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This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
Remarks of J. Brian Atwood
June 10, 1998
ACVFA Public Meeting
Washington, D.C.
I am pleased to be here to participate in this quarterly public meeting of the Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid. I am especially pleased that ACVFA decided to devote the meeting to the topic of results reporting, and that the ACVFA has established a subcommittee to delve into this important area. I understand you had an interesting session this morning with representatives from other agencies and Congress to hear their perspective on the Government Performance and Results Act.I am also pleased to introduce today our new procurement Ombudsman, Barbara Brocker. Barbara has been with USAID for nearly 6 years but have been with the federal government for 11 years. She has backstopped ENI, ANE, Global and processed plenty of awards as both a negotiator and Contracting Officer. She has also been extremely active in procurement reform and was one of the leads in the design and development of the Acquisition and Assistance portion of NMS. This analysis identified potential areas of reform which were later handled as part of the Agency's official Procurement Reform effort and resulted in a lot of streamlining and improvement in the way in which procurement is conducted at USAID. I know Barbara looks forward to working closely with you.
Before I get into a discussion of results, I think it is important to take several minutes to discuss our current, and very serious, budget situation. Yesterday, I appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee, and I can tell you that we are facing serious cuts in development assistance as the budget now stands in the House and the Senate.
We are looking at the possibility of a $968 million cut below the President's request and a $200 million cut below last year's spending level. This is, however, a budget authority ceiling. The cap on outlays reduces this budget by as much as an additional $1 billion.
This is nothing short of devastating. If this budget passes, we might as well shut our doors -- and we will in most of our overseas missions. Our struggle to maintain American leadership in development will be over and our ability to preserve our national security through diplomacy and development will be severely damaged.
I have several charts with me today to illustrate the impact of these potential budget cuts. This first chart illustrates the staff reductions USAID has taken since FY-93. The total reduction is 30%. Our staff, and our development partners, are what has made USAID the best development agency in the world. These reductions included a very painful RIF of more than 160 employees in 1996.
This second chart shows the reduction in our overseas missions since 1993. We have left 28 countries in the past five years and five more are slated to be closed by the end of this fiscal year. What worries me is the extent to which we have had to cut back in Africa, Asia and Latin America. We have in fact opened nine offices in Bosnia, the West Bank Gaza and the former Soviet Union, but we are in 19 fewer places than we were in 1993 and most of those are in the developing world.
The third chart shows the President's budget request. This request provided a modest increase in USAID-managed funds of $300 million. The request, I would add, fell within the parameters of the Balanced Budget Agreement as scored by the Administration.
However, as you see, the Senate 302B allocation was almost a billion dollars below the Administration's request. And I am told that the outlay cap makes the budget authority allocation a dead letter. That outlay cap, depending on how it is calculated, could drive this appropriation down an additional $1 billion as we see here in the fourth chart.
These numbers mean a 9.4 percent overall cut in our budget from FY-98 levels. That is severe. But the cuts in unprotected development assistance would be even greater assuming, for example, that the Congress continues to protect the Child Survival and Disease account, as would appear to be likely.
If that happens, we could be taking about a 20 to 30 percent cut in the other development programs. All of you know how severe these cuts would be.It is obvious that fast spending accounts would be the hardest hit under the outlay cap. This last chart shows how we have reduced OE over the years. As you know, OE is a fast spending account that would be very hard hit by the outlay cap. One calculation I saw indicated that under the cap, our OE could be cut by almost $100 million. This is why I said we would have to shut down our operations. Ironically, we would not even be able to afford to shut down our overseas missions, yet we would have to. That is our dilemma.
We are going to work closely with the Congress to try and improve the budget outlook, but I thought it crucial that you appreciate the size of the challenge that now lies before all of us.Clearly, all of this shows we still need to do a better job informing the Congress and the public about the impact of development programs on the ground. I simply do not feel that we would have all of these problems if people could better see the results of our work.
That is why we in the Agency for International Development are committed to collecting and analyzing program results, and in fact, have been doing this for a long time because it is essential if we want to do our job well.
We and the entire U.S. government are in the midst of a massive, systemic change in how we report this information, and we have a responsibility to use taxpayer dollars wisely and to be able to communicate that better to the public.That does not mean this task is easy. I know how difficult it is both for the Agency's staff and for the PVOs and others with whom we work to report the impact of our programs.
I know that there are concerns about micromanagement, perceptions that more contracts are being used to ensure results, pressing for short-term impact when a long-term approach is appropriate, and the inconsistencies in behavior among Agency staff in reengineering training and understanding --to name a few. More rigor can even seem contrary to the spirit of reengineering as we try to streamline reporting and other internal processes.I know that some people have expressed concerns that the agency -- because of its focus on results -- is moving more toward contracts and using fewer grants and cooperative agreements.
We ran some numbers to see if this was indeed the case. The most current FY97 Agency data reflect that in excess of 50% or $1.5 billion of
the Agencies procurement budget was in the form of grants. In contrast, less than 30% of the same budget was in the form of direct
contracts. While it is a fact that the USAID is focusing more towards performance-based and results-oriented instruments, the perception that this is being accomplished by moving away from assistance instruments and towards contracts is simply not supported by the available statistics.Good planning, implementation and coordination with our development partners requires clear objectives. It is even more important to know what we are achieving so that we can more successfully work with other actors in development. Success means making a difference in the lives of the people we serve and we all agree on that.
We have a responsibility to them and to the American people who are generous in their support of those in need. We have to be able to share with them how we have used public resources and how successful we have been, if we are to be credible and gain their support for addressing future needs.
The PVOs and other development partners must also do more to share their efforts, successes, and needs to their constituencies and to the American public.But I do not want to make this all sound too simple. It is not. Results reporting is time consuming and expensive. We are still searching for the most efficient, streamlined means of gathering this information. As important as collecting the data is, its real value, the results of the effort, is in analyzing and using that information to manage even better. If we can focus on that, I think we will be able to come up with better ways of managing the reporting process so that it does not interfere with the important work we are doing.
I know that some of you have expressed dissatisfaction with specific requests for more information and we have not worked all the bugs out of the process we have followed by any means. We will continue to work on that with you and look forward to your suggestions. But I am convinced that our successes are tied to the increased understanding that comes from performance monitoring and measuring impact rather than from the old system of measuring inputs.
I recognize that there are instances where the choice of specific indicators has a narrowing effect. There is a balance here -- but in order to achieve visible, measurable change with the resources we have, we have been forced to "focus and concentrate."
Where our objectives are in sync, working with PVOs and NGOs enriches our efforts. In other instances, it is extremely important that you are able to address issue and development challenges beyond our scope in a particular area.
No matter what the Congress and the auditors want of us, we require of ourselves:
-- a commitment to the achievement of a focused set of development objectives
-- using information to understand successes so that we can replicate them, and,
-- reporting so you, we and the American people know what the results are.
Clearly embracing an approach that shows the world the impact of our programs is the only way we can escape the "ground hog day" scenario of our programs existing permanently on the brink of budget extinction. Thank you.
This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
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Last Updated on: July 18, 2001 |
