Foreign Assistance: Enhanced Coordination and Better Methods to  
Assess the Results of U.S. International Basic Education Efforts 
Are Needed (30-MAR-07, GAO-07-523).				 
                                                                 
Pub. L. No. 109-102, section 567, mandated that GAO analyze U.S. 
international basic education efforts overseas. In this report,  
GAO (1) describes U.S. agencies' basic education activities and  
how the agencies plan them; (2) examines U.S. coordination of	 
basic education efforts among U.S. agencies, and with host	 
governments and international donors; and (3) examines how U.S.  
agencies assess the results of their basic education programs. In
conducting this work, GAO obtained and analyzed relevant	 
agencies' documents and met with U.S. and foreign government	 
officials and nongovernmental organizations, traveling to	 
selected recipient countries.					 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-07-523 					        
    ACCNO:   A67587						        
  TITLE:     Foreign Assistance: Enhanced Coordination and Better     
Methods to Assess the Results of U.S. International Basic	 
Education Efforts Are Needed					 
     DATE:   03/30/2007 
  SUBJECT:   Agency missions					 
	     Education						 
	     Federal funds					 
	     Foreign aid programs				 
	     Foreign governments				 
	     Interagency relations				 
	     Performance measures				 
	     Program evaluation 				 
	     Schools						 
	     Strategic planning 				 
	     International cooperation				 
	     Development assistance programs			 
	     Program goals or objectives			 

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GAO-07-523

   

     * [1]Report to Congressional Committees

          * [2]March 2007

     * [3]FOREIGN ASSISTANCE

          * [4]Enhanced Coordination and Better Methods to Assess the Results
            of U.S. International Basic Education Efforts Are Needed

     * [5]Contents

          * [6]Results in Brief
          * [7]Background

               * [8]U.S. Agencies Fund International Basic Education-Related
                 Programs

                    * [9]USAID Funded the Vast Majority of International
                      Basic Education Programs

               * [10]Special Initiatives Related to International Basic
                 Education

          * [11]State and USAID Recently Developed Strategic Planning Goals
            Relating to Basic Education; Other Agencies Support Basic
            Education- Related Activities to Achieve Agency- Specific Mission
            Goals

               * [12]State and USAID Strategic Plan Includes Broad Education
                 Goals
               * [13]State and USAID Have Implemented Basic Education
                 Activities That Align with Their Strategic Plans

                    * [14]State's Programs Target the Middle East and Muslim
                      Countries
                    * [15]USAID Programs Support Education Strategic
                      Objectives; Resources Correspond with U.S. Strategic
                      Priorities

                         * [16]USAID Programs Support Education Strategy
                         * [17]USAID Resources Directed at Strategic Partners
                           of U.S. Foreign Priorities

               * [18]Other Agencies Conduct Basic Education-Related
                 Activities in Support of Their Missions

                    * [19]Department of Agriculture
                    * [20]Department of Defense
                    * [21]Department of Labor
                    * [22]The Peace Corps
                    * [23]Millennium Challenge Corporation

          * [24]Agencies Did Not Always Coordinate International Basic
            Education-Related Activities, Which Resulted in Some Missed
            Opportunities to Collaborate and Maximize Resources

               * [25]The United States Lacked a Government-Wide Mechanism to
                 Coordinate International Basic Education Activities
               * [26]Interagency Coordination in the Eight Countries We
                 Visited Varied

                    * [27]USAID and DOL Country Coordination
                    * [28]USAID and Peace Corps
                    * [29]USAID and DOD

               * [30]The Level of U.S. Coordination with Host Governments and
                 Other Donors Varied

          * [31]Assessing Basic Education Programs' Quality Results Is
            Difficult

               * [32]Most Agencies Use Output Measures to Assess Results

                    * [33]USAID's Process for Collecting and Using
                      Performance Measures

               * [34]USAID Faces Challenges Assessing Quality-Related
                 Outcomes

                    * [35]Collecting Country-Level Data on Quality Remains a
                      Challenge for USAID
                    * [36]USAID Is Developing Methods to Better Measure
                      Improved Educational Quality

               * [37]Other Agencies Measure Progress Related to Their
                 Respective Missions
               * [38]State's Office of the DFA Is Planning to Address
                 Improving Interagency Coordination and Performance Measures
                 for All Foreign Assistance

                    * [39]DFA Plans to Improve Coordination of Foreign
                      Assistance, Including Basic Education
                    * [40]DFA Is Considering Methods for Measuring Program
                      Outcomes

          * [41]Conclusions
          * [42]Recommendations for Executive Action
          * [43]Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

