USAID Acquisition and Assistance: Actions Needed to Develop and Implement a Strategic Workforce Plan
Released: 2008-09-26T00:00:00

Letter

Background

USAID is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and has field locations in approximately 90 countries to provide economic, development, and humanitarian assistance worldwide in support of U.S. foreign policy goals. Its activities include technical assistance, research, policy advice, and infrastructure assistance.

USAID’s Organizational Structure for Designing and Managing Its Assistance Activities

In headquarters, USAID is organized into three functional and five geographic bureaus. The functional bureaus are aligned with the agency’s three strategic goals—(1) economic growth and trade, (2) democracy and governance, and (3) global health. The bureaus design and manage activities that support their specific strategic goal. However, each activity is typically implemented in multiple countries around the world. The five geographic bureaus are responsible for oversight of overseas missions that design and manage activities that support USAID’s strategic goals.

Overseas, USAID designs and manages its foreign assistance activities and A&A instruments at several types of missions. These include bilateral missions that design and manage assistance activities and A&A instruments in the countries in which they are located, such as the mission in Indonesia; regional missions that design and manage assistance activities and A&A instruments in the countries in which they are located and also for other countries in the region, such as the mission in Kazakhstan; and regional missions that provide administrative support, such as acquisition and assistance, legal and financial, to missions in their region, such as the mission in Thailand.

USAID’s Office of Acquisition and Assistance (OAA) has overall responsibility for the administration of A&A instruments in headquarters. Its A&A staff provide professional advisory and technical support to USAID’s functional and geographic bureaus for developing and managing A&A instruments. OAA also provides periodic guidance to A&A staff at overseas missions. OAA is located within USAID’s Management Bureau, and its director reports to the Deputy Assistant Administrator of the Management Bureau.

USAID A&A staff at overseas missions provide advice and support to mission staff who design and manage assistance activities; they also have overall responsibility for the administration of A&A instruments at overseas missions. A&A offices are typically headed by a contracting officer (CO) who reports to the mission director or deputy mission director. At most bilateral missions, COs are co-located with A&A specialists and CTOs. However, under USAID’s regional mission structure, COs often provide A&A support to more than one mission and are not necessarily co-located with either the CTOs or all of the A&A specialists who assist them. Some missions with no on-site CO may instead have on- site A&A specialists who provide A&A support to CTOs. Appendix II lists missions with authorized on-site COs as of July 2008, as reported by OAA.

A&A Workload Trends for Fiscal Years 2002 through 2007

USAID’s total obligations for A&A instruments doubled from about $5 billion to about $10 billion from fiscal year 2002 through fiscal year 2007. While total A&A obligations and number of A&A instruments increased only slightly at headquarters over this time period, A&A obligations overseas increased by nearly 600 percent, from about $1 billion in fiscal year 2002 to about $6 billion in fiscal year 2007. In fiscal year 2007, A&A obligations managed by overseas missions made up the majority—nearly 60 percent—of total A&A obligations. Figure 1 illustrates the A&A obligations managed by OAA headquarters and overseas missions for fiscal years 2002 through 2007.

USAID’s total number of A&A instruments from fiscal years 2002 through 2007 also increased substantially, from about 6,000 to about 11,000. In fiscal year 2007, around 71 percent of the total number of A&A instruments was managed by overseas missions.

USAID Lacks Human Capital Data Needed for a Strategic A&A Workforce Plan That Could Help Address Its Overseas Workload Imbalances

USAID lacks the capacity to develop and implement a strategic A&A workforce plan because it lacks two key elements: (1) sufficiently reliable and up-to-date overseas A&A staff level data and (2) comprehensive information on the competencies of its overseas A&A specialists, who play a critical role in assisting COs and CTOs in overseas missions. During our fieldwork, we found that the numbers of A&A staff with the necessary competencies did not match A&A workload. Although various USAID has launched some ad hoc attempts to address the agency’s A&A workforce issues, these efforts lack critical elements of a strategic A&A workforce plan, particularly comprehensive information on its A&A specialists overseas.

