Former Soviet Union: U.S. Rule of Law Assistance Has Had Limited 
Impact and Sustainability (17-MAY-01, GAO-01-740T).		 
								 
This testimony discusses the U.S. government's rule of law	 
assistance efforts in the new independent states of the former	 
Soviet Union. GAO found that these efforts have had limited	 
impact so far, and results may not be sustainable in many cases. 
U.S. agencies have had some success in introducing a variety of  
innovative legal concepts and practices in these countries.	 
However, the U.S. assistance has not often had a major, long-term
impact on the evolution of the rule of law in these countries. In
some cases, countries have not clearly adopted on a wide scale	 
the new concepts and practices that the United States has	 
advocated. In other cases, continuation or expansion of the	 
innovations depends on further funding from the U.S. or other	 
donors. In fact, the rule of law appears to have actually	 
deteriorated in recent years in several of these countries,	 
including Russia and Ukraine, according to the data used to	 
measure the results of U.S. development assistance in the region 
and a host of U.S. government and foreign officials. This	 
testimony summarizes the April 2001 report, GAO-01-354. 	 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-01-740T					        
    ACCNO:   A01004						        
  TITLE:     Former Soviet Union: U.S. Rule of Law Assistance Has Had 
             Limited Impact and Sustainability                                
     DATE:   05/17/2001 
  SUBJECT:   Federal aid for criminal justice			 
	     Federal aid to foreign countries			 
	     International relations				 
	     Law enforcement					 
	     Judicial reform					 
	     Foreign governments				 
	     Armenia						 
	     Georgia (Formerly Soviet Union)			 
	     Russia						 
	     Ukraine						 
	     Rule of Law Program				 

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GAO-01-740T
     
Testimony House Committee on Government Reform, Subcommittee on National
Security, Veterans Affairs, and International Relations

United States General Accounting Office

GAO For Release on Delivery Expected at 11: 00 a. m., EST Thursday, May 17,
2001 FORMER SOVIET

UNION U. S. Rule of Law Assistance Has Had Limited Impact and Sustainability

Statement of Jess T. Ford, Director, International Affairs and Trade

GAO- 01- 740T

Page 1 GAO- 01- 740T

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: I am pleased to be here today to
discuss the U. S. rule of law program in the new independent states (NIS) of
the former Soviet Union. 1 My testimony will highlight some of the major
points that we made in the report we are releasing today. 2

Since 1991, the new independent states of the former Soviet Union have been
struggling to overcome a long tradition of totalitarian rule marked by an
arbitrary system of justice and state suppression of human rights. To
support these states? transition to a more open and democratic style of
government, the U. S. government has committed about $216 million in
assistance from fiscal years 1992 through 2000 to help them develop the
sustainable institutions, traditions, and legal foundations for establishing
a strong rule of law. The U. S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
has administered about 49 percent of this funding while Justice (25
percent), State (22 percent), and Treasury (4 percent) administer the rest.
3

What do we mean by the term ?rule of law?? According to the U. S. Agency for
International Development, the rule of law is premised on a government being
able to provide a predictable and transparent legal system. Fair and
effective judicial and law enforcement institutions to protect citizens
against the arbitrary use of state authority and lawless acts are also a
basic part of such a system.

My discussion of whether the U. S. government?s rule of law program in the
new independent states has been effective will focus on (1) our assessment
of the extent to which the program has had an impact on the development of
the rule of law and whether program results were

1 These nations are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and
Uzbekistan. 2 See U. S. Rule of Law Assistance Has Had Limited Impact (GAO-
01- 354, Apr. 17, 2001).

3 Almost all funding for rule of law assistance in the new independent
states of the former Soviet Union, authorized under the Freedom Support Act
of 1992, is appropriated to USAID and the Department of State. A portion of
this money is allocated to the Departments of Justice and the Treasury
through interagency fund transfers.

Page 2 GAO- 01- 740T

sustainable 4 and (2) our identification of factors affecting the program?s
impact and sustainability.