     * [44]Scope and Methodology
     * [45]Recipient Countries of Activities Related to International Basic
       Education During Fiscal Year 2006
     * [46]Recipient Countries of USAID Basic Education Assistance, Funding
       Levels, and Selected World Bank's Indicators
     * [47]List of International Basic Education Projects Reviewed
     * [48]Analysis of the Performance Measures in Documentation for Selected
       International Basic Education Programs
     * [49]Comments from the Department of State

          * [50]GAO Comments

     * [51]Comments from the U.S. Agency for International Development
     * [52]Comments from the U.S. Department of Agriculture

          * [53]GAO Comments

     * [54]GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
     * [55]PDF6-Ordering Information.pdf

          * [56]Order by Mail or Phone

Report to Congressional Committees

March 2007

FOREIGN ASSISTANCE

Enhanced Coordination and Better Methods to Assess the Results of U.S.
International Basic Education Efforts Are Needed

Contents

Tables

Figures

Abbreviations

March 30, 2007 Letter

The Honorable Patrick J. Leahy
Chairman
The Honorable Judd Gregg
Ranking Minority Member
Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs
Committee on Appropriations
United States Senate

The Honorable Nita M. Lowey
Chairwoman
The Honorable Frank R. Wolf
Ranking Minority Member
Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs
Committee on Appropriations
House of Representatives

Education contributes to the advancement of developmental goals worldwide
as it impacts individual development, economic growth, poverty reduction,
and democratic governance. According to the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the international community
has made progress in expanding access to basic education in the past 10
years in every region of the world. However, in 2004, more than 77 million
children worldwide, particularly those who live in rural areas and come
from poor households, did not attend school. In addition, almost 780
million adults--one in five worldwide--two-thirds of whom are women, lack
minimum literacy skills.^1 In some countries, improved access to basic
education has been achieved through increasing student to teacher
ratios--a factor that can negatively impact the quality of education.
According to the United States Agency for International Development
(USAID), poor educational quality causes many children to repeat grades
and eventually drop out of school, often before gaining basic education
skills such as numeracy and literacy.^2

Several U.S. agencies, primarily USAID, fund and implement basic
education-related programs overseas, using nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs),^3 private organizations, and education service providers (such as
universities) to implement the programs in country. These efforts include
programs aimed at improving primary education, secondary education,
literacy training for adults or out-of-school adolescents, early childhood
development, or training for teachers at any of these levels.^4 From
fiscal years 2001 through 2006, USAID, the Departments of State (State)
and Defense (DOD), and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)
allocated^5 more than $2.2 billion to support U.S. international basic
education-related efforts. During this same period, the Departments of
Agriculture (USDA) and Labor (DOL) allocated an estimated more than $1
billion to programs that included basic education as a component, along
with support to other related aspects such as providing food to maternal
health centers and providing job training for older children to combat
child labor.

As mandated in Pub. L. No. 109-102, section 567, this report provides an
analysis of U.S.-funded international basic education programs.
Specifically, this report (1) describes U.S. agencies' basic education
activities and how the agencies plan these activities; (2) examines U.S.
coordination of basic education efforts among U.S. agencies, and with host
governments and international donors; and (3) examines how U.S. agencies
assess the results of their basic education programs.

In conducting our work, we analyzed strategic, budget, and programmatic
documents describing U.S. international basic education programs and
activities provided by State, USAID, USDA, DOD, DOL, the MCC, and the
Peace Corps that covered fiscal years 2001 through 2006. In addition, we
conducted audit work in Washington, D.C., as well as the Dominican
Republic, Egypt, Honduras, Liberia,^6 Mali, Morocco, Peru, South Africa,
and Zambia. We selected a nonprobability sample of foreign countries
designed to ensure geographic diversity and representation of basic
education programs from multiple U.S. agencies and international donors.^7
We met with representatives from State, USAID, USDA, DOD, DOL, the MCC,
and the Peace Corps; officials representing embassies and USAID missions
in the countries visited; officials administering international basic
education programs; and officials from foreign governments, NGOs, the
United Nations (UN), and other international organizations. Furthermore,
to assess U.S. mechanisms for monitoring U.S. activities, we analyzed key
project agreement documents, performance reports, and evaluations for 40
ongoing basic education projects in the eight countries visited. We
performed our work from December 2005 through March 2007 in accordance
with generally accepted government auditing standards. Appendix I provides
a more detailed description of our scope and methodology.