USAID Lacks Sufficiently Reliable and Up-to-Date Data on A&A Staff Levels

Although USAID’s Office of Human Resources (OHR) systematically collects data on A&A specialists’ staff levels, these data are not sufficiently reliable. OHR officials acknowledged they had concerns about the reliability and accuracy of the overseas A&A staff level data, particularly with regard to the number of overseas A&A specialists. These officials stated that they receive staffing data from missions but do not know whether mission staff validate the data. In addition, they told us that mission staff who prepare these data may not receive adequate guidance for classification of different overseas staff positions, and as a result, misclassification and inaccurate reporting of A&A staff levels may occur.

Furthermore, OHR officials do not validate or confirm the data they collect from missions, according to these officials.

The Office of Acquisition and Assistance (OAA) does not systematically track the number of overseas A&A specialists, and its data on overseas A&A staff levels are out of date. According to OAA officials, the office’s most recent data on the agency’s entire A&A workforce are the result of a fiscal year 2005 survey of all overseas missions to analyze workload and staffing within OAA. While OAA’s data are not current, the Office of Human Resources (OHR) officials told us that OAA’s data may still be more accurate than the data collected by OHR in fiscal year 2005.

Our analysis of OAA’s and OHR’s separately collected data on overseas A&A staff levels for the end of fiscal year 2005 (the most current data made available to us by OAA) revealed substantial discrepancies. For example, comparing the two sets of data showed that OAA’s reported total overseas A&A staff levels for that year were more than 78 percent higher than those reported by OHR—OAA reported 264 overseas A&A staff, and OHR reported 148. In addition, we found that, at certain missions, OHR’s data showed no A&A specialists, whereas OAA’s data indicated several A&A specialists.

Although ready access to the Office of Human Resources’ databases would allow other USAID offices to identify and resolve discrepancies in their staffing data, the offices lack such access. To date, according to OHR officials, OAA has not specifically requested OHR staffing data in order to compare them to its own.

USAID Lacks Comprehensive Information on A&A Staff Competencies

Although A&A obligations have increased significantly at overseas missions, USAID has not collected comprehensive information on the competencies, including knowledge, skills, abilities, and experience levels, of its overseas A&A staff. According to the principles of effective workforce planning, an agency should determine the critical skills and competencies needed to achieve current and future programmatic results. In May 2008, the Office of Acquisition and Assistance (OAA) and the Office of Human Resources (OHR) jointly conducted competency assessments for A&A staff in headquarters and COs in overseas missions as part of an effort to implement the President’s Management Agenda. However, these assessments did not include A&A specialists at overseas locations. For staff included in this effort, OAA and OHR conducted a capability assessment that identified key A&A staff competencies, such as decision making and written communication skills; assessed competency levels; identified competency gaps; and established strategies to reduce staff vacancies and skill gaps through recruitment, retention, and training. According to OHR officials, USAID expects to implement a similar assessment for A&A specialists overseas but will likely not begin implementation until fiscal year 2011 at the earliest. Without sufficiently reliable data on its entire A&A workforce—including A&A specialists overseas—USAID cannot collect comprehensive competency information, identify gaps in the numbers, skills, and competencies of its A&A workforce, and develop strategies to address them.

USAID Has Not Matched A&A Staff to Workload at Missions We Visited

At the USAID missions we visited, we found that the numbers and competencies of A&A staff did not match A&A workload. While at some missions the numbers of A&A staff with the necessary competencies were considerably less than adequate, at other missions they were more than adequate, according to mission officials.

Officials at five missions we visited—Thailand, Cambodia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Mali—told us that their A&A staff at times could not provide adequate and timely support, such as providing guidance to CTOs and approving A&A documents, primarily because the numbers of A&A staff with the necessary competencies to manage their workloads were insufficient. We found several such examples, including the following: A CO at the regional mission in Thailand—where three COs manage A&A activities in 12 countries—stated that she sometimes could not address some missions’ needs in a timely manner because of competing workload demands. Staff at one of the missions for which the regional mission provides A&A support—Cambodia—told us that while their A&A workload has increased, they have at times not received adequate A&A support. These staff attributed this lack of support to a decline in A&A specialist staff levels from three in 2007 to one at the time of our visit, as well as the inexperience of the mission’s one remaining on-site A&A specialist. This A&A specialist only works on A&A activities part-time because she has other responsibilities. The mission director told us that as a result, she has had to perform tasks that are normally considered among A&A staff’s responsibilities, such as revising A&A documents.