Our review focused primarily on Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, and Georgia,
countries where the U. S Agency for International Development has defined
the development of the rule of law as a strategic objective. 5 We conducted
fieldwork in Russia and Ukraine, which have received about half of the total
U. S. rule of law assistance to this region, and interviewed numerous U. S.
government and host- country officials, as well as representatives of many
nongovernmental organizations and other project beneficiaries.

The U. S. government?s rule of law assistance efforts in the new independent
states of the former Soviet Union have had limited impact so far, and
results may not be sustainable in many cases. U. S. agencies have had some
success in introducing a variety of innovative legal concepts and practices
in these countries. For example, the United States helped establish legal
education clinics in Russian and Ukrainian law schools to provide practical
training for future lawyers as well as greater access by the poor to legal
remedies for their problems. However, the U. S. assistance has not often had
a major, long- term impact on the evolution of the rule of law in these
countries. In some cases, countries have not clearly adopted on a wide scale
the new concepts and practices that the United States has advocated. In
other cases, continuation or expansion of the innovations depends on further
funding from the U. S. government or other donors. In fact, the rule of law
appears to have actually deteriorated in recent years in several of these
countries, including Russia and Ukraine, according to data used to measure
the results of U. S. development assistance in the region and a host of U.
S. government and foreign officials we interviewed during our study.

It is clear that establishing the rule of law is a complex and long- term
undertaking in the new independent states, where laws and institutions were
designed to further the power of the state. In our review, we found that the
impact and sustainability of U. S. rule of law programs have been

4 Sustainability is the extent to which the benefits of a program extend
beyond the program?s life span. 5 According to the agency, a strategic
objective is the most ambitious result that a U. S. Agency for International
Development operating unit, such as a country mission, can materially
affect, and for which it is willing to be held accountable. Summary

Page 3 GAO- 01- 740T

affected by a number of factors, including a limited political consensus for
reform, foreign government budget constraints to institutionalize some of
the more expensive innovations, and weaknesses in how the U. S. agencies
designed and implemented these programs. The first two factors have created
a very difficult environment in which to foster rule of law development. As
a result, many key legal and institutional improvements have yet to be made,
including the passage of some post- Soviet- era criminal and civil codes and
procedures. Achieving real progress in this area is likely to take many more
years and will be highly dependent on host country willingness to undertake
meaningful political reforms.

Moreover, U. S. agencies have not always designed and implemented these aid
projects with an emphasis on achieving sustainable outcomes and monitoring
program impact and sustainability. The Departments of State, Justice, and
the Treasury have not developed specific strategies for achieving long- term
objectives, or desired ?outcomes,? of their assistance projects, such as
reforming national law enforcement practices. Instead, efforts have focused
on achieving short- term ?outputs,? such as training a finite number of
people. Further, none of the agencies, including USAID, have effective
monitoring and evaluation systems in place to fully assess the longer- term
results and sustainability of their efforts. Recently, U. S. agencies have
begun to pay increased attention to improving project planning and
evaluation and are in the process of making program reforms. However, the U.
S. government has committed, but not yet spent, approximately $30 million
for law enforcement training projects, many of which still have these
management weaknesses. Unless these funds are reprogrammed for other
purposes or the projects are redesigned, these projects may have limited
impact and sustainability.

In our report on this program we recommended that the Secretary of State,
the Attorney General, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the USAID
Administrator require that each rule of law project that their agencies
implement be designed with (1) specific strategies for achieving impact and
sustainable results and (2) a provision for monitoring and evaluating
outcomes. In commenting on a draft of our report, State, Justice, and USAID
generally agreed with our recommendations and indicated that they have begun
to undertake some management improvements. 6 However, these agencies were
concerned that we measured program success by too high a standard given the
complex and long- term task of

6 The Department of Treasury did not comment on the report draft.

Page 4 GAO- 01- 740T

establishing the rule of law and that we did not adequately acknowledge some
of the program?s positive accomplishments. We modified our report, as
appropriate, to address these and other agency comments, but our conclusions
remain essentially unchanged.