Results in Brief

We identified seven U.S. agencies that support activities--in over 70
countries from fiscal years 2001 through 2006--that are directly or
indirectly related to increasing access to or improving the quality of
basic education overseas. State and USAID have strategic goals specific to
promoting improved education. The other five agencies conduct basic
education-related activities in support of programs that address their
broader mission goals. Basic education-related activities include, among
other things, teacher training, student feeding, school construction, and
efforts to raise awareness of the benefits of education. The State and
USAID joint strategic plan for fiscal years 2004 to 2009 includes the
broad goal of improving education globally, with a particular focus on the
Muslim world, as well as support for programs to achieve the UN's
Millennium Declaration Goal of universal primary education by 2015. The
two agencies have implemented basic education activities that align with
these plans. State, for example, through its Middle East Partnership
Initiative (MEPI), supports activities that seek to improve access to
basic education with a specific emphasis on girls and women in several
North African and Middle Eastern countries and territories, while USAID
supports various activities to increase access to and improve the quality
of basic education and build the institutional capacity of host countries'
basic education systems. The top recipients of USAID's basic education
funding are predominately Muslim countries and countries of strategic
interest to U.S. policy goals, including Afghanistan, Egypt, Ethiopia,
Indonesia, and Pakistan. Several other U.S. agencies support basic
education-related activities as part of their overall mission goals. For
example, DOL supports education programs such as alternative school
programs as a way to remove children from exploitative work, USDA provides
school meals or take-home rations to students, and DOD constructs
dormitories and schools to provide better access for children who have to
travel long distances to attend classes.

We found that agencies did not always coordinate in the planning or
delivery of international basic education-related activities. From 2001 to
2006, there was no government-wide mechanism to facilitate interagency
collaboration and, as a result, we identified instances where agencies
missed opportunities to collaborate and maximize U.S. resources. For
example, USAID officials responsible for planning and managing USAID's
basic education programs were not present at key DOL and USDA meetings at
which the planning of overseas education-related activities were
discussed, or were not aware of some agencies' basic education-related
activities. In the eight countries we visited, we noted several instances
where project implementers in the countries did not collaborate or take
advantage of opportunities to maximize U.S. resources in areas in which
they had similar objectives of improving the quality of education. For
example, in several of these countries, DOL could have joined USAID's
efforts to effect policy reforms directed at rural youth by using USAID's
delivery mechanisms of radio and television programming, as well as
printed materials to raise public awareness of child labor issues.
Although State's Director of Foreign Assistance (DFA) has begun to address
the issue of better coordinating all U.S. foreign assistance by bringing
together core teams to discuss U.S. development priorities in each
recipient country, it is unclear to what extent these efforts will be
accepted and implemented by agencies whose foreign assistance programs are
not under DFA's direct authority. In addition, we found that the level of
U.S. coordination with host governments and other donors in the eight
countries we visited also varied. We observed stronger coordination in
countries with strong national commitments to education reform and formal
donor working groups on education, as well as in those countries
implementing activities in support
of the World Bank's Education for All Fast Track Initiative.^8 We observed
weaker coordination in countries that lacked a lead donor or host
government commitment to convening donor meetings. Most donors that we
interviewed acknowledged that further improvements in coordination could
result in more efficient delivery of assistance. Without effective
coordination, donors cannot easily monitor or assess the host government's
progress toward achieving international goals, such as Education for All
by 2015, one of State-USAID's strategic goals.

While U.S. agencies we reviewed conduct basic education-related programs
to achieve different goals, most collect and use output measures to assess
and report on the results of their activities. Output measures are the
direct products and services delivered by a program, such as numbers of
schools built or children enrolled. USAID is the only agency with an
education-specific goal of increasing access to quality basic education,
and while USAID can measure education access through outputs such as the
numbers of students enrolled in primary school programs, it does not, in
many instances, measure education quality--a key goal of its programs.
Outcome measures are the results of products and services provided, such
as increased literacy and numeracy rates, which are indicators of improved
education quality. Our analysis showed that USAID can report on some
quality-related outcomes, such as primary school retention rates. However,
it faces challenges in collecting valid and reliable data on student
learning in areas such as math and reading. According to USAID and the
UNESCO, student testing results are a good outcome measure of increased
educational quality. To better assess its goal of improving access to
quality education, USAID is developing a standardized test that could
provide data on primary-level reading ability and would be comparable
across countries. In addition, State's DFA plans to work toward developing
methods to assess whether all foreign assistance programs are achieving
their goals; however, these efforts are only in the early discussion
phase. Without this information, agency officials cannot determine if the
programs are achieving their strategic goals.

This report contains several recommendations to the Secretary of State.
Specifically, it recommends that the Secretary of State work with the
heads of other U.S. executive agencies supporting international basic
education-related activities in (1) improving interagency coordination of
basic education efforts at headquarters in Washington and in recipient
countries to facilitate better planning and allocation of U.S. resources
and (2) developing a plan to identify indicators that would help U.S.
agencies, to the extent practicable, track improvements in access to
quality education.

We received written comments on the draft of this report from State,
USAID, and USDA (see apps. VI, VII, and VIII) indicating that they
generally concurred with our recommendations. We also received technical
comments on this draft from State, USAID, DOL, the MCC, and the Peace
Corps, which we incorporated where appropriate.

