Audit of USAID/Niger management

financial management policies, and efforts to balance workloads with staff and budget resources. Audit covers FY 1983-87 and is based on tests of vouchers for $1.6 million spent in FY 1986, interviews with USAID/N and Africa Bureau officials, and document review. USAID/N has made good progress in improving its project monitoring, financial management, and staff efficiency since 1983. It has increased project evaluations and development sector assessments, improved data collection systems, held more staff meetings and reviews to analyze project progress, established internal controls to verify host country accounting, and hired contractors to balance out reductions in direct hire staffing. Further improvements can be made, however. (1) In the area of project monitoring, USAID/N"s data collection, analysis, and reporting procedures are still weak, a problem which should have been, but was not, identified in the Mission"s vulnerability assessments. (2) USAID/N"s financial management needs improvement in three areas: assessing host country contracting abilities; providing for audit in project design; and controlling voucher approval and payment procedures. These weaknesses are due in part to the Mission"s failure to establish guidance on the implementation of A.I.D. financial management policies. (3) The Mission has taken several steps to improve staff efficiency, e.g., expanded training, prepared an operations manual, and installed computer equipment. However, it has not yet developed a comprehensive training plan for foreign national staff and it has neither kept the operations manual fully up to date, nor made maximum use of its computer capabilities. Finally, a system is needed to assess if the Mission has the necessary staff and budget resources to manage its workload. Recommendations are for USAID/N to (1) improve project monitoring through improving data collection and analysis, establishing qualitative and quantitative benchmarks against which to measure project progress, and periodically reviewing the system; (2) improve project financial management by requiring project papers to assess host country contracting agencies" competency, establishing procedures to require an evaluation of the need for audit in project papers, and requiring voucher payment and approval controls to be tested annually; and (3) include specific staff training and funding needs in staff development plans, update the operations manual for use as a training tool, and place greater emphasis on obtaining and utilizing computer software programs to organize project management.