Despite some positive developments, U. S. rule of law assistance in the new
independent states of the former Soviet Union has achieved limited results,
and the sustainability of those results is uncertain. Experience has shown
that establishing the rule of law in the new independent states is a complex
undertaking and is likely to take many years to accomplish. Although the
United States has succeeded in exposing these countries to innovative legal
concepts and practices that could lead to a stronger rule of law in the
future, we could not find evidence that many of these concepts and practices
have been widely adopted. At this point, many of the U. S.- assisted reforms
in the new independent states are dependent on continued donor funding to be
sustained.

Despite nearly a decade of work to reform the systems of justice in the new
independent states of the former Soviet Union, progress in establishing the
rule of law in the region has been slow overall, and serious obstacles
remain. As shown in table 1, according to Freedom House, a U. S. research
organization that tracks political developments around the world, the new
independent states score poorly in the development of the rule of law, and,
as a whole, are growing worse over time. These data, among others, have been
used by USAID and the State Department to measure the results of U. S.
development assistance in this region. U. S. Assistance Has

Had; Limited Results Project Sustainability in Question

Rule of Law Remains Elusive in the New Independent States

Page 5 GAO- 01- 740T

Table 1: Rule of Law Ratings for the New Independent States, 1997- 2000
Country 1997 1998 1999- 2000 Trend

Armenia 4. 75 5. 00 5. 00 Worse Azerbaijan 5. 50 5. 50 5. 50 No change
Belarus 6. 00 6. 25 6. 50 Worse Georgia 5. 00 4. 75 4. 00 Better Kazakhstan
5.00 5.25 5.50 Worse Kyrgyzstan 4.50 4.50 5.00 Worse Moldova 4. 25 4. 00 4.
00 Better Russia 4. 00 4. 25 4. 25 Worse Tajikistan 6.25 6.00 5.75 Better
Turkmenistan 6.75 6.75 6.75 No change Ukraine 3. 75 4. 00 4. 50 Worse
Uzbekistan 6. 50 6. 50 6. 50 No change Average for new independent states
5.19 5.23 5.27 Worse Average for other post- Communist states 3.04 3.39 3.28
Worse

Note: Ratings are based on a scale from 1 to 7, with 1 as the best rating.
Source: Freedom House, Nations in Transit (Washington, D. C.: Freedom House,
1997, 1998, 1999- 2000).

In the two new independent states where the United States has devoted the
largest amount of rule of law funding- Russia and Ukraine- the situation
appears to have deteriorated in recent years. The scores have improved in
only one of the four countries (Georgia) in which USAID has made development
of the rule of law one of its strategic objectives and the United States has
devoted a large portion of its rule of law assistance funding.

I want to emphasize that we did not use these aggregate measures alone to
reach our conclusions about the impact and sustainability of U. S.
assistance. Rather, we reviewed many of the projects in each of the key
elements of U. S. assistance. We examined the results of these projects,
assessing the impact they have had as well as the likelihood that that
impact would continue beyond U. S. involvement in the projects.

The U. S. government funds a broad range of activities as part of its rule
of law assistance. This includes efforts aimed at helping countries develop
five elements of a modern legal system (see Fig. 1):

1. a post- communist foundation for the administration of justice, Five
Elements of the U. S.

Rule of Law Assistance Program

Page 6 GAO- 01- 740T

2. an efficient, effective, and independent judiciary, 3. practical legal
education for legal professionals, 4. effective law enforcement that is
respectful of human rights, and 5. broad public access to and participation
in the legal system. In general, USAID implements assistance projects
primarily aimed at development of the judiciary, legislative reform, legal
education, and civil society. The Departments of State, Justice, and the
Treasury provide assistance for criminal law reform and law enforcement
projects.

Figure 1: Key Elements of U. S. Rule of Law Assistance Program

Source: GAO

A key focus of the U. S. rule of law assistance program has been the
development of a legal foundation for reform of the justice system in the
new independent states. U. S. projects in legislative assistance have been
fruitful in Russia, Georgia, and Armenia, according to several evaluations
of this assistance, which point to progress in passing key new laws. For
example, according to a 1996 independent evaluation of the legal reform
assistance program, major advances in Russian legal reform occurred in Legal
Foundation; Some