The mission director and A&A staff in Kazakhstan—a regional mission responsible for A&A activities at missions in Kazakhstan and four other Central Asian countries that do not have on-site A&A specialists—told us that they could not adequately support A&A activities at the four missions that do not have on-site A&A specialists. Staff at one such mission, in the Kyrgyz Republic, noted that when they needed A&A staff on site to provide more guidance to their less experienced CTOs, the A&A staff were not available. Officials noted that without such guidance from A&A staff, CTOs may be more likely to incorrectly manage A&A instruments. A&A staff in Kazakhstan told us their ability to visit and support A&A activities at such missions was hindered by a heavy workload and competing demands from the other missions in the region.

Officials at the mission in Mali, which had two on-site A&A specialists and received A&A support from COs at the regional mission in Ghana, told us that these remotely located COs were sometimes not available to assist them in meeting their activities’ goals. For example, they said they had delayed time-sensitive seasonal agricultural projects because the CO was not available when needed to approve contracts.

In contrast, officials at the other two missions we visited—Peru and Indonesia—told us they had more than adequate numbers of A&A staff with the necessary competencies to manage their workload. Some staff even indicated that these missions may not need all of their assigned COs to adequately manage their A&A work. For example, one CO who will soon be leaving the mission in Indonesia may not need to be replaced, according to some A&A mission staff. A CO at the mission in Peru told us that because the mission had so many experienced or competent A&A staff, the A&A workload was more easily managed, and staff even had sufficient time to volunteer the mission as a location for USAID to pilot a new system through which USAID A&A instruments will be awarded.

Our survey of A&A staff overseas generally supported these findings from our fieldwork. For example, about 70 percent of A&A respondents overseas reported that it was somewhat or very difficult to alter staffing patterns to meet the demands of changing workloads. Most notably, one respondent reported a disparity between the workload, numbers and competencies of A&A staff levels at the missions to which she was previously and currently assigned. While the respondent found the workload to be less manageable at her prior mission with inexperienced A&A staff, she found the workload at her current mission more easily manageable because it had more experienced A&A staff.

USAID’s Recent Planning Efforts Do Not Comprehensively Address Its Strategic A&A Workforce Planning Needs

In recent years, USAID has launched some ad hoc attempts to address the agency’s A&A workforce issues. However, as the following indicates, these efforts lack critical elements of a strategic A&A workforce plan, particularly comprehensive information on its A&A specialists overseas: Proposal to increase OAA staff levels. In May 2008, OAA officials proposed to the Management Bureau an increase in staff from 133 to 218 in OAA headquarters. According to Management Bureau officials, OAA has been approved for 154 positions for fiscal year 2008. This proposal only addresses A&A staff levels in headquarters, however, and does not consider A&A staff levels overseas.

Development Leadership Initiative. This agencywide, multiyear effort is intended to recruit U.S. staff to be placed overseas. Under this initiative, USAID plans to hire 120 staff, including 15 COs, in fiscal year 2008. However, this initiative only seeks to increase the levels of overseas COs, not the levels of A&A specialists.

A&A Workforce Capability Assessment. As mentioned earlier, this was a May 2008 effort to identify and assess the competencies of all COs, as well as A&A specialists in headquarters. Competency assessments of A&A specialists overseas are not expected to begin until fiscal year 2011 at the earliest.

Workforce planning model. This agencywide management tool projects the number, type, and location of staff needed to accomplish the agency’s mission, based on expectations for future program funds as well as the size and location of overseas missions. The model does not, however, incorporate data on either the current A&A staffing levels or the competencies of existing A&A staff.

Taken together, these efforts do not constitute a strategic A&A workforce plan that takes into account the entire A&A workforce. USAID has yet to take an integrated approach to developing and implementing such a workforce plan.

USAID Has Not Implemented the Evaluation Mechanism of Its A&A Function

USAID has not implemented an evaluation mechanism to provide oversight of its A&A function. OAA’s Evaluation Division is responsible for providing this oversight to ensure that A&A operations follow USAID policies, primarily by assessing the agency’s A&A operations worldwide. In 2006, USAID’s OIG found that the division had not met its previously set target of conducting on-site evaluations of A&A operations at all missions within a 3-year period, due to resource constraints within the division. The division has since developed a new evaluation mechanism, the scorecard evaluation, that relies on COs’ annual self-assessments of A&A operations and is followed by on-site reviews at selected missions, conducted by division staff. However, the division has yet to implement this evaluation mechanism.

