II 

112TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION S. 3310 

To direct the President, in consultation with the Department of State, United 

States Agency for International Development, Millennium Challenge Corporation, and the Department of Defense, to establish guidelines for 

United States foreign assistance programs, and for other purposes. 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

JUNE 19, 2012 

Mr. LUGAR introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred 

to the Committee on Foreign Relations 

A BILL 

To direct the President, in consultation with the Department 

of State, United States Agency for International Development, Millennium Challenge Corporation, and the Department of Defense, to establish guidelines for United 

States foreign 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 2012’’. 


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1 SEC. 2. GUIDELINES FOR UNITED STATES FOREIGN ASSIST2 ANCE PROGRAMS. 

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

4 evaluate the performance of United States foreign assist5 ance programs and their contribution to policy, strategies, 

6 projects, program goals, and priorities undertaken by the 

7 Federal Government, to foster and promote innovative 

8 programs to improve the effectiveness of such programs, 

9 and to coordinate the monitoring and evaluation processes 

10 of Federal departments and agencies that administer such 

11 programs. 

12 (b) ESTABLISHMENT OF GUIDELINES.—The Presi13 dent, in consultation with the Department of State, 

14 United States Agency for International Development, Mil15 lennium Challenge Corporation, and the Department of 

16 Defense, shall establish guidelines regarding the establish17 ment of measurable goals, performance metrics, and moni18 toring and evaluation plans that can be applied on a uni19 form basis to United States foreign assistance programs, 

20 country assistance plans, and international and multilat21 eral assistance programs receiving financial assistance 

22 from the United States. Such guidelines shall be estab23 lished according to best practices of monitoring and eval24 uation studies and analyses. 

25 (c) OBJECTIVES OF GUIDELINES.— 


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1 (1) IN GENERAL.—Such guidelines shall provide 

2 direction to Federal departments and agencies that 

3 administer United States foreign assistance pro4 grams on how to develop the complete range of ac5 tivities relating to the monitoring of resources, the 

6 evaluation of projects, the evaluation of program im7 pacts, and analysis that is necessary for the identi8 fication of findings, generalizations that can be de9 rived from those findings, and their applicability to 

10 proposed project and program design. 

11 (2) OBJECTIVES.—Specifically, the guidelines 

12 shall provide direction on how to achieve the fol13 lowing objectives for monitoring and evaluation pro14 grams: 

15 (A) Building measurable goals, perform16 ance metrics and monitoring and evaluation 

17 into program design at the outset, including the 

18 provision of sufficient program resources to 

19 conduct monitoring and evaluation. 

20 (B) Disseminating guidelines for the devel21 opment and implementation of monitoring and 

22 evaluation programs to all personnel, especially 

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

24 implementation and management of foreign as25 sistance programs. 


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1 (C) Developing a clearinghouse capacity 

2 for the dissemination of knowledge and lessons 

3 learned to United States development profes4 sionals, implementing partners, the inter5 national aid community, and aid recipient gov6 ernments, and as a repository of knowledge on 

7 lessons learned. 

8 (D) Distributing evaluation reports inter9 nally and making this material available online 

10 to the public. Furthermore, providing a sum11 mary including a description of methods, key 

12 findings and recommendations to the public on13 line in a fully searchable form within 90 days 

14 after the completion of the evaluation. Prin15 cipled exceptions will be made in cases of classi16 fied or proprietary material. 

17 (E) Establishing annual monitoring and 

18 evaluation agendas and objectives that are re19 sponsive to policy and programmatic priorities. 

20 (F) Applying rigorous monitoring and eval21 uation methodologies, choosing from among a 

22 wide variety of qualitative and quantitative 

23 methods common in the field of social scientific 

24 inquiry. 


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1 (G) Partnering with the academic commu2 nity, implementing partners, and national and 

3 international institutions that have expertise in 

4 monitoring and evaluation and analysis when 

5 such partnerships will provide needed expertise 

6 or will significantly improve the evaluation and 

7 analysis. 