Key Reforms Have Been Passed, but Others Remain Unfinished

LEGAL FOUNDATION Laws, Codes, and Procedures

RULE OF LAW ASSISTANCE PROGRAM

Prosecutors, Police,

Other Enforcement

Agencies Nongovernmental

Organizations, General Population Courts,

Judges, Bailiffs, Administrators,

Judicial Institutions JUDICIARY

Law Schools, Students,

Lawyers, Legal Associations

LEGAL EDUCATION LAW

ENFORCEMENT CIVIL SOCIETY A

Page 7 GAO- 01- 740T

areas that USAID programs had targeted for support, including a new civil
code and a series of commercial laws and laws reforming the judiciary. 7

Despite considerable progress in a few countries, major gaps persist in the
legal foundation for reform. In particular, Ukraine, a major beneficiary of
U. S. rule of law assistance, has not yet passed a new law on the judiciary
or new criminal, civil, administrative, or procedure codes since a new
constitution was passed in 1996. Furthermore, a major assistance project
aimed at making the Ukrainian parliament more active, informed, and
transparent has not been successful, according to U. S. and foreign
officials we interviewed. In Russia, the government has still not adopted a
revised criminal procedure code, a key component of the overall judicial
reform effort, despite assistance from the Department of Justice in
developing legislative proposals. According to a senior Justice official,
Russia is still using the autocratic 1963 version of the procedure code that
violates fundamental human rights.

The second element in the U. S. government?s rule of law program has been to
foster an independent judiciary with strong judicial institutions and well-
trained judges and court officers who administer decisions fairly and
efficiently. The United States has contributed to greater independence and
integrity of the judiciary by supporting key new judicial institutions and
innovations in the administration of justice and by helping to train or
retrain many judges and court officials. For example, in Russia, USAID
provided training, educational materials, and other technical assistance to
strengthen the Judicial Department of the Supreme Court. This new
independent institution was created in 1998 to assume the administrative and
financial responsibility for court management previously held by the
Ministry of Justice. USAID and the Department of Justice have also supported
the introduction of jury trials in 9 of Russia?s 89 regions for the first
time since 1917. Although the jury trial system has not expanded beyond a
pilot phase, administration of criminal justice has been transformed in
these regions- acquittals, unheard of during the Soviet era, are increasing
under this system (up to 16.5 percent of all jury trials by the most recent
count).

However, U. S. efforts we reviewed to help retool the judiciary have had
limited impact so far. USAID assistance efforts aimed at improving

7 USAID Programs Supporting Commercial Law and Other Legal Reform in the
Russian Federation (Washington, D. C.: Georgetown University, Sept. 1996).
Judiciary: Greater

Independence Achieved in Some Respects, but Continued Reform and Retraining
Needed

Page 8 GAO- 01- 740T

training for judges have had relatively little long- term impact.
Governments in Russia and Ukraine, for example, have not yet developed
judicial training programs with adequate capacity to reach the huge numbers
of judges and court officials who operate the judiciaries in these nations.
In Russia, the capacity for training judges remains extremely low. The
judiciary can train each of its 15,000 judges only about once every 10
years. In Ukraine, the two judicial training centers we visited that had
been established with USAID assistance were functioning at far below
capacity; in fact one center had been dismantled entirely. Courts still lack
full independence, efficiency, and effectiveness. Throughout the region,
much of the former structure that enabled the Soviet government to control
judges? decisions still exists, and citizens remain suspicious of the
judiciary.

The third element of the U. S. assistance program has been to modernize the
system of legal education in the new independent states to make it more
practical and relevant. The United States has sponsored a variety of special
efforts to introduce new legal educational methods and topics for both law
students and existing lawyers. Notably, USAID has introduced legal clinics
into several law schools throughout Russia and Ukraine. These clinics allow
law students to get practical training in helping clients exercise their
legal rights. They also provide a service to the community by facilitating
access to the legal system by the poor and disadvantaged. With the training,
encouragement, and financing provided by USAID, there are about 30 legal
clinics in law schools in Russia and about 20 in Ukraine. USAID has also
provided a great deal of high- quality continuing education for legal
professionals, particularly in the emerging field of commercial law.
Traditionally, little training of this type was available to lawyers in the
former Soviet Union.