OAA’s Evaluation Division Is Responsible for Evaluating the A&A Function but Did Not Meet Its Previous Target for A&A Evaluations

Among other responsibilities, OAA’s Evaluation Division is to conduct evaluations of worldwide A&A operations to ensure USAID’s compliance with an executive order and certify the effectiveness of USAID’s A&A function. GAO’s internal control standards state that evaluations— whether in the form of self-assessments or other means—are necessary to ensure an agency’s operational effectiveness and compliance with applicable policies. Furthermore, the President’s fiscal year 1995 Executive Order on Federal Procurement Reform included a requirement that every U.S. agency evaluates its A&A function against the agency’s approved criteria. To comply with the order, OAA developed an evaluation program to assess USAID’s A&A function. This evaluation program was also designed to enable USAID’s Management Bureau to annually certify the adequacy and effectiveness of management controls for the A&A function, as required by USAID directives.

Prior to fiscal year 2007, the evaluation program required Evaluation Division staff to make on-site visits to assess A&A operations at OAA offices in headquarters and missions. Evaluations were designed to be performed at each mission by teams of two Evaluation Division staff over a period of about 2 or 3 weeks. After each team had completed its fieldwork, the OAA director reported to the mission director on deficiencies that the team had identified in the mission’s A&A operations and provided recommendations to address those deficiencies.

In fiscal year 2006, the OIG found that OAA’s Evaluation Division had not met its target of conducting evaluations of all A&A operations to ensure that the agency had responded to the executive order on federal procurement reform. Although the division had set a goal of conducting evaluations at all of the approximately 85 missions every 3 years, the OIG found that for fiscal years 2003 through 2005, the division had evaluated A&A operations at only 9 missions—about 11 percent of the number of missions at the time. The OIG report noted that a staffing shortage, as well as a significant increase in USAID’s A&A operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, had adversely impacted the division’s ability to meet its target during that time frame. OAA’s Evaluation Division was unable to certify to the Management Bureau the overall adequacy and effectiveness of management controls at the missions on the basis of such a small number of completed evaluations. The division also could not provide reasonable assurance that USAID was effectively implementing the executive order. As a result, the OIG recommended in 2006 that the director of OAA develop a plan for verifying and ensuring that the agency was effectively implementing the executive order.

New Evaluation Mechanism Relies on COs’ Self-Assessment of A&A Operations

In fiscal year 2007, in view of the resource constraints that had hampered its ability to meet its prior evaluation targets, OAA’s Evaluation Division developed a Web-based self-reporting mechanism for evaluating the A&A function, referred to as the scorecard evaluation. According to Evaluation Division officials, the division previously lacked a mechanism to review all locations every year for systemic problems in A&A operations. With the scorecard evaluation, all USAID COs who manage A&A offices are to assess their own operations and thereby assist OAA in identifying areas of vulnerability in headquarters and missions each year. The scorecard methodology follows GAO’s Standards of Internal Control to achieve effectiveness and efficiency of acquisition operations; ensure fiscal integrity of the agency’s acquisition system; and ensure that applicable acquisition laws, regulations, guidance, and principles are being followed. Areas identified in the scorecard are to include COs’ reporting of staffing patterns, assessment of the A&A operations’ management systems, and the extent to which A&A award solicitations, negotiations, and administration comply with USAID guidelines.

The Evaluation Division is expected to follow up on the scorecard evaluations with on-site reviews of a risk-based selection of offices and missions, followed by evaluation reports that make recommendations for mitigating risks associated with A&A operations at these locations. After reviewing the COs’ submitted scorecards—certified by the appropriate mission director or other management official—the Evaluation Division is to determine the risk levels associated with all A&A activities in the COs’ self-reported scorecard evaluation responses. Next, the division expects to select certain missions for on-site visits, using a risk-based approach based on the scorecard evaluation results and informal, internally generated criteria, such as COs’ reliance upon less-experienced COs, number of years lapsed since the last evaluation at the location, high funding levels, and country-specific issues that might raise concerns in the division about A&A operations. During the on-site visits, which are expected to last approximately 1 week, the Evaluation Division staff will conduct a hands- on review of mission documents—including the CO’s work products and all supporting documents in the A&A file—hold discussions with mission staff to verify the submitted scorecard responses, and follow up on any issues mentioned in the scorecards. Finally, on the basis of its findings from the scorecards and the on-site reviews, OAA is expected to develop an evaluation report with recommendations on the missions’ A&A operations that missions are required to address prior to the following year.

