I 

112TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION H. R. 3159 

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 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

OCTOBER 12, 2011 

Mr. POE of Texas (for himself, Mr. BERMAN, Mr. SMITH of Washington, Mr. 

CRENSHAW, Mr. BURTON of Indiana, Mrs. ELLMERS, Mr. CONYERS, Mr. 

MORAN, Mr. CARNAHAN, Mr. SIRES, Mr. RANGEL, Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas, Mr. CHABOT, Mr. BILIRAKIS, Mr. ACKERMAN, Mr. WESTMORELAND, Mr. CONNOLLY of Virginia, Mr. MCCAUL, Mr. JACKSON of Illinois, 

Mr. MCDERMOTT, Mr. BONNER, Ms. ESHOO, Mr. CICILLINE, Mr. BLUMENAUER, Mr. COFFMAN of Colorado, Mr. WELCH, Mr. DEUTCH, Mr. 

MURPHY of Connecticut, Mrs. SCHMIDT, Mr. ELLISON, and Mr. KELLY) 

introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on 

Foreign Affairs 

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, 


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1 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

2 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Foreign Aid Trans3 parency and Accountability Act of 2012’’. 

4 SEC. 2. GUIDELINES FOR UNITED STATES FOREIGN ASSIST5 ANCE PROGRAMS. 

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

7 evaluate the performance of United States foreign assist8 ance programs and their contribution to policy, strategies, 

9 projects, program goals, and priorities undertaken by the 

10 Federal Government, to foster and promote innovative 

11 programs to improve the effectiveness of such programs, 

12 and to coordinate the monitoring and evaluation processes 

13 of Federal departments and agencies that administer such 

14 programs. 

15 (b) ESTABLISHMENT OF GUIDELINES.—The Presi16 dent, in consultation with the Department of State, 

17 United States Agency for International Development, Mil18 lennium Challenge Corporation, and the Department of 

19 Defense, shall establish guidelines regarding the establish20 ment of measurable goals, performance metrics, and moni21 toring and evaluation plans that can be applied on a uni22 form basis to United States foreign assistance programs, 

23 country assistance plans, and international and multilat24 eral assistance programs receiving financial assistance 

25 from the United States. Such guidelines shall be estabVerDate Mar 15 2010 04:06 Oct 13, 2011 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H3159.IH H3159

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1 lished according to best practices of monitoring and eval2 uation studies and analyses. 

3 (c) OBJECTIVES OF GUIDELINES.— 

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

5 direction to Federal departments and agencies that 

6 administer United States foreign assistance pro7 grams on how to develop the complete range of ac8 tivities relating to the monitoring of resources, the 

9 evaluation of projects, the evaluation of program im10 pacts, and analysis that is necessary for the identi11 fication of findings, generalizations that can be de12 rived from those findings, and their applicability to 

13 proposed project and program design. 

14 (2) OBJECTIVES.—Specifically, the guidelines 

15 shall provide direction on how to achieve the fol16 lowing objectives for monitoring and evaluation pro17 grams: 

18 (A) Building measurable goals, perform19 ance metrics and monitoring and evaluation 

20 into program design at the outset, including the 

21 provision of sufficient program resources to 

22 conduct monitoring and evaluation. 

23 (B) Disseminating guidelines for the devel24 opment and implementation of monitoring and 

25 evaluation programs to all personnel, especially 


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

2 implementation and management of foreign as3 sistance programs. 

4 (C) Developing a clearinghouse capacity 

5 for the dissemination of knowledge and lessons 

6 learned to United States development profes7 sionals, implementing partners, the inter8 national aid community, and aid recipient gov9 ernments, and as a repository of knowledge on 

10 lessons learned. 

11 (D) Distributing evaluation reports inter12 nally and making this material available online 

13 to the public. Furthermore, providing a sum14 mary including a description of methods, key 

15 findings and recommendations to the public on16 line in a fully searchable form within 90 days 

17 after the completion of the evaluation. Prin18 cipled exceptions will be made in cases of classi19 fied or proprietary material. 