However, the impact and sustainability of these initiatives are in doubt, as
indigenous institutions have not yet demonstrated the ability or inclination
to support the efforts after U. S. and other donor funding ends. For
example, in Russia, we could not identify any organizations that were
engaged in reprinting legal texts and manuals developed with U. S.
assistance. In Ukraine, U. S. assistance has not been successful in
stimulating law school reforms, and legal education remains rigidly
theoretical and outmoded by western standards. Students are not routinely
taught many skills important to the practice of law, such as advocacy,
interviewing, case investigation, negotiation techniques and legal writing.
The United States has largely been unsuccessful at fostering the development
of legal associations, such as bar associations, national judges
associations, and law school associations, to carry on this Legal Education:
More

Practical Methods Introduced but Not Widely Practiced

Page 9 GAO- 01- 740T

educational work in both Russia and Ukraine. U. S. officials had viewed the
development of such associations as key to institutionalizing modern legal
principles and practices and professional standards on a national scale as
well as serving as conduits for continuing legal education for their
members.

The fourth component of the U. S. government?s rule of law program involves
introducing modern criminal justice techniques to local law enforcement
organizations. As part of this effort, the United States has provided many
training courses to law enforcement officials throughout the new independent
states of the former Soviet Union, shared professional experiences through
international exchanges and study tours, implemented several model law
enforcement projects, and funded scholarly research into organized crime.
These programs have fostered international cooperation among law enforcement
officials, according to the Department of Justice. U. S. law enforcement
officials we spoke to have reported that, as a result of these training
courses, there is a greater appreciation among Russians and Ukrainians of
criminal legal issues for international crimes of great concern in the
United States, such as organized crime, money laundering, and narcotics and
human trafficking. They have also reported a greater willingness of law
enforcement officials to work with their U. S. and other foreign
counterparts on solving international crimes.

However, we found little evidence that the new information disseminated
through these activities has been routinely applied in law enforcement in
the new independent states. In Russia and Ukraine we could not identify any
full- scale effort in local law enforcement training institutions to
replicate or adapt the training for routine application. Nor could we find
clear evidence that the U. S. techniques have been widely embraced by
training participants. Furthermore, though the United States has sponsored
significant amounts of research on organized crime in Russia and Ukraine, we
could not determine whether the results of this research had been applied by
law enforcement agencies. Law Enforcement:

Training, Models, and Research Provided, but Routine Application Is Not
Evident

Page 10 GAO- 01- 740T

The fifth element of the rule of law assistance program is the expansion of
access by the general population to the justice system. In both Russia and
Ukraine, the United States has fostered the development of a number of
nongovernmental organizations that have been active in promoting the
interests of groups, increasing citizens? awareness of their legal rights,
and helping poor and traditionally disadvantaged people gain access to the
courts to resolve their problems. For example, in Russia, USAID has
sponsored a project that has helped trade unions and their members gain
greater access to the legal system, leading to court decisions that have
bolstered the legal rights of millions of workers. In Ukraine, environmental
advocacy organizations sponsored by USAID have actively and successfully
sued for citizens? rights and greater environmental protection.

Despite their high level of activity in recent years, these nongovernmental
organizations still face questionable long- term viability. Most
nongovernmental organizations we visited received very little funding from
domestic sources and were largely dependent upon foreign donor contributions
to operate. The sustainability of even some of the most accomplished
organizations we visited remains to be seen.

At least three factors have constrained the impact and sustainability of U.
S. rule of law assistance: (1) a limited political consensus on the need to
reform laws and institutions, (2) a shortage of domestic resources to
finance many of the reforms on a large scale, and (3) a number of
shortcomings in U. S. program management. The first two factors, in
particular, have created a very challenging climate for U. S. programs to
have major, long- term impact in these states, but have also underscored the
importance of effective management of U. S. programs.