As of August 2008, the Evaluation Division had completed pilot scorecard evaluations—including on-site visits—at four locations with USAID A&A operations: the East Africa regional mission and missions in Kenya, Peru, and Sudan. In its evaluation reports for these pilot locations, the evaluation team assigned risk levels based on the COs’ self-assessments of A&A areas. For example, at various locations, the evaluation team identified the following high-risk issues or weaknesses in A&A operations: a mission lacked resources to monitor contractor performance, and the CO could not ensure that contractor performance reports were prepared, as required by USAID policy; a regional structure was providing insufficient mentoring and oversight of junior contract officers; and a regional mission had experienced a sixfold workload increase in the past 3 years, despite resource constraints.

Evaluation Division Has Not Implemented New Evaluation Mechanism

Although the Evaluation Division has developed the new scorecard evaluation, it has yet to implement it. Approximately 40 percent of the A&A staff who responded to our survey reported that there is insufficient oversight to ensure the quality of the A&A process. According to Evaluation Division staff, in fiscal year 2007 the division set a goal of ensuring a scorecard review of all A&A operations in headquarters offices and all of the approximately 80 missions within a 2-year period, and at least one on-site visit of a mission in each of the five regions of the world. However, agency officials informed us that the Evaluation Division currently lacks the staff level and systems needed to implement the scorecard evaluation to meet its goal. According to Evaluation Division officials, the number of procurement analysts in the division has declined from 12 in fiscal year 1992 to 4 in fiscal year 2008. However, according to these officials, the division needs at least 8 procurement analysts to make the appropriate number of on-site evaluation visits to missions per year. As of August 2008, the Evaluation Division was authorized to hire 3 additional procurement analysts. However, the division has not yet finalized plans for full implementation of the scorecard evaluations based on this increase in staff.

In addition, according to Evaluation Division staff, USAID headquarters and missions lack an electronic A&A data system that would facilitate the evaluation process. Currently, the Evaluation Division reviews the available A&A documents provided by COs worldwide; while some A&A units utilize an electronic filing system, A&A operations in many missions continue to maintain hard-copy A&A documents. Evaluation Division staff told us they would ideally be able to access a digital repository of A&A documents remotely while reviewing COs’ completed scorecard evaluations. Such access would allow the Evaluation Division staff to review A&A documents in headquarters and reduce their need to conduct on-site visits, thereby saving resources and time. As of July 2008, USAID was analyzing information technology options for the OAA Evaluation Division to achieve its needs, including the implementation of the Global Acquisition and Assistance System (GLAAS), a new globally accessible system intended to standardize and automate USAID’s management of A&A instruments. However, GLAAS has not yet been implemented at all missions, and the Evaluation Division continues to lack the technology to access all A&A files electronically in order to conduct scorecard reviews remotely.

Conclusions

As USAID increasingly relies on nongovernmental organizations to implement its activities, the agency’s responsibility to effectively manage the implemented activities gains in importance. Critical to its success in this area is its management of the A&A function. As the amount of its A&A obligations and the number of A&A instruments continue to increase, especially at overseas missions, USAID should work to ensure that the appropriate number of staff with the requisite competencies and skills are available to manage A&A operations. Despite a past USAID OIG recommendation calling for USAID to develop an A&A workforce plan, the agency has yet to analyze the relation of staffing patterns to existing workload with the goal of better matching its staff to its workload. Specifically, the agency currently lacks sufficiently reliable and up-to-date data on its overseas A&A staff levels and comprehensive information on the competencies of the A&A staff. With these data, which are key elements of federal workforce planning models, USAID could better identify its critical staffing needs and adjust its staffing patterns to meet those needs.

A critical component of USAID’s oversight of its A&A operations is the successful implementation of its new evaluation mechanism. The mechanism is designed to ensure that A&A operations follow USAID policies, primarily by assessing A&A operations that manage about $10 billion worldwide. Although the agency is in the process of hiring additional staff for the division, much time has elapsed since USAID’s OIG noted in 2006 that the division’s resource constraints hampered its ability to conduct evaluations. Until USAID has the capacity to implement the evaluation mechanism, the agency lacks the ability to ensure that potential weaknesses in the A&A process are quickly identified and corrected.