Background

Basic education is defined in this report as all program efforts aimed at
improving early childhood development, primary education, and secondary
education, as well as training in literacy, numeracy, and other basic
skills for adults or out-of-school youth. Basic education also includes
efforts that facilitate and support such learning activities, including
building host countries' institutional capacity to manage basic education
systems and measure results, constructing and rehabilitating schools,
training teachers, increasing parent and community involvement in schools,
providing learning materials, and developing curricula.

Education for All is a major goal of the international donor community. At
Jomtien, Thailand, in March 1990, representatives of the global education
community held the "World Conference on Education for All" and declared
universal access to education as a fundamental right of all people. In
April 2000, the "World Education Forum"^9 met in Dakar, Senegal, where
delegates from 181 nations adopted a framework for action committing their
governments to achieve quality basic education for all--including ensuring
that by 2015, all children--especially girls, children in difficult
circumstances, and those from ethnic minorities--have access to completely
free primary education of good quality. The framework committed these
nations to the attainment of six specific goals dealing with early
childhood education, universal primary education, life-skills programs,
adult literacy, gender disparities, and quality assurance. The United
States supports this international commitment, as well as the UN's
Millennium Development Goal--to achieve universal completion of primary
school by 2015.

U.S. Agencies Fund International Basic Education-Related Programs

From fiscal years 2001 through 2006, USAID, State, DOD, and MCC allocated
more than $2.2 billion to support U.S. international basic
education-related efforts. See table 1 for these agencies' funding
allocations specifically for basic education-related programs.

Table 1: Agencies' Funding Allocations for Programs with International
Basic Education-Related Activities

                                        

      Dollars in     
       millions      
        Agency       FY 2001 FY 2002 FY 2003 FY 2004 FY 2005 FY 2006  Total^d 
USAID^a            $161.6  $232.0  $339.2  $520.4  $413.0  $504.0 $2,170.3 
State^b                 0     0.8    14.7     8.9     2.8     2.0    $29.2 
DOD                   2.3     1.6     2.1     6.0     3.9     0.3    $16.2 
MCC                 N/A^c     N/A     N/A       0    12.9       0    $12.9 
Total^d            $163.9  $234.5  $356.1  $535.3  $432.6  $506.3 $2,228.6 

Source: U.S. agencies' data.

Note: $0 indicates no allocated amounts. The Peace Corps is not included
because it does not track funding by program sector.

^aFigures shown for USAID funding include funds transferred from State for
USAID-implemented MEPI programs.

^bFigures shown for State's funding include funds for State-implemented
MEPI programs.

^cN/A: not applicable because the MCC was not established until 2004.

^dTotals may not add due to rounding.

During this same period, USDA and DOL allocated an estimated more than $1
billion to programs that included a basic education component that
supported their broader mission goals. For example, funding for USDA's
Food for Education program includes basic education activities along with
other components, such as providing maternal health centers. Similarly,
DOL's funding for its programs to combat child labor combines basic
education-related efforts and other activities, such as job training for
older children and income generation opportunities for parents. In
addition, the Peace Corps could not identify funding levels specific to
basic education because it does not track funding by individual program
sectors, rather by overall country programs. This is because volunteers
sometimes implement projects in multiple program sectors. Furthermore,
other than USAID, U.S. agencies do not have a standard, government-wide,
formal definition of basic education or a requirement to report their
funding of international basic education activities to a central U.S.
government source. See table 2 for these agencies' funding allocations for
programs with international basic education-related components.

Table 2: Other Agencies' Funding Allocations for Programs with
International Basic Education-Related Components That Support Broader
Mission Goals

                                        

      Dollars in     
       millions      
        Agency       FY 2001 FY 2002 FY 2003 FY 2004 FY 2005 FY 2006  Total^a 
USDA               $178.3   $89.9   $93.1   $49.6   $89.7   $98.7   $599.3 
DOL                  81.0    77.5    80.1    75.9    72.3    53.6   $440.4 
Total^a            $259.3  $167.4  $173.2  $125.5  $162.0  $152.3 $1,039.6 

Source: U.S. agencies' data.

^aTotals may not add due to rounding.

See appendix II for the countries receiving basic education-related
assistance by implementing U.S. agency in fiscal year 2006.

USAID Funded the Vast Majority of International Basic Education Programs

From fiscal years 2001 through 2006, USAID funded the majority of U.S.
international basic education programs, allocating more than $2.1 billion
to implement programs in about 60 countries worldwide. USAID used
appropriated funds designated by Congress for basic education and other
supplemental appropriations.^10 In addition to the congressionally

designated basic education funds,^11 USAID used other appropriated funds,
including supplemental appropriations^12 and funding for MEPI activities,
to fund basic education activities abroad. By region, Asia and the Near
East received the highest level of USAID's allocated basic education funds
at approximately $1 billion, followed by Africa at almost $750 million,
Latin America and the Caribbean at around $272 million, and Europe and
Eurasia at about $51 million. See figure 1 for a map of the 60 recipient
countries of USAID's basic education funding, ranked by total basic
education allocations from fiscal years 2001 through 2006.