In key areas in need of legal reform, U. S. advocates have met some steep
political resistance to change. In Ukraine and Russia, lawmakers have not
been able to reach consensus on critical new legal codes upon which reform
of the judiciary could be based. In particular, Ukrainian government
officials are deadlocked on legislation reforming the judiciary, despite a
provision in the country?s constitution to do so by June 2001. Numerous
versions of this legislation have been drafted by parties in the parliament,
the executive branch, and the judiciary with various political and other
agendas. Lack of progress on this legislation has stymied reforms throughout
the justice system. In Russia?s Duma (parliament), where the civil and the
criminal codes were passed in the mid- 1990s, the criminal procedure code
remains in draft form. According to a senior Civil Society: Awareness

and Involvement Have Increased, but Many Nongovernmental Organizations?
Activities Depend on Continued International Donor Support

Limits on Impact and Sustainability Stem From Political, Economic, and
Program Management Issues

Political Consensus on Reform Slow in Forming

Page 11 GAO- 01- 740T

Department of Justice official, the Russian prosecutor?s office is reluctant
to support major reforms, since many would require that institution to
relinquish a significant amount of the power it has had in operating the
criminal justice system. While U. S. officials help Russian groups to lobby
for legislative reforms, adoption of such reforms remains in the sovereign
domain of the host country.

In the legal education system as well, resistance to institutional reform
has thwarted U. S. assistance efforts. USAID officials in Russia told us
that Russian law professors and other university officials are often the
most conservative in the legal community and the slowest to reform. A
USAIDsponsored assessment of legal education in Ukraine found that there was
little likelihood for reform in the short term due to entrenched interests
among the school administration and faculty who were resisting change. 8

Policymakers have not reached political consensus on how or whether to
address the legal impediments to the development of sustainable
nongovernmental organizations. Legislation could be adopted that would make
it easier for these organizations to raise domestic funds and thus gain
independence from foreign donors.

Historically slow economic growth in the new independent states has meant
limited government budgets and low wages for legal professionals and thus
limited resources available to fund new initiatives. While Russia has
enjoyed a recent improvement in its public finances stemming largely from
increases in the prices of energy exports, public funds in the new
independent states have been constrained. Continuation or expansion of legal
programs initially financed by the United States and other donors has not
been provided for in government budgets. For example, in Russia, the system
of jury trials could not be broadened beyond 9 initial regions, according to
a senior judiciary official, because it was considered too expensive to
administer in the other 89 regions. In Ukraine, according to a senior police
official we spoke to, police forces often lack funds for vehicles,
computers, and communications equipment needed to implement some of the law
enforcement techniques that were presented in the U. S. sponsored training.

8 Ukraine Rule of Law Assessment and Strategy Recommendations (Washington D.
C.: Management Systems International, 1999). Weak Economic

Conditions Make Funding Reforms Difficult

Page 12 GAO- 01- 740T

U. S. agencies implementing the rule of law assistance program have not
always managed their projects with an explicit focus on achieving
sustainable results, that is, (1) developing and implementing strategies to
achieve sustainable results and (2) monitoring projects results over time to
ensure that sustainable impact was being achieved. These are important steps
in designing and implementing development assistance projects, according to
guidance developed by USAID. 9

We found that, in general, USAID projects were designed with strategies for
achieving sustainability, including assistance activities intended to
develop indigenous institutions that would adopt the concepts and practices
USAID was promoting. However, at the Departments of State, Justice, and the
Treasury, rule of law projects we reviewed often did not establish specific
strategies for achieving sustainable development results. In particular, the
law enforcement- related training efforts we reviewed were generally focused
on achieving short- term objectives, such as conducting training courses or
providing equipment and educational materials; they did not include an
explicit approach for longer- term objectives, such as promoting sustainable
institutional changes and reform of national law enforcement practices.
According to senior U. S. Embassy officials in Russia and Ukraine, these
projects rarely included follow- up activities to help ensure that the
concepts taught were being institutionalized or having long- term impact
after the U. S. trainers left the country.

