When AFRICOM was designated fully operational on September 30, 2008, it consolidated the responsibility for DOD activities in Africa that had previously been shared by the U.S. Central, European, and Pacific Commands. AFRICOM’s area of responsibility includes the countries on the African continent, with the exception of Egypt, as well as its island nations. The command’s mission is to work in concert with other U.S. government agencies and international partners to conduct sustained security engagement through military-to-military programs, military- sponsored activities, and other military operations as directed to promote a stable and secure African environment in support of U.S. foreign policy. According to AFRICOM, it received about $340 million in funding in fiscal year 2009. In addition to AFRICOM’s headquarters, the command is supported by military service component commands, a special operations command, and a Horn of Africa task force (see fig. 1). AFRICOM’s Navy Forces and Marine Corps components were designated fully operational on October 1, 2008, and its Air Force, Army, and special operations command components on October 1, 2009. The task force was transferred to AFRICOM on October 1, 2008. All components have begun carrying out activities under AFRICOM. As of June 2010, AFRICOM reported that the command and its components had about 4,400 assigned personnel and forces. About 2,400 of these personnel were based at locations in Europe, and about 2,000 personnel—about 400 staff and about 1,600 forces—were assigned to the command’s Horn of Africa task force at Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti. AFRICOM also stated that there could be between 3,500 to about 5,000 rotational forces deployed during a major exercise. When AFRICOM was established, it inherited the activities previously conducted by its predecessors. Many of these activities reflect DOD’s shift toward building the security capacity of partner states, a mission area noted in the department’s 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review. Building security capacity furthers the U.S. objective of securing a peaceful and cooperative international order and includes such activities as bilateral and multilateral training and exercises, foreign military sales and financing, officer exchange programs, educational opportunities at professional military schools, technical exchanges, and efforts to assist foreign security forces in building competency and capacity. In particular, AFRICOM’s inherited activities to build partner capacity, some of which involve coordination with State, range from efforts to train African soldiers in conducting peacekeeping operations to assisting African nations in combating terrorism, and they include one of the largest U.S. military activities in Africa, Operation Enduring Freedom–Trans Sahara. The areas of responsibility and examples of activities transferred to AFRICOM from the U.S. Central, European, and Pacific Commands are presented in figure 2. AFRICOM emphasizes that it works in concert with interagency partners, such as USAID, to ensure that its plans and activities directly support U.S. foreign policy objectives. On the African continent, DOD focuses on defense, State plans and implements foreign diplomacy, and USAID leads foreign development, including efforts to support economic growth and humanitarian assistance. DOD issued Joint Publication 3-08 in March 2006 to provide guidance to facilitate coordination between DOD and interagency organizations. The publication acknowledged that the various U.S. government agencies’ differing, and sometimes conflicting, goals, policies, procedures, and decision-making techniques make unity of effort a challenge, but noted that close coordination and cooperation can help overcome challenges. The 2008 National Defense Strategy identified AFRICOM as an example of DOD’s efforts toward collaborating with other U.S. government departments and agencies and working to achieve a whole-of-government approach. Additionally, the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review identified the need to continue improving DOD’s cooperation with other U.S. agencies. In particular, the report stated that DOD will work with the leadership of civilian agencies to support those agencies’ growth and their overseas operations so that the appropriate military and civilian resources are put forth to meet the demands of current contingencies. In our February 2009 report on AFRICOM, we noted that after DOD declared AFRICOM fully operational, concerns about AFRICOM’s mission and activities persisted among various stakeholders. Concerns included areas such as humanitarian assistance and other noncombat activities that involve non-DOD agencies and organizations. The concerns centered on the view that AFRICOM could blur traditional boundaries between diplomacy, development, and defense. In some cases, the apprehensions stemmed from DOD having more resources than other agencies and thus it could dominate U.S. activities and relationships in Africa. Among African nations, we found that there was some concern that AFRICOM would be used as an opportunity to increase the number of U.S. troops and military bases in Africa. AFRICOM has created overarching strategic guidance and has led activity planning