Audit of AID"s monitoring system for the West Bank and Gaza program

The A.I.D. program at that time consisted of $27.3 million in expenditures, provided to five U.S. and one local PVO under ten assistance agreements; eight of the agreements were covered in this audit. A.I.D. development assistance was conducted in a difficult political and economic environment characterized by almost constant tension and occasional violence. The absence of any bilateral agreement also complicated A.I.D."s task. The audit found that A.I.D."s Near East Bureau failed to follow A.I.D. policies and procedures in performing recipient report reviews, evaluations, and site visits. Of the 35 reports from recipient PVO"s, 24 were inadequate and there is no evidence that A.I.D. proposed or took action to correct problems identified in the reports, such as delays. In addition, two PVO"s failed to submit reports on completed sub-activities, and the Bureau failed to explain or take action on this problem. The Bureau was also extremely late (from 18 to 42 months) in conducting three of four scheduled evaluations. Over a period of three years, project officers visited activities of the eight projects only four times. During calendar year 1990, no visits were made. This was insufficient given that (1) the program had a high risk of loss or improper use of resources because of the potential in the area for open hostility and related chaos and (2) the program was large, complex, and had many unresolved issues and problems. Although the Department of State did send officials to the sites, these visits did not meet A.I.D. standards in terms of documentation and monitoring. These problems in monitoring occurred for three reasons: (1) A.I.D. project officer and Department of State responsibilities for these activities were not clearly defined; (2) procedures for planning, tracking, and summarizing evaluations were not in place; and (3) project officer workloads were reportedly excessive.