From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Counterterrorism Efforts in Africa Description: Audio interview by GAO staff with Charles Johnson Jr., Director, International Affairs and Trade Related GAO Work: GAO-14-518: U.S. Efforts in Northwest Africa Would Be Strengthened by Enhanced Program Management and GAO-14-502: Combating Terrorism: State Department Can Improve Management of East Africa Program Released: June 2014 [ Background Music ] [ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report; your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. It's June 2014. From the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa, to recent al Qaeda and Boko Haram attacks in Northwest Africa, events have suggested that both regions are vulnerable to terrorism and violent extremism. Two teams led by Charles Johnson, Jr., a director in GAO's International Affairs and Trade team, recently reviewed counterterrorism efforts in Northwest and East Africa. GAO's Sarah Kaczmarek sat down with Charles to talk about what they found. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] With the nearly daily attacks by Boko Haram in Nigeria including the kidnapping of more than 230 female students, what's the U.S. doing to stop the spread of terrorist ideology in Northwest Africa? [ Charles Johnson Jr.: ] Well Sarah, our most recent report points out that the United States since 2005 has conducted a program in Northwest Africa called the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership, referred to as TSCTP. It's the primary U.S. counterterrorism initiative in that part of the region and includes about 11 partner nations of which Nigeria is one of them, obviously, given Boko Haram is an issue in Nigeria. The U.S. has used TSCTP as a effort to build our partner capacity to address terrorist threats from groups such as Boko Haram and al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb. Some of the particular activities that have come out of this initiative are, you know, vocational training for at-risk youth, as well as public diplomacy initiatives to encourage some of the youth to oppose or reject the violent extremism. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] How much money is the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Partnership spending to address this threat, and how do they know whether the money is being spent effectively? [ Charles Johnson Jr.: ] Well let me start by noting when GAO looked at this issue previously, we reported back on 2008 on this particular initiative, but I'd like to focus on our most recent numbers coming out of our latest report, and we report that between fiscal year 2009 to 2013 the U.S has allocated about $300 million for the TSCTP efforts. With respect to how much money's been spent, well that was one of the big findings that came out of our report. We found out that many of the program managers at the State Department, as well as USAID, our Agency for International Development, were not routinely collecting or tracking data on the amount of funds that have been disbursed, and so in particular we weren't able to readily gain that information. We were able to collect it eventually, but it took several months to get that data. Some of the things there that we think going forward are important is that, you know, they need to have that visibility in order to assess how well the program is doing. So that's something we touch on in our report. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] And let me turn to efforts in East Africa. Your team also looked at efforts to combat terrorism there. What role did you find the U.S. is playing? [ Charles Johnson Jr.: ] Well similar to the initiative we have in Northwest Africa, the U.S. does have a counterterrorism initiative in East Africa. We looked particularly at one of those programs. From the larger perspective, the U.S. has invested about a billion dollars in East Africa in combating terrorism in particular in building our partner capacity there, and we're talking about 12 partner nations there in East Africa, as I mentioned, there were 11 in Northwest Africa there are 12 here in East Africa. The effort there is to address the threats emanating out of Somalia particularly al Shabaab in particular, and as I mentioned there's a billion dollars invested in East Africa to combat terrorism, but the program we looked at is roughly about a $100 million it's called the Partnership for Regional East Africa Initiative. That particular initiative is looking at increasing the investigative ability of the Somalia police units to combat the terrorist threats as well, communication equipment for the Ethiopian military, as well as providing computer literacy training for teachers in Kenya who are working with at-risk youth. [Sarah Kaczmarek:] Finally, for those concerned with this national security threat, what do you see is the bottom line here? [ Charles Johnson Jr.: ] Well I mean terrorist groups like Boko Haram, al Shabaab and others, AQ affiliates who were in that part of the region, continues to be a threat to the U.S. national security interests, as well as our foreign partners in that part of the world, and the U.S. has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in this initiative and there are plans going forward to potentially consider a counterterrorism partner fund, roughly about $5 billion. We think it's important that the program managers, whether it's any of these two programs that we talked about, as well as the future program looking at the counterterrorism fund, need to have visibility into the funds as well as the actual programs, so we make recommendations in our report to enhance the ability of the U.S. program managers to routinely and readily provide information on the status of the funds, as well as the specific activities that are being funded by these programs for which the U.S. taxpayers are investing hundreds of millions of dollars. This is really important as future decisions are made, as well as to avoid any overlap, duplication, or fragmentation of U.S. efforts. [ Background Music ] [ Narrator: ] To learn more, visit GAO.gov and be sure to tune in to the next episode of GAO's Watchdog Report for more from the congressional watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office.