meetings with its stakeholders such as State. However, activities are being implemented as the detailed supporting plans for conducting many activities have not yet been finalized. Moreover, AFRICOM has postponed time frames for completing several of these supporting plans by about 2 years. Without supporting plans, AFRICOM cannot ensure that the activities of its components are appropriate, comprehensive, complementary, and supportive of its mission. AFRICOM has published command-level overarching strategic guidance and has led activity planning meetings with its components and interagency partners. Strategic plans are the starting point and underpinning for a system of program goal-setting and performance measurement in the federal government. DOD strategic planning guidance, issued in 2008, requires each geographic combatant command to produce a theater campaign plan and specific posture requirements for its given area of responsibility. In September 2008, AFRICOM published its theater strategy, a 10-year strategy describing the strategic environment in which the command operates. In May 2009, the Secretary of Defense approved AFRICOM’s theater campaign plan, a 5-year plan that describes the command’s theater strategic objectives, establishes priorities to guide the command’s activities, and provides guidance to the command’s staff and components. In its theater campaign plan, AFRICOM outlined priority countries that are of strategic importance, and it identified its theater strategic objectives, such as defeating the al-Qaeda terrorist organization and associated networks in Africa; ensuring that capacity exists to respond to crises; improving security-sector governance and stability; and protecting populations from deadly contagions. AFRICOM officials said that they worked with State and USAID officials to incorporate their perspectives into the theater campaign plan. However, AFRICOM officials observed that the Africa strategies for State and USAID have different timelines from those of AFRICOM, thus posing a challenge for alignment among the command and its interagency partners. For example, AFRICOM’s theater campaign plan covers fiscal years 2010 through 2014, whereas the State/USAID strategic plan spans fiscal years 2007 through 2012. In addition to developing its theater strategy and campaign plan, AFRICOM has also led activity planning meetings for future activities. The command has held annual Theater Security Cooperation Conferences, which include officials from AFRICOM, its components, U.S. embassies, and other federal agencies. At these meetings, AFRICOM proposes activities to conduct for the following fiscal year, and it engages with other federal agency officials to coordinate and implement activities. Additionally, for individual activities, AFRICOM may hold multiple planning meetings prior to implementation. For example, for AFRICOM’s Natural Fire 10 pandemic preparedness and response activity, four phases of planning occurred during the year prior to the exercise. These phases included: concept development, in which potential focuses for the exercise were discussed; initial planning, in which the final focus of the exercise and its location were determined; main planning, in which key partners determined the activities that would make up the exercise; and final planning. Similarly, in July 2009, we observed the main planning conference for activities of the Africa Partnership Station’s USS Gunston Hall, which was deployed from March through May 2010. This conference built upon the progress of the initial planning conference, and it was followed by a final planning conference to identify specific details for the activity. During our observation of the main planning conference, we noted that AFRICOM’s Navy component engaged DOD, interagency, and African partners in the coordination of Africa Partnership Station events. Although AFRICOM has developed overarching strategic guidance and led planning meetings, it lacks specific supporting plans on conducting activities, which hinders planning and implementation efforts. As we previously reported, an agency should cascade its goals and objectives throughout the organization and should align performance measures with the objectives from the executive level down to the operational levels. While AFRICOM’s theater campaign plan identifies strategic objectives, it does not include detailed information on how to plan, implement, or evaluate specific activities. Rather, the theater campaign plan states that AFRICOM is to create specific supporting plans—(1) component support plans, (2) regional engagement plans, and (3) country work plans—with more detailed information. However, AFRICOM has not yet approved its military service components, special operations command, and task force support plans for use in guiding their activities. Furthermore, the command has not completed its five regional engagement plans or country work plans for Africa (see fig. 3). In reviewing AFRICOM’s theater campaign plan, we found that it provides overarching guidance but does not include specific information such as detailed activity information and the amount of effort focused on specific countries or regions. Rather, AFRICOM’s theater campaign plan sta specific supporting plans will provide this information.