not have a strategy to integrate its diverse public diplomacy 

activities and that efforts to effectively engage the private sector had met 

with mixed success. In 2005, State developed a strategic framework to focus 

its public diplomacy efforts and related tactics to achieve its goals, including

marginalizing extremists and promoting understanding of shared values. 

However, the department has not issued guidance to its posts abroad on how 

to implement these strategies and tactics. In addition, posts’ public 

diplomacy efforts generally lack important strategic communication 

elements found in the private sector, which GAO and others have suggested 

adopting as a means to better communicate with target audiences. These 

elements include having core messages, segmented target audiences, indepth research and analysis to monitor and evaluate results, and an 

integrated communication plan to bring all these elements together. State

officials indicate that the department has begun to develop communication 

plans for 15 pilot posts, but it remains to be seen whether these 

communication plans will contain all of these strategic elements. 

Posts throughout the world, and particularly in the Muslim world, face 

several challenges in implementing their public diplomacy programs, 

including concerns related to staff numbers and language capabilities and 

the need to balance security with public outreach. For example, we found 

that 24 percent of language-designated public diplomacy positions 

worldwide were filled by officers without the requisite language skills. 

Furthermore, security concerns have limited embassy outreach efforts and 

public access. State has begun to address many of these challenges, but it is 

too early to evaluate the effectiveness of many of these efforts. 

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-707T.

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.
U.S. Public Diplomacy

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: 

I am pleased to be here today to discuss GAO’s work on U.S. public 

diplomacy efforts, particularly in the Muslim world.1

 Since the terrorist 

attacks of September 11, 2001, foreign public opinion polls have shown 

that negative attitudes toward the United States have generally grown 

worse in many countries around the world. One particular concern has 

been a marked worsening of such attitudes in the Muslim world—an 

audience of key strategic interest in the United States’ war on terrorism. 

U.S. public diplomacy activities—led by the State Department (State)—are 

designed to counter such sentiments by explaining U.S. foreign policy 

actions, countering misinformation, and advancing mutual understanding 

among nations. Today, we are issuing a report on the State’s public 

diplomacy efforts in the Muslim world.2

 This follows our April 2005 report 

examining interagency coordination of public diplomacy activities3

 and 

our September 2003 report on State’s overall public diplomacy efforts.4

These efforts include daily news operations, information programs, and 

various types of exchange programs. 

Mr. Chairman, you asked us to discuss our findings from these reports 

and, where possible, to highlight ways of strengthening public diplomacy 

going forward. Today, I will talk about (1) changes in U.S. public 

diplomacy resources since September 11, 2001; (2) strategic planning and 

coordination of public diplomacy efforts; and (3) the challenges facing 

these efforts. My comments will focus on State’s activities, as State was 

the subject of our work. While our most recent report focuses on activities 

in the Muslim world, many of our findings apply to public diplomacy 

efforts worldwide. 

 1

For the purposes of this testimony, the “Muslim world” refers to the 58 countries and 

territories identified as “countries with significant Muslim populations” by the State

Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. This list includes Muslimmajority countries and members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. 

2

GAO, U.S. Public Diplomacy: State Department Efforts to Engage Muslim Audiences 

Lack Certain Communication Elements and Face Significant Challenges, GAO-06-535 

(Washington, D.C.: May 3, 2006). 

3

GAO, U.S. Public Diplomacy: Interagency Coordination Efforts Hampered by the Lack of

a National Communication Strategy, GAO-05-323 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 4, 2005). 

4

GAO, U.S. Public Diplomacy: State Department Expands Efforts but Faces Significant 

Challenges, GAO-03-951 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 4, 2003). 