We did not find clear evidence that U. S. agencies systematically monitored
and evaluated the impact and sustainability of the projects they implemented
under the rule of law assistance program. Developing and monitoring
performance indicators is important for making programmatic decisions and
learning from past experience, according to USAID. We found that the
Departments of State, Justice, and Treasury have not routinely assessed the
results of their rule of law projects. In particular, according to U. S.
agency and embassy officials we spoke to, there was usually little
monitoring or evaluation of the law enforcement training courses after they
were conducted to determine their impact. Although USAID has a more
extensive process for assessing its programs, we found

9 For more information, see ?Results- Oriented Assistance: a USAID
Sourcebook,? available on the World Wide Web at www. usaid. gov. Although
this guidance has not been formally adopted by other government agencies, it
reflects the expertise of the U. S. government?s most experienced
development agency and is instructive to all agencies involved in
development assistance. Program Management

Weaknesses Affect Impact and Sustainability of Aid

Page 13 GAO- 01- 740T

that the results of its rule of law projects in the new independent states
of the former Soviet Union were not always apparent. The results of most
USAID projects we reviewed were reported in terms of project outputs, such
as the number of USAID- sponsored conferences or training courses held, the
number and types of publications produced with project funding, or the
amount of computer and other equipment provided to courts. Measures of
impact and sustainability were rarely used.

State has recently recognized the shortcomings of its training- oriented
approach to law enforcement reforms. As a result, it has mandated a new
approach for implementing agencies to focus more on sustainable projects.
Instead of administering discrete training courses, for example, agencies
and embassies will be expected to develop longer- term projects. Justice has
also developed new guidelines for the planning and evaluation of some of its
projects to better ensure that these projects are aimed at achieving
concrete and sustainable results. 10 These reform initiatives are still in
very early stages of implementation.

It remains to be seen whether future projects will be more explicitly
designed and carried out to achieve verifiably sustainable results. One
factor that may delay the implementation of these new approaches is a
significant backlog in training courses that State has already approved
under this program. As of February 2001, about $30 million in funding for
fiscal years 1995 through 2000 has been obligated for law enforcement
training that has not yet been conducted. 11 U. S. law enforcement agencies,
principally the Departments of Justice and the Treasury, plan to continue to
use these funds for a number of years to pay for their training activities,
even though many of these activities have the same management weaknesses as
the earlier ones we reviewed. Unless these funds are reprogrammed for other
purposes or the projects are redesigned to reflect the program reforms that
State and Justice are putting in place, projects may have limited impact and
sustainability.

10 These guidelines govern projects implemented by Justice?s Criminal
Division and do not extend to other agencies within the Department that
implement law enforcement training, such as the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Immigration and
Naturalization Service.

11 The precise amount of funding is unclear as State program officials
believe that the implementing agencies may have actually conducted some
unknown amount of this training but not yet submitted necessary
documentation to State for reimbursement.

Page 14 GAO- 01- 740T

To help improve the impact and sustainability of the U. S. rule of law
program in the new independent states, we have recommended that the
Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the Secretary of the Treasury, and
the USAID Administrator, who together control almost all of the program?s
funding, require that new rule of law projects be designed with (1) specific
strategies for achieving impact and sustainable results and (2) a provision
for monitoring and evaluating outcomes. Furthermore, to improve the
likelihood that project funds currently budgeted but not yet spent achieve
sustainable results, the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, and the
Secretary of the Treasury should jointly review the current pipeline of
projects to ensure that all projects meet the above criteria, including
reprogramming of unspent assistance funds, as necessary.

In commenting on a draft of our report, State, Justice, and USAID generally
agreed with us that the program management improvements we recommended are
needed and, in some cases, have already begun to take actions consistent
with these recommendations. However, USAID and State also expressed concern
that our assessment set too high a standard for program success and did not
adequately recognize the complex and long- term nature of this development
process. Also, the agencies indicated that we did not adequately recognize
some significant program activities, achievements, and evaluation efforts.
State and USAID also expressed concern that we did not rank the three
factors that have limited the impact and sustainability of the program in
order of importance; they believe that program management weaknesses are the
least important factor and the lack of political consensus is the most
important. In the final version of our report we made revisions, where
appropriate, to address the agencies? comments. However, our overall
conclusions remain essentially unchanged.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared testimony. I would be very happy to
respond to any questions you or other members may have.

For future contacts regarding this testimony, please contact me on (202)
512- 4128. Individuals making key contributions to this testimony included
Stephen M. Lord, Jim Michels, Janey Cohen, and Mary Moutsos. Contact and

Acknowledgment

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