Figure 1: Recipient Countries of USAID Basic Education Assistance

Special Initiatives Related to International Basic Education

Since fiscal year 2001, the United States has launched several major
education initiatives that direct missions to focus on specific types of
basic education activities in certain regions, such as Africa, Latin
America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East, to address educational
challenges in those regions. Figure 2 summarizes these initiatives.

Figure 2: Special Initiatives, Supported by the United States, Related to
International Basic Education

State and USAID Recently Developed Strategic Planning Goals Relating to
Basic Education; Other Agencies Support Basic Education-Related Activities
to Achieve Agency-Specific Mission Goals

The State and USAID joint strategic plan for fiscal years 2004 to 2009
includes the broad goal of improving education globally, with a particular
focus on the Muslim world, as well as support for programs to achieve the
United Nations' Millennium Declaration Goal of universal primary education
by 2015. State and USAID have implemented basic education activities that
align with these goals. Several other U.S. agencies support activities
that directly or indirectly relate to increasing access to or improving
the quality of international basic education.

State and USAID Strategic Plan Includes Broad Education Goals

State and USAID have strategic goals specific to promoting improved
education. Although State and USAID have supported assistance activities
relating to education for decades, neither agency had agency-wide
strategies to guide these activities until early 2000. Moreover, State's
September 2000 strategic plan only included references to improving
education as part of the broader goal of promoting broad-based growth in
developing and transitioning economies to raise standards of living,
reduce poverty, and lessen disparities of wealth within and among
countries. The State and USAID joint Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2004
to 2009,^13 includes, for the first time for these agencies, education as
a strategic goal. According to the strategic plan, State and USAID will
promote improved education globally, with a particular focus on the Muslim
world, as well as support the development goals of the UN's Millennium
Declaration call for universal primary education by 2015. Working toward
this UN goal, the plan calls for State and USAID to support programs that
do the following:

oPromote equal access to quality basic education. The strategy says that
State and USAID would assist and encourage countries to improve their
education policies, institutions, and practices in the classroom; give
families and communities a stronger role in educational decision making;
and focus their efforts on reducing barriers to education for girls.

oImplement international education commitments. The strategy also states
that both agencies will work with donor partners to implement the
commitments made at the 2000 World Educational Forum in Dakar, the G-8^14
Summits at Genoa and Kananaskis, and at the UN Conference on Financing for
Development in Monterrey. In addition, the agencies are to help developing
countries build their capacity to achieve the global Education for All
initiative.

State and USAID Have Implemented Basic Education Activities That Align
with Their Strategic Plans

Consistent with the joint strategic plan's education goals, State has
implemented programs, mainly through MEPI, to target basic education in
North Africa and the Middle East. As the largest provider of U.S. basic
education assistance, USAID also supports activities that align with the
joint strategic plan, as well as its 2005 education strategy that focuses
on improving: (1) access to education, (2) quality of education, and (3)
host governments' capacity to manage education efforts. In addition, USAID
has allocated resources toward strategically important countries, as noted
in both strategy documents.

State's Programs Target the Middle East and Muslim Countries

State generally supports education programs that align with the agency's
broader foreign policy objectives such as promoting democracy and reform
in the Muslim world. Primarily through MEPI, the agency supports
international basic education activities aimed at increasing access to
basic education, especially for girls and women, and improving the quality
of basic education through teacher training, curriculum development, and
community involvement in North African and Middle Eastern countries and
territories. For example, through MEPI, State's Bureau of Near Eastern
Affairs supports a "scholarships for success" program in Morocco to
increase access to secondary schools for girls living in remote rural
communities through the creation of girls' dormitories (see fig. 3). As an
initiative directed by the administration, MEPI allocates resources for
basic education programs in North African and Middle Eastern countries and
territories. Under MEPI, basic education funds are allocated for country-
specific and regional programs based on information from U.S. embassies
and other U.S. agencies with regional programs that can identify areas of
need, and through conversations with host governments. Between fiscal
years 2001 and 2006, the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs allocated about
$35 million in MEPI funding for 23 basic education-related projects in 11
North African and Middle Eastern countries and territories. In addition to
MEPI, during the same period, State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural
Affairs funded one basic education project that allocated, in Indonesia, a
total of $2.4 million in fiscal years 2004 and 2005 to fund multiyear
scholarships for Indonesian teachers at the secondary and university level
to study education in the United States.