Page 1 GAO-06-707T
U.S. Public Diplomacy

As part of our reviews of public diplomacy, we met with officials from the 

Departments of State and Defense (DOD), U.S. Agency for International 

Development (USAID), and Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). We 

traveled to Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom 

and met with a broad cross-section of U.S. embassy officials, British 

Council and embassy staff, and local focus groups. We also convened 

roundtables of experts on public relations, international opinion research,

and the Muslim world. The reports used for this testimony were conducted 

in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, State has expanded its 

public diplomacy efforts globally, focusing particularly on countries in the 

Muslim world considered to be of strategic importance in the war on 

terrorism. Since 2001, State has increased its public diplomacy resources, 

particularly in regions with significant Muslim populations. From 2004 to

2006, funding in two regions with significant Muslim populations—the 

Near East and South Asia—increased 25 and 39 percent, respectively. 

However, public diplomacy staffing levels have remained largely the same 

during that period. 

Summary 

Since 2003, we have reported that the government lacked an interagency

public diplomacy strategy to guide the activities of disparate agencies, and

it continues to lack this strategy. We also noted that State did not have a 

strategy to integrate its diverse public diplomacy activities and that efforts 

to effectively engage the private sector had met with mixed success. State 

has begun to address these shortcomings. In 2005, State developed a 

strategic framework to focus its public diplomacy efforts and related 

tactics to achieve its goals, including marginalizing extremists and 

promoting understanding of shared values. However, the department has 

not issued guidance to its posts abroad on how to implement these 

strategies and tactics. In addition, our report released today reveals that 

posts’ public diplomacy efforts generally lack important strategic 

communication elements found in the private sector, which we and others 

have suggested adopting as a means to better communicate with target 

audiences. These elements include having core messages, segmented 

target audiences, in-depth research and analysis to monitor and evaluate 

results, and an integrated communication plan to bring all these elements 

together. State officials indicated that the department has begun an effort 

to develop communication plans for 15 pilot posts, but it remains to be 

seen whether these communication plans will contain all of these strategic 

elements. 

Page 2 GAO-06-707T
U.S. Public Diplomacy

State faces multiple challenges in implementing its public diplomacy 

programs, especially at the field level. These challenges include concerns 

related to staff numbers, time available for public diplomacy activities, 

staff language capabilities, and the need to balance security with public 

outreach. According to State data, roughly 15 percent of its public 

diplomacy positions overseas were vacant in 2005. Several embassy 

officials indicated that insufficient numbers of staff and lack of staff time 

for public diplomacy activities hinder outreach efforts. We also identified

this problem in our 2003 report, where a survey of Public Affairs officers 

in the field showed that more than 50 percent said that the number of 

public diplomacy officers was inadequate and more than 40 percent said 

the amount of time available for public diplomacy activities was 

insufficient. The Secretary of State recently announced plans to reposition 

some staff, including plans to shift 28 public diplomacy officers from posts 

in Europe and Washington, D.C., to China, India, and Latin America, as 

well as to the Muslim world. Additionally, our report notes that 30 percent 

of officers in language-designated public diplomacy positions in the 

Muslim world have not attained the level of language proficiency required

for their positions, hampering their ability to engage with foreign publics. 

In addition to these staffing challenges, security concerns limit public 

diplomacy activities, especially in the Muslim world. Security, along with 

budgetary concerns, has forced embassies to close publicly accessible 

facilities and curtail certain public outreach efforts, sending the 

unintended message that the United States is unapproachable. The 

department has attempted to compensate for the lack of public presence 

through a variety of means, including the use of small-scale external 

facilities, and expanded embassy speaker programs. 

We have made several recommendations since 2003 to the Secretary of 

State to address strategic planning issues, private sector engagement, and

staffing challenges related to public diplomacy. For example, in 2003, we 

recommended that the Secretary develop a strategy that integrates private

sector techniques into its public diplomacy efforts and that the Secretary 

strengthen efforts to train Foreign Service officers in foreign languages 

and public diplomacy. Today’s report recommends that the Secretary 

develop written guidance detailing how the department intends to 

implement its public diplomacy goals as they apply to the Muslim world 

and strengthen existing systems of sharing best practices to more 

systematically transfer knowledge among embassies around the world. 