Recommendations for Executive Action

To improve the agency’s management and oversight of its A&A function, we are recommending that the Administrator of USAID develop and implement a strategic A&A workforce plan that matches resources to priority needs, such as the evaluation of the A&A function. Specifically, we recommend that the strategic A&A workforce plan includes a process to collect, analyze, and maintain (1) sufficiently reliable and up-to-date data on the agency's A&A staff levels and (2) comprehensive information on the competencies of the A&A staff.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

We requested and received comments on a draft of this report from USAID. These comments are reprinted in appendix III, along with our responses to specific points. USAID did not specifically comment on our recommendations but acknowledged that it needs to rebuild core A&A management capacity in key areas such as workforce planning and evaluation in order to sustain effective management of A&A functions. USAID noted several agencywide initiatives such as the development of a new Human Capital Strategic Plan and Workforce Plan to address the agency’s staffing requirements from 2009 to 2013, as well as a competency management system and a Learning Management System to improve staff competency information. In addition, USAID stated that enhancements must be made to the evaluation function that could strengthen the oversight of its A&A function. We acknowledge USAID’s agencywide efforts to enhance workforce planning, but maintain that the agency currently lacks sufficiently reliable staff-level data and comprehensive competency information on its overseas A&A specialists, which are key elements of a strategic workforce plan. USAID also provided technical comments, which we incorporated as appropriate.

We are sending copies of this report to interested congressional committees and the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. We will also make copies available to others on request. In addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staffs have any questions about this report, please contact me at (202) 512-9601 or melitot@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 IV.

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

To examine the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) capacity to develop and implement a strategic acquisition and assistance (A&A) workforce plan, we used GAO’s guidance on human capital management and GAO’s Framework for Assessing the Acquisition Function at Federal Agencies. We also reviewed prior assessments of USAID’s workforce planning efforts by GAO and USAID’s Office of Inspector General (OIG). To determine A&A staff levels, we analyzed and compared staffing data that USAID’s Office of Acquisition and Assistance (OAA) and the Office of Human Resources (OHR) made available to us. We also interviewed OHR officials to determine the reliability of their data. We obtained and analyzed data on the number of A&A instruments and the obligated amounts of A&A instruments for fiscal years 2002 through 2007. We assessed the reliability of these data by reviewing information about the data and the system that produced them and by interviewing agency officials knowledgeable about the data. We found USAID’s data sufficiently reliable for representing the A&A obligations and instruments. To report on USAID’s efforts in A&A workforce planning, we reviewed agency documents and interviewed agency officials, as well as evaluated these efforts according to key principles for strategic workforce planning identified in our prior work.

To examine the extent to which USAID has implemented a mechanism to evaluate its A&A function, we analyzed USAID documents and interviewed relevant USAID agency officials. Documents we examined include the President’s 1995 Executive Order on Federal Procurement Reform, applicable agency policies and directives, a past OIG report that audited USAID’s A&A evaluation program, and documents related to the Global Acquisition and Assistance System (GLAAS). We also analyzed past A&A evaluation reports, documents pertaining to the scorecard evaluation methodology, as well as the scorecard evaluations and on-site evaluation reports conducted for the piloted locations. In addition, we met with USAID officials in Washington, D.C., to discuss the A&A evaluation mechanism.

To assess the A&A function overseas, we conducted fieldwork in the following seven countries: Cambodia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Mali, Peru, and Thailand. We selected these countries to obtain geographic diversity and ensure representation of various A&A processes and organizational structures for the A&A function. In all of these countries, we met with USAID officials. In some of these countries, we also met with representatives of nongovernmental organizations (NGO) that implement A&A activities for USAID under A&A instruments. Although the findings from our fieldwork in each country are not generalizable to the population of USAID A&A activities, we determined that the selection of the countries and activities reviewed was appropriate for our design and objectives.

To obtain views from USAID staff with key A&A responsibilities, we also conducted a survey of USAID’s A&A staff between October 2007 and June 2008. The survey was sent to all USAID contracting officers (CO) in headquarters and missions, as well as all A&A specialists in headquarters. The survey contained questions related to work experience, staffing, workload, and the administration of acquisition and assistance instruments. We pretested the survey with three COs.