Figure 3: MEPI Supported Dormitory for Moroccan Middle School Girls

USAID Programs Support Education Strategic Objectives; Resources
Correspond with U.S. Strategic Priorities

In the eight countries we visited, we found that USAID implemented
programs that targeted the agencies' emphasized population of
primary-level students and girls and aligned with its three main strategic
objectives. USAID's resource allocations of top recipients of basic
education funding from fiscal years 2001 through 2006 show consistency
with U.S. priorities placed on strategic partner countries.

USAID Programs Support Education Strategy

Prior to 2005, USAID did not have an agency-wide education strategy and
its education programming was generally guided over time by several agency
strategies, policies, and operational directives. In April 2005, USAID
issued an education strategy that prioritizes the broad education
objective of increasing equitable access to quality education, with the
more specific focuses on primary education and girls' education. The
strategy directs that USAID focus on (1) increasing access to basic
education, (2) improving the quality of basic education, and (3) building
the institutional capacity of the host countries' basic education systems.
This strategy also supports the broader State and USAID strategic goals of
improving education globally with a particular emphasis on the Muslim
world, as it emphasizes the importance of education in strategic
countries, as well as implementing international education commitments,
such as the Education for All by 2015 initiative.

In the eight countries we visited, we found that USAID generally
implemented programs that aligned with its three main strategic objectives
and targeted the agencies' emphasized population of primary-level students
and girls. According to USAID, as a matter of policy, USAID's efforts
focus on increasing children's access to quality primary education because
the quality and accessibility of primary education plays a critical role
in determining whether children gain core skills, such as literacy and
numeracy, and have a chance to gain further education.^15 In addition,
USAID has a special focus on girls' education. Missions engaged in basic
education are required to assess the extent of educational disadvantage
faced by girls at the primary level in the host country and take further
steps where this disadvantage is found to be significant. Seven of the
eight missions we visited implemented projects to increase access and
improve the quality of basic education for primary-school youth. However,
USAID also recognizes the need for missions to have flexibility in
planning and implementing programs, and taking into account both the
conditions of the particular host countries and the activities of other
donors in the country. For example, while the mission in Morocco continued
to focus on girls' education, its basic education assistance shifted more
toward middle schools, since the mission determined that high dropout
rates among primary-school students were often due to the lack of access
to quality secondary schools where those students would have continued
with their education and because other donors were already investing
significant resources into primary education in the country.

Following are details about USAID's programs to support its three
strategic goals: (1) increasing access to basic education, (2) improving
the quality of basic education, and (3) building the institutional
capacity of the host countries' basic education systems.

oAccess: To increase access to basic education, USAID supports a wide
range of programs, such as distance learning, girls' scholarships, and
school construction, that increase the number of boys and girls who enter
and remain in school, particularly underserved populations such as girls,
the poor, children in rural areas, and out-of-school youth. To increase
access, the agency often uses distance learning tools, such as radio,
television, and other information and communication technologies, to
deliver quality educational content to populations not accommodated by the
traditional school system. Agency efforts to increase access to basic
education also include, among other things, construction and
rehabilitation of school facilities, girls' scholarships, and adult
literacy programs. In six of the eight countries we visited (Egypt,
Honduras, South Africa, Mali, Morocco, and Zambia), we found that missions
implemented programs in support of this strategic goal. For example, in
Egypt, Honduras, South Africa, and Zambia, USAID used distance learning
programs, such as prerecorded lessons, to deliver educational content to
preprimary, primary, and secondary school youth--particularly girls,
children from rural areas, and poor children. In Egypt, Mali, Morocco,
South Africa, and Zambia, USAID implemented scholarship programs for
girls, while the mission in Egypt also supported the construction of
primary schools to increase access and enrollment of girls in underserved
communities. See figure 4 for an example of a USAID program aimed at
increasing education access.

Figure 4: Honduran Volunteer Teacher Using Prerecorded Interactive Compact
Disk to Facilitate Seventh Grade Math Lesson

oQuality: USAID also implements a wide array of programs to improve
education quality. These programs are generally designed to improve
teachers' subject matter knowledge and pedagogical skills, ensure the
curriculum includes specific knowledge and skills relevant to students'
lives, and provide learners with access to appropriate workbooks and other
learning materials that complement and reinforce teachers' efforts.
Typical forms of assistance include training teachers, along with
technical assistance to strengthen the capacity of local teacher training
institutions; promoting the adoption of teaching methods that involve
students in the learning process; promoting improvements in curriculum
content; helping host countries develop methods of student assessment; and
providing learning materials, such as textbooks and portable libraries.
All eight missions we visited implemented programs to improve quality,
using a variety of the approaches described above. See figures 5 to 7 for
examples of USAID projects aimed at improving education quality.