The primary purpose of these proposed actions is to help officers in the 

field strategically plan and implement public diplomacy programs in line 

with the Under Secretary’s articulated goals. State has consistently 

concurred with our findings and recommendations for improving public 

Page 3 GAO-06-707T
U.S. Public Diplomacy

diplomacy and indicated that the department, in several cases, is taking 

appropriate actions, such as developing a broad public diplomacy strategy 

and strengthening strategic planning at the post level. However, the 

department has not established a timetable for many of these actions, 

including the issuance of an interagency public diplomacy strategy and the 

creation of the Office of Private Sector Outreach.

The overall goal of U.S. public diplomacy is to understand, inform, engage, 

and influence the attitudes and behavior of foreign audiences in ways that 

support U.S. strategic interests. The State Department leads these efforts, 

which are guided by the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public 

Affairs and include academic and professional exchanges, English 

language teaching, information programs, and news management. The 

department’s regional and functional bureaus also contain public 

diplomacy offices, which report to the relevant assistant secretary. The 

Under Secretary has direct authority over the three public diplomacy 

bureaus but does not have line authority over public diplomacy operations

in other regional or functional bureaus.5

 In overseas missions, Foreign 

Service public diplomacy officers (including Public Affairs, Cultural 

Affairs, Information, Information Resources, and Regional English 

Language officers) operate under the authority of the chief of mission and 

report to their regional bureau managers in Washington, D.C.

Background 

In fiscal year 2005, State dedicated $597 million to public diplomacy and 

public affairs. According to the department’s performance plan, its 

investment in public diplomacy continues to increase, particularly for 

efforts targeting audiences in the Middle East. Exchange programs 

received $356 million, the majority of fiscal year 2005 funding and a 12.4 

percent increase over fiscal year 2004. State’s information programs 

received roughly $68 million in fiscal year 2005 to fund programs such as 

the U.S. speakers program, mission Web sites, and American Corners, 

which are centers that provide information about the United States, hosted 

in local institutions and staffed by local employees. The remaining public 

diplomacy funds went to State’s regional bureaus to pay the salaries of 

locally engaged staff overseas, among other purposes. 

 5

State has begun to appoint “dual-hatted” Deputy Assistant Secretaries for Public 

Diplomacy in each of the six regional bureaus. These individuals report directly to both 

their Regional Assistant Secretary and to the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and 

Public Affairs. 

Page 4 GAO-06-707T
U.S. Public Diplomacy

Public Diplomacy 

Resources Have 

Shifted to the Muslim 

World, but Staffing 

Numbers Have 

Leveled Off 

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, State has expanded its 

public diplomacy efforts globally, focusing particularly on countries in the 

Muslim world considered to be of strategic importance in the war on 

terrorism. Between 2004 and 2006, total spending on overseas public 

diplomacy will increase 21 percent, from $519 million to an estimated $629 

million. Much of this increase has gone to regions with significant Muslim 

populations, including South Asia (39 percent), East Asia and the Pacific 

(28 percent), and the Near East (25 percent). These increases continue the

trend we reported in 2003, when we found that the largest relative 

increases in overseas public diplomacy resources went to regions with 

large Muslim populations. However, the Bureau of European and Eurasian 

Affairs continues to receive the largest overall share of overseas public 

diplomacy resources—roughly 36 percent of the total for all six regional 

bureaus. 

In 2003, we noted that authorized officer positions overseas had 

significantly expanded, with the most notable increases occurring in 

State’s Near East (27-percent increase) and South Asia (15-percent 

increase) bureaus. However, current data show that staff numbers have 

stayed largely the same over the past 3 years, with increases of 3 percent 

or less. In January 2006, Secretary Rice announced plans to reposition 

officers as part of her transformational diplomacy initiative. State officials 

said that the department will initially reposition approximately 75 Foreign 

Service officers this year from posts in Europe and Washington, D.C., to 

India, China, and Latin America, as well as to the Muslim world. According

to these officials, 28 of the positions to be relocated are public diplomacy 

positions. 

Since 2003, we have reported on the lack of strategic elements to guide 

U.S. public diplomacy efforts. Despite several attempts, the United States 

still lacks an interagency public diplomacy strategy. While State has 

recently developed a strategic framework for its public diplomacy efforts, 

it has not issued guidance on how this framework is to be implemented in 

the field. In addition, posts generally lack a strategic approach to public 

diplomacy. 