8 (H) Developing and implementing a train9 ing plan for aid personnel on the proper con10 duct of monitoring and evaluation programs. 

11 (d) ROLE OF OTHER FEDERAL DEPARTMENTS AND

12 AGENCIES.—The President shall carry out this section in 

13 conjunction with the heads of Federal departments and 

14 agencies that administer United States foreign assistance 

15 programs. 

16 (e) REPORT.—Not later than one year after the date 

17 of the enactment of this Act, the President shall submit 

18 to Congress a report that contains a detailed description 

19 of the guidelines that have been developed on measurable 

20 goals, performance metrics, and monitoring and evalua21 tion plans for United States foreign assistance programs 

22 established under this section. 

23 (f) EVALUATION DEFINED.—In this section, the term 

24 ‘‘evaluation’’ means, with respect to a United States for25 eign assistance program, the systematic collection and 


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1 analysis of information about the characteristics and out2 comes of the program and projects under the program as 

3 a basis for judgments, to improve effectiveness, and to in4 form decisions about current and future programming. 

5 SEC. 3. INTERNET WEB SITE TO MAKE PUBLICLY AVAIL6 ABLE COMPREHENSIVE, TIMELY, COM7 PARABLE, AND ACCESSIBLE INFORMATION 

8 ON UNITED STATES FOREIGN ASSISTANCE 

9 PROGRAMS. 

10 (a) ESTABLISHMENT; PUBLICATION AND UP11 DATES.—Not later than 2 years after the date of the en12 actment of this Act, the President shall establish and 

13 maintain an Internet Web site to make publicly available 

14 comprehensive, timely, comparable, and accessible infor15 mation on United States foreign assistance programs. The 

16 head of each Federal department or agency that admin17 isters such programs shall on a regular basis publish and 

18 update on the Web site such information with respect to 

19 the programs of the department or agency. 

20 (b) MATTERS TO BE INCLUDED.— 

21 (1) IN GENERAL.—Such information shall be 

22 published on a detailed program-by-program basis 

23 and country-by-country basis. 

24 (2) TYPES OF INFORMATION.—To ensure trans25 parency, accountability, and effectiveness of United 


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1 States foreign assistance programs, the information 

2 shall include country assistance strategies, annual 

3 budget documents, congressional budget justifica4 tions, actual expenditures, and reports and evalua5 tions for such programs and projects under such 

6 programs. Each type of information described in this 

7 paragraph shall be published on the Web site not 

8 later than 30 days after the date of issuance of the 

9 information and shall be continuously updated. 

10 (3) REPORT IN LIEU OF INCLUSION.—If the 

11 head of a Federal department or agency makes a de12 termination that the inclusion of a required item of 

13 information on the Web site would jeopardize the 

14 health or security of an implementing partner or 

15 program beneficiary or would be detrimental to the 

16 national interests of the United States, such item of 

17 information may be submitted to Congress in a writ18 ten report in lieu of including it on the Web site, 

19 along with the reasons for not including it in the 

20 database required under subsection (c)(2). 

21 (c) SCOPE OF INFORMATION.— 

22 (1) IN GENERAL.—The Web site shall contain 

23 such information relating to the current fiscal year 

24 and the immediately preceding 5 fiscal years. 

25 (2) DATABASE.— 


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1 (A) IN GENERAL.—Subject to subpara2 graph (B), the Web site shall also contain a 

3 link to a searchable database available to the 

4 public containing such information relating to 

5 fiscal years prior to the current fiscal year and 

6 the immediately preceding 5 fiscal years. 

7 (B) LIMITATION.—The database shall not 

8 contain such information relating to fiscal years 

9 prior to fiscal year 2006. 

10 (d) FORM.—Such information shall be published on 

11 the Web site in unclassified form. Any information deter12 mined to be classified information may be submitted to 

13 Congress in classified form and an unclassified summary 

14 of such information shall be published on the Web site. 

Æ 


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