Our survey of A&A staff received a 95 percent response rate—150 responded out of 158 surveyed. We compared the responding A&A staff with the nonresponding A&A staff and found no significant differences between the two groups on several variables. Based on this analysis and the 95 percent response rate, we assumed that the nonrespondents were missing at random and generated statistical estimates of the population of A&A staff from the 95 percent of respondents. Given the high response rate and no indications of nonresponse bias, we considered estimates from this survey to be generalizable to the population surveyed. Because we treated our respondents as a random sample of A&A staff, our results are estimates of the population and thus are subject to sampling errors that are associated with samples of this size and type. Our confidence in the precision of the results from this sample is expressed in 95 percent confidence intervals, which are expected to include the actual results in 95 percent of the samples of this type. All percentage estimates in this report have a margin of error of no more than plus or minus 3 percent.

We conducted this performance audit from February 2007 through September 2008 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Appendix II: Overseas Locations with Authorized USAID Contracting Officer Presence as of July 2008

According to USAID’s Office of Acquisition and Assistance (OAA), the following bilateral and regional missions were authorized to have at least one on-site contracting officer (CO) present as of July 2008. These missions do not include locations with on-site acquisition and assistance specialists who work with a remotely located CO. Countries are grouped by regions, as determined by OAA.

Appendix III: Comments from the U.S. Agency for International Development

The following are GAO’s comments on the U.S. Agency for International Development’s letter dated September 16, 2008.

GAO Comments

1. USAID noted that our final reporting objectives differed from the original objectives we provided to the agency when we commenced our review in early 2007. In its comments, the agency misinterpreted our reporting only on certain aspects of the A&A function as an indication that other aspects of the A&A function are largely in sound condition. During the course of GAO engagements, the final reporting objectives and the scope of the review are sometimes refined based upon information obtained during the planning and design phase. For example, we did not report on the proper organizational alignment of USAID’s A&A function because USAID officials were unable to adequately demonstrate significant impediments as a result of its placement within USAID’s Management Bureau. 2. USAID stated that the agency does not possess the authority to simply transfer locally engaged staff to other missions to meet the demands of missions with greater workloads. It also noted that overseas programs and funding fluctuate and mission management can be hesitant to make abrupt hiring or staff reduction decisions in the short term. We recognize that mission management determines how to allocate resources within missions and some of the staffing decisions pertaining to overseas A&A specialists are made outside of OAA. Our report emphasized that key elements of an agency’s strategic workforce plan include determining the critical skills and competencies of its staff, addressing gaps in staff numbers and deployment, and aligning human capital approaches regardless of location. A past OIG report also recommended the development of an A&A workforce plan that includes a mechanism for collecting and analyzing A&A data to allow managers to compare current staffing patterns to developing trends, match staff to workloads, and adjust quickly when unbalanced workloads develop. We maintain that without accurately identifying the number of overseas A&A staff, the agency can neither determine the appropriate levels of staff with requisite competencies to manage missions’ A&A workloads, nor explore ways of making necessary adjustments to gaps in mission A&A staff levels and competencies as well as imbalances in workloads. 3. USAID commented that when requested by missions, OAA provides routine assistance such as temporary duty staff for end-of-fiscal-year surges. In our report, we cite several instances of USAID not addressing staffing imbalances at its overseas missions. We maintain that OAA’s approach of providing temporary assistance is not a substitute for strategic workforce planning that includes key elements such as reliable and up-to-date data on the number and competencies of its overseas A&A workforce. Without this information, USAID cannot systematically address its critical staffing needs and adjust its staffing patterns to meet those needs. 4. USAID commented that it had already begun to enhance the evaluation function by establishing the Contract Review Board, which reviews all procurements of $10 million or more at the solicitation, competitive range, and award stages. Although we agree that this mechanism is an important oversight mechanism during the early phases of the A&A process, our review focused on the oversight of the A&A function at the administration stage, which commences after the awarding of the A&A instrument and entails USAID’s monitoring of contractor performance for the A&A instruments.

Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

Staff Acknowledgments

In addition to the contact named above, Zina Merritt (Assistant Director), James Ashley, Debbie Chung, Mark Dowling, Joel Grossman, Tracy Guerrero, Clarette Kim, John Krump, Victoria Lin, James Strus, and William Woods made key contributions to this report.