Strategy, Planning, 

and Coordination 

Efforts Are 

Inadequate 

Government Lacks an 

Interagency Public 

Diplomacy Strategy 

In 2003, we reported that the United States lacked a governmentwide, 

interagency public diplomacy strategy, defining the messages and means 

for communication efforts abroad. We reported that the administration 

had made a number of aborted attempts to develop a strategy, but to date 

no public diplomacy strategy has been developed. The lack of such a 

Page 5 GAO-06-707T
U.S. Public Diplomacy

strategy complicates the task of conveying consistent messages, which 

increases the risk of making damaging communication mistakes. State 

officials said that the lack of such a strategy diminishes the efficiency and 

effectiveness of governmentwide public diplomacy efforts, while several

reports concluded that a strategy is needed to synchronize agencies’ target 

audience assessments, messages, and capabilities. 

On April 8, 2006, the President established a new Policy Coordination 

Committee on Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communications. This 

committee, to be led by the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and 

Public Affairs,6

 is intended to coordinate interagency activities to ensure 

that: 

• all agencies work together to disseminate the President’s themes and 

messages; 

• all public diplomacy and strategic communications resources, programs, 

and activities are effectively coordinated to support those messages; and

• every agency gives public diplomacy and strategic communications the 

same level of priority that the President does. 

According to department officials, one of the committee’s tasks will be to 

issue a formal interagency public diplomacy strategy. It is not clear when

this strategy will be developed. 

In 2005, the Under Secretary established a strategic framework for U.S. 

public diplomacy efforts, which includes three priority goals: (1) support 

the President’s Freedom Agenda with a positive image of hope; (2) isolate

and marginalize extremists; and (3) promote understanding regarding 

shared values and common interests between Americans and peoples of 

different countries, cultures, and faiths. The Under Secretary noted that 

she intends to achieve these goals using five tactics—engagement, 

exchanges, education, empowerment, and evaluation—and by using 

various public diplomacy programs and other means. This framework 

partially responds to our 2003 recommendation that the department 

State Has Established 

Public Diplomacy Strategic 

Framework but Lacks 

Implementing Guidance 

 6

The Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Global Outreach

will serve as the committee’s executive secretary. This position, whose responsibilities 

include U.S. public diplomacy efforts, was created in March 2005 when the President 

reorganized the National Security Council. 

Page 6 GAO-06-707T
U.S. Public Diplomacy

develop and disseminate a strategy to integrate all State’s public 

diplomacy efforts and direct them toward achieving common objectives. 

However, the department has not yet developed written guidance that 

provides details on how the Under Secretary’s new strategic framework 

should be implemented in the field.

In 2005, we noted that State’s efforts to engage the private sector in pursuit 

of common public diplomacy objectives had met with mixed success and 

recommended that the Secretary develop a strategy to guide these efforts. 

State is currently establishing an office of private sector outreach and is 

partnering with individuals and the private sector on various projects. The 

Under Secretary plans to institutionalize this function within the 

department surrounding key public diplomacy objectives, but it is unclear 

when this office will be established and whether it will develop a 

comprehensive strategy to engage the private sector. 

GAO and others have suggested that State adopt a strategic approach to 

public diplomacy by modeling and adapting private sector communication 

practices to suit its purposes (see fig. 1). However, based on our review of 

mission performance plans7

 and on fieldwork in Nigeria, Pakistan, and 

Egypt, we found that the posts’ public diplomacy programming generally 

lacked these important elements of strategic communications planning. In

particular, posts lacked a clear theme or message and did not identify 

specific target audiences. According to a senior embassy official in 

Pakistan, the United States has too many competing messages, and the 

post needs to do a better job of defining and clarifying its message. Posts 

also failed to develop detailed strategies and tactics to direct available 

public diplomacy programs and tools toward clear, measurable objectives 

in the most efficient manner possible. Finally, posts lack detailed, countrylevel communication plans to coordinate their various activities. 