20 (E) Establishing annual monitoring and 

21 evaluation agendas and objectives that are re22 sponsive to policy and programmatic priorities. 

23 (F) Applying rigorous monitoring and eval24 uation methodologies, choosing from among a 

25 wide variety of qualitative and quantitative 


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1 methods common in the field of social scientific 

2 inquiry. 

3 (G) Partnering with the academic commu4 nity, implementing partners, and national and 

5 international institutions that have expertise in 

6 monitoring and evaluation and analysis when 

7 such partnerships will provide needed expertise 

8 or will significantly improve the evaluation and 

9 analysis. 

10 (H) Developing and implementing a train11 ing plan for aid personnel on the proper con12 duct of monitoring and evaluation programs. 

13 (d) ROLE OF OTHER FEDERAL DEPARTMENTS AND

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

15 conjunction with the heads of Federal departments and 

16 agencies that administer United States foreign assistance 

17 programs. 

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

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

20 to Congress a report that contains a detailed description 

21 of the guidelines that have been developed on measurable 

22 goals, performance metrics, and monitoring and evalua23 tion plans for United States foreign assistance programs 

24 established under this section. 


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

2 ‘‘evaluation’’ means, with respect to a United States for3 eign assistance program, the systematic collection and 

4 analysis of information about the characteristics and out5 comes of the program and projects under the program as 

6 a basis for judgments, to improve effectiveness, and to in7 form decisions about current and future programming. 

8 SEC. 3. INTERNET WEB SITE TO MAKE PUBLICLY AVAIL9 ABLE COMPREHENSIVE, TIMELY, COM10 PARABLE, AND ACCESSIBLE INFORMATION 

11 ON UNITED STATES FOREIGN ASSISTANCE 

12 PROGRAMS. 

13 (a) ESTABLISHMENT; PUBLICATION AND UP14 DATES.—Not later than 2 years after the date of the en15 actment of this Act, the President shall establish and 

16 maintain an Internet Web site to make publicly available 

17 comprehensive, timely, comparable, and accessible infor18 mation on United States foreign assistance programs. The 

19 head of each Federal department or agency that admin20 isters such programs shall on a regular basis publish and 

21 update on the Web site such information with respect to 

22 the programs of the department or agency. 

23 (b) MATTERS TO BE INCLUDED.— 


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

2 published on a detailed program-by-program basis 

3 and country-by-country basis. 

4 (2) TYPES OF INFORMATION.—To ensure trans5 parency, accountability, and effectiveness of United 

6 States foreign assistance programs, the information 

7 shall include country assistance strategies, annual 

8 budget documents, congressional budget justifica9 tions, actual expenditures, and reports and evalua10 tions for such programs and projects under such 

11 programs. Each type of information described in this 

12 paragraph shall be published on the Web site not 

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

14 information and shall be continuously updated. 

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

16 head of a Federal department or agency makes a de17 termination that the inclusion of a required item of 

18 information on the Web site would jeopardize the 

19 health or security of an implementing partner or 

20 program beneficiary or would be detrimental to the 

21 national interests of the United States, such item of 

22 information may be submitted to Congress in a writ23 ten report in lieu of including it on the Web site, 

24 along with the reasons for not including it in the 

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


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1 (c) SCOPE OF INFORMATION.— 

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

3 such information relating to the current fiscal year 

4 and the immediately preceding 5 fiscal years. 

5 (2) DATABASE.— 

6 (A) IN GENERAL.—Subject to subpara7 graph (B), the Web site shall also contain a 

8 link to a searchable database available to the 

9 public containing such information relating to 

10 fiscal years prior to the current fiscal year and 

11 the immediately preceding 5 fiscal years. 

12 (B) LIMITATION.—The database shall not 

13 contain such information relating to fiscal years 

14 prior to fiscal year 2006. 

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

16 the Web site in unclassified form. Any information deter17 mined to be classified information may be submitted to 

18 Congress in classified form and an unclassified summary 

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

Æ 


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