Figure 5: USAID-Funded Primary School Teacher Training in South Africa

Figure 6: Malian Teacher Demonstrating USAID-Funded Interactive Learning
Method

Figure 7: USAID-Funded Portable Library for Sharing Among Peruvian Rural
Schools

oCapacity building: USAID implements a wide variety of basic education
programs to build host countries' institutional capacity to manage their
basic education systems. Typical forms of assistance include training
school principals in educational leadership and management; promoting the
active participation by parents and parent associations in supporting
school improvement; developing effective policy analysis units within
education ministries; supporting the adoption and use of appropriate data
and educational management information systems, as well as measures to
enhance accountability and transparency in the use of public education
funds; and the decentralization of educational decision making to local
levels. All eight missions we visited implemented programs that either
specifically focused on building the host countries' educational capacity
or contained a capacity-building component. For example, in Zambia, USAID
implemented a project to decentralize administration of the country's
education management information systems. In Egypt, USAID implemented a
project to support the country's decentralization efforts by rewarding
schools and surrounding communities that are active in assessing their
needs and successful in planning and implementing measures to improve
education quality.

Because many USAID programs simultaneously support multiple objectives,
USAID could not provide a breakout of funding for its international basic
education efforts by strategic objective, such as access or quality, or by
program activity, such as teacher training. According to USAID, quality
and access are interlinked in important ways, as when quality improvements
lead to reduced grade repetition, accelerating children's progress through
school and increasing access for subsequent students. Missions decide
whether to concentrate their efforts on increasing access or improving
quality and which program approaches to use based on their assessment of
how they can achieve the most valuable results in light of country
conditions. For example, in Mali, a country in which only about 50 percent
of primary school-aged children are enrolled in school, USAID decided to
focus its strategy on improving the quality of basic education based on
the rationale that the greatest impediment to achieving universal access
is the poor quality of education.

USAID Resources Directed at Strategic Partners of U.S. Foreign Priorities

USAID's resource allocations for basic education are consistent with USAID
and State's efforts to more closely align foreign policy and development
goals. According to USAID's April 2005 education strategy and USAID
officials, the agency allocates resources based on the host country's
needs, commitment, and overall development progress, while acknowledging
the importance of geo-strategic states, such as some predominantly Muslim
countries. USAID and State's joint strategic plan also states that their
education programs will be particularly focused on Muslim countries
following the September 11 attacks. For example, in Mali, a predominantly
Muslim country, USAID implemented a girls' scholarship program in which it
focused on girls in traditional, religious communities and also tried to
engage local religious Muslim leaders in discussions on how the
scholarship program would be structured and invited them to become members
of the local management committee. We found that USAID has implemented
programs to target strategic states; specifically, from fiscal years 2001
through 2006, many of the top 10 recipient countries of USAID basic
education assistance were strategic partners in achieving U.S. foreign
policy objectives, including fighting the war against terrorism and
promoting regional stability and democracy. Among these top 10 recipients
were many predominantly Islamic countries, such as Afghanistan, Indonesia,
Iraq, Jordan, and Pakistan, which did not receive any USAID basic
education funding in fiscal year 2001, but received significant funding
beginning in fiscal year 2002. These countries, along with Egypt and
Ethiopia, all ranked among the top 10 recipients of basic education
funding from fiscal years 2001 through 2006 and were all considered
strategically important allies in the global war on terror, according to
USAID officials and USAID and State operational plans. See appendix III
for a list of recipient countries of USAID basic education funding from
fiscal years 2001 through 2006 and selected educational indicators from
the World Bank.^16

USAID began basic education programs in the war-affected countries of Iraq
and Afghanistan to support efforts to facilitate their transition to more
stable, democratic, and productive states. In 2002, following the defeat
of the Taliban, USAID started a basic education program in Afghanistan,
which originally focused on four areas: textbook production and
distribution, radio-based teacher training, accelerated learning for
over-age and out-of-school students, and school construction and
rehabilitation. USAID's current efforts in Afghanistan focus on improving
the quality of the country's basic education system through teacher
training. In May 2003, in the immediate aftermath of initial combat
operations in Iraq, USAID program efforts supported the resumption of
school through the rehabilitation of classrooms and the provision of
educational materials. However, according to USAID officials, the
mission's efforts faced many challenges due to attacks on teachers and
schools. While the USAID mission in Iraq has rehabilitated 2,962 primary
and secondary schools since the conflict began in 2003, the mission does
not know whether these schools are currently operating due to the hostile
security environment. USAID's basic education efforts in Iraq have also
focused on improving the quality of Iraq's basic education system through
training primary and secondary school teachers, building the education
ministry's capacity to manage and reform its education system, and
increasing access to basic education for out-of-school youth through an
accelerated learning program. These basic education activities were funded
through supplemental appropriations specifically for Iraq. USAID ended its
basic education program in Iraq in 2005 due to a change in mission
priorities. According to a USAID official, the mission's current
priorities are focused on community stabilization, local governance,
economic governance, national capacity development, and private sector
development.

