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Priority Open Recommendations: U.S. Agency for International Development

GAO-22-105799 Published: May 18, 2022. Publicly Released: May 25, 2022.
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Fast Facts

Each year, we make more than 1,000 recommendations to help improve the federal government. We alert department heads to where they can save the most money, address issues on our High Risk List, or significantly improve government operations.

This report outlines our 2 priority open recommendations for the U.S. Agency for International Development as of May 2022. For example, in August 2021, we recommended that USAID establish performance measures that will help assess its progress on a global food security initiative.

Since our previous letter in May 2021, USAID implemented 3 of our priority recommendations.

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Highlights

What GAO Found

In May 2021, GAO identified three priority recommendations for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Since then, USAID has implemented all three of those recommendations by taking actions to comply with Equal Employment Opportunity requirements and improve financial information.

In May 2022, GAO identified two new priority recommendations for USAID. These recommendations involve establishing performance measures to help improve USAID’s ability to assess progress of Feed the Future, a global food security initiative.

USAID’s continued attention to these issues could lead to significant improvements in government operations.

Why GAO Did This Study

Priority open recommendations are the GAO recommendations that warrant priority attention from heads of key departments or agencies because their implementation could save large amounts of money; improve congressional and/or executive branch decision-making on major issues; eliminate mismanagement, fraud, and abuse; or ensure that programs comply with laws and funds are legally spent, among other benefits. Since 2015 GAO has sent letters to selected agencies to highlight the importance of implementing such recommendations.

For more information, contact Thomas Melito at (202) 512-4128 or melitot@gao.gov.

Full Report

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Thomas Melito
Managing Director
International Affairs and Trade

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Sarah Kaczmarek
Managing Director
Office of Public Affairs

Topics

Best practicesGovernment operationsHigh-risk issuesPerformance goalsPerformance measurementPerformance measuresSocial mediaInternational relationsFinancial informationEqual employment opportunity