Posts Lack a Strategic 

Approach to Public 

Diplomacy 

 7

Mission performance plans serve as top-level statements of agency program goals and 

objectives, resource requirements, strategies and tactics, and performance indicators. 

Page 7 GAO-06-707T
U.S. Public Diplomacy

Figure 1: Key Elements of a Typical Public Relations Strategy 

Recently, State has begun to help posts improve their strategic 

communications planning. For example, the department has issued 

guidance on preparing fiscal year 2008 mission performance plans that 

calls for more strategic thinking and planning than was required in the 

past, including identification of specific target audiences, key themes and 

messages, detailed strategies and tactics, and measurable performance 

outcomes that can clearly demonstrate the ultimate impact of U.S. public 

diplomacy efforts. If fully implemented, this guidance should begin to 

address the shortcomings we found in mission performance plans; 

however, it will not be implemented for another 2 years, raising significant 

concerns about what the department intends to do now to address 

strategic planning shortfalls. Moreover, it is unclear whether this guidance

Page 8 GAO-06-707T
U.S. Public Diplomacy

will include all the strategic elements from private sector communication 

practices. 

In addition to this guidance, the department is currently developing a 

sample country-level communication plan and has asked 15 pilot posts to 

develop specific plans for their host countries. These plans are intended to

better focus U.S. efforts to counter ideological support for terrorism, 

according to State. Part of this process will include the development of a 

key influencers analysis to help identify target audiences in each country.

State officials said that they expect to have plans for these countries by 

fall or winter 2006. 

Public diplomacy efforts in the field face several other challenges, many of 

which are heightened in the Muslim world. Officials at posts we visited 

said they lacked sufficient staff and time to conduct public diplomacy 

tasks, and we found that many public diplomacy positions are filled by

officers without the requisite language skills. Furthermore, public 

diplomacy officers struggle to balance security with public access and 

outreach to local populations. 

While several recent reports on public diplomacy have recommended an 

increase in spending on U.S. public diplomacy programs, several embassy 

officials stated that, with current staffing levels, they do not have the 

capacity to effectively utilize increased funds. According to State data, the 

department had established 834 public diplomacy positions overseas in 

2005, but 124, or roughly 15 percent, were vacant. Compounding this 

challenge is the loss of public diplomacy officers to temporary duty in Iraq, 

which, according to one State official, has drawn down field officers even 

further. Staffing shortages may also limit the amount of training public 

diplomacy officers receive. According to the U.S. Advisory Commission on 

Public Diplomacy, “the need to fill a post quickly often prevents public 

diplomacy officers from receiving their full training.”8

In addition, public diplomacy officers at post are burdened with 

administrative tasks and thus have less time to conduct public diplomacy 

outreach activities than previously. One senior State official said that 

Staffing Challenges 

and Security 

Concerns Limit U.S. 

Public Diplomacy 

Activities 

Insufficient Staff and Lack 

of Staff Time Hinders 

Public Diplomacy 

Activities

 8

U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, 2005 Report (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 7,

2005). 

Page 9 GAO-06-707T
U.S. Public Diplomacy

administrative duties, such as budget, personnel, and internal reporting, 

compete with officers’ public diplomacy responsibilities. Another official 

in Egypt told us that there was rarely enough time to strategize, plan, or 

evaluate her programs. These statements echo comments we heard during 

overseas fieldwork and in a survey for our 2003 report. Surveyed officers 

told us that, while they manage to attend functions within their host 

country capitals, it was particularly difficult to find time to travel outside 

the capitals to interact with other communities. This challenge is 

compounded at posts with short tours of duty, which include many in the 

Muslim world. According to data provided by State, the average tour 

length at posts in the Muslim world is about 22 percent shorter than tour 

lengths elsewhere. Noting the prevalence of one-year tours in the Muslim 

world, a senior official at State told us that Public Affairs officers who 

have shorter tours tend to produce less effective work than officers with 

longer tours. 

