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GAO Translations: Reaching New Audiences

Posted on March 06, 2017
The federal government operates programs and provides assistance all over the world—and evaluating them can require foreign language skills. We will also, on occasion, issue summaries or full versions of our work in translation. For this week’s National Foreign Language Week, today’s WatchBlog shares some of our works in translation. Academic freedom in U.S. universities in China (Chinese) Many U.S. universities have established campuses in China. Do faculty and staff at those universities have the same academic freedoms as those in the United States? We visited 5 U.S. university campuses across China and interviewed more than 190 administrators, faculty, and students. Among other things, we found differences in internet freedom at the universities we visited—such as limited access to sites like Google. Given the broad interest in this report, we translated the summary page from this:

Internet Access Varies at Different U.S. Universities in China(Excerpted from GAO-16-757)

To this:

Internet Access Varies at Different U.S. Universities in China (Excerpted from GAO-16-757)

You can view the summary of our report in Chinese (PDF) or see the whole report in English at GAO-16-757. Private sector in Cuba (Spanish) Despite rapid growth since 2008, the Cuban private sector remains small. Federal agencies began to engage with U.S. businesses and Cuban entrepreneurs, but with uncertain results. So, we examined their efforts. Although there is a fairly nascent private sector in Cuba, we observed a variety of private businesses, including taxis, restaurants, booksellers, and auto repair shops.

Figure 5: Private Taxi in Havana (Excerpted from GAO-17-201)

Interested in seeing more examples of what we found? You can view the summary of our report in Spanish (PDF) or see the whole report in English at GAO-17-201.

Figure 4: Examples of a Cuban Private Sector Restaurant, Book Seller, and Auto Repair Shop(Excerpted from GAO-17-201)

Puerto Rican statehood (Spanish) And if you’re interested in more of our work in Spanish, you can also check out how Puerto Rican statehood could affect certain federal programs. Puerto Rico’s residents have access to many federal programs and are subject to certain federal taxes. How would that change if Puerto Rico’s status changed? Even non-Spanish speakers may be able to spot some of the federal programs we examined to answer that question. Of course, the report is also available in English.

highlights image from GAO-15-201(Excerpted from GAO-14-301)

GAO at a glance (French, Spanish, Arabic) Finally, for anyone interested in our work, our website’s “About Us” page has a brochure detailing our mission, history, workforce, and performance measures. The brochure has been translated into French, Spanish, and Arabic, mainly for use when we interact with auditors from other countries.
About Watchblog

GAO's mission is to provide Congress with fact-based, nonpartisan information that can help improve federal government performance and ensure accountability for the benefit of the American people. GAO launched its WatchBlog in January, 2014, as part of its continuing effort to reach its audiences—Congress and the American people—where they are currently looking for information.

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