Other Agencies Conduct Basic Education-Related Activities in Support of
Their Missions

In addition to State and USAID, several other agencies implement
activities that directly and indirectly support increasing access to and
improving the quality of basic education in support of programs that
address their broader mission goals.^17 These agencies include USDA, DOD,
and DOL, as well as the Peace Corps and MCC.

Department of Agriculture

USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service funds and administers basic
education-related activities through the provision of food assistance as
part of the agency's broader mission to create economic opportunity for
American agriculture by expanding global markets and to support food
security worldwide. The agency supports basic education by providing
school meals or take-home rations to students overseas and by facilitating
the sale of food commodities to support basic education programs in
communities. USDA's efforts, which target low-income, food-deficit
countries, particularly focus on girls since they tend to have much lower
school attendance rates than boys in many of USDA's recipient countries.
In fiscal year 2001, USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service administered the
Global Food for Education Initiative (GFEI), a pilot program with the
overall goal of contributing to universal education by using school meals
to attract primary-school children to school, keep them attending once
enrolled, and improve learning. Through the program, USDA donated U.S.
agricultural commodities and associated technical and financial assistance
to the World Food Program, 13 private voluntary organizations, and one
national government (the Dominican Republic, see fig. 8). The
organizations then used the commodities in 48 school feeding projects in
38 developing countries. For example, in the Dominican Republic, USDA
donated wheat and crude soybean oil, which were sold locally, with
proceeds used to carry out community-based school feeding and educational
improvement programs managed by local NGOs. In fiscal year 2003, the GFEI
was continued under USDA's McGovern-Dole International Food for Education
and Child Nutrition Program (Food for Education). The Food for Education
(FFE) program also provides nutrition programs for pregnant women, nursing
mothers, infants, and preschool children to sustain and improve the health
and learning capacity of children before they enter school. USDA allocates
basic education resources to low-income, food-deficit countries that are
committed to universal education. From fiscal years 2001 through 2006,
USDA allocated $599.3 million to implement the GFEI and the FFE program in
42 countries worldwide.

Figure 8: USDA's Global Food for Education Program in the Dominican
Republic

Department of Defense

DOD funds basic education activities through its Overseas Humanitarian,
Disaster, and Civic Aid (OHDACA) program, as part of the program's broader
goal to achieve U.S. security objectives, improve DOD's access to areas
not otherwise available to U.S. forces, build local capabilities and
cooperative relationships with a host country's civil society, and provide
basic humanitarian aid and services to populations in need. DOD supports
increased access to basic education through its construction of primary
and secondary school buildings and refurbishment of existing school
facilities (see fig. 9) in all of the Combatant Commanders' areas of
responsibility. According to one DOD command, it often uses the
constructed school facilities as centers to manage and coordinate the
Department's natural disaster response activities. Recipient countries of
DOD humanitarian assistance are identified through DOD guidance and with
input from in-country U.S. agencies on host countries' need. From fiscal
years 2001 through 2006, DOD allocated $16.2 million to fund 232 basic
education projects in 50 countries worldwide.

Figure 9: Restroom in Kyrgyzstan Primary School Prior to and After DOD
Refurbishment

Department of Labor

DOL's Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) funds and administers
international child labor projects with basic education components as part
of its broader strategic goal to remove or prevent children from
exploitative child labor and provide affected children with education,
training, or both. Through its international child labor projects, DOL
supports basic education by developing formal and transitional education
systems that encourage working children and those at risk to attend
school; raising awareness on the importance of education for all children
and mobilizing support for improved and expanded educational
infrastructures; and strengthening national institutions and policies on
education and child labor (see fig. 10). The ILAB uses two mechanisms to
implement these projects: (1) the International Labor Organization's
International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (ILO-IPEC), which
removes or prevents exploitative child labor and provides affected
children with education or training or both, strengthens the ability of
host countries to address child labor, and raises awareness on the hazards
of child labor and the benefits of education; and (2) Child Labor
Education Initiative (EI), which funds projects that promote access to
quality basic education for children at risk or engaging in exploitative
child labor. The Bureau allocates basic education resources to countries
based on its assessment of where there are child labor needs going
unaddressed, and where the agency will have the greatest impact. During
fiscal years 2001 through 2006, the Bureau allocated $440.4 million to
implement basic education activities in 77 countries worldwide.

Figure 10: DOL-Funded Primary School in Bangladesh

The Peace Corps

The Peace Corps supports basic education through the