To address these challenges, we recommended in 2003 that the Secretary 

of State designate more administrative positions to overseas public affairs 

sections to reduce the administrative burden. Officials at State said that 

the Management bureau is currently considering options for reducing the 

administrative burden on posts, including the development of centralized

administrative capabilities offshore. State is also repositioning several 

public diplomacy officers as part of its transformational diplomacy 

initiative; however, this represents a shift of existing public diplomacy 

officers and does not increase the overall number of officers in the 

department. 

In 2005, 24 percent of language-designated public diplomacy positions 

were filled by officers without the requisite language proficiency, similar 

to our findings in 2003. At posts in the Muslim world, this shortfall is even

greater, with 30 percent of public diplomacy positions filled by officers 

without sufficient language skills. This figure is primarily composed of 

languages that are considered difficult to master, such as Arabic and 

Persian, but also includes languages considered easier to learn, such as 

French. 

Security concerns have limited embassy outreach efforts and public 

access, forcing public diplomacy officers to strike a balance between 

safety and mission. Shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 

2001, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell stated, “Safety is one of our top 

priorities... but it can’t be at the expense of the mission.” While posts 

Language Deficiencies 

Pronounced, Especially in 

the Muslim World 

Embassies Must Balance 

Security and Public 

Outreach 

Page 10 GAO-06-707T
U.S. Public Diplomacy

around the world have faced increased threats, security concerns are 

particularly acute in countries with significant Muslim populations, where 

the threat level for terrorism is rated as “critical” or “high” in 80 percent of 

posts (see fig. 2). 

Figure 2: Terrorist Threat Ratings for Posts in the Muslim and non-Muslim Worlds, 

October 2005

Security and budgetary concerns have led to the closure of publicly 

accessible facilities around the world, such as American Centers and 

Libraries. In Pakistan, for example, all of the American Centers have 

closed for security reasons; the last facility, in Islamabad, closed in 

February 2005. These same concerns have prevented the establishment of 

a U.S. presence elsewhere. As a result, embassies have had to find other 

venues for public diplomacy programs, and some activities have been 

moved onto embassy compounds, where precautions designed to improve 

security have had the ancillary effect of sending the message that the 

United States is unapproachable and distrustful, according to State 

officials. Concrete barriers and armed escorts contribute to this 

perception, as do requirements restricting visitors’ use of cell phones and 

pagers within the embassy. According to one official in Pakistan, visitors 

to the embassy’s reference library have fallen to as few as one per day 

Page 11 GAO-06-707T
U.S. Public Diplomacy

because many visitors feel humiliated by the embassy’s rigorous security 

procedures. 

Other public diplomacy programs have had to limit their publicity to 

reduce the risk of becoming a target. A recent joint USAID-State report 

concluded that “security concerns often require a ‘low profile’ approach 

during events, programs or other situations, which, in happier times, 

would have been able to generate considerable good will for the United 

States.”9

 This constraint is particularly acute in Pakistan, where the 

embassy has had to reduce certain speaker and exchange programs. 

State has responded to security concerns and the loss of publicly 

accessible facilities through a variety of initiatives, including American 

Corners, which are centers that provide information about the United 

States, hosted in local institutions and staffed by local employees. 

According to State data, there are currently approximately 300 American

Corners throughout the world, including more than 90 in the Muslim 

world, with another 75 planned (more than 40 of which will be in the 

Muslim world). However, two of the posts we visited in October 2005 were 

having difficulty finding hosts for American Corners, as local institutions 

fear becoming terrorist targets. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be happy to

respond to any questions you or other members of the subcommittee may 

have at this time. 

For questions regarding this testimony, please contact Jess T. Ford at 

(202) 512-4128 or fordj@gao.gov. Individuals making key contributions to 

this statement include Diana Glod, Assistant Director; Michael ten Kate; 

Robert Ball; and Joe Carney. 

 9

USAID, Operating in High Threat Environments (Washington, D.C.: June 2005). 

Page 12 GAO-06-707T

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To Report Fraud,

Waste, and Abuse in 

Federal Programs 

Congressional 

Relations 

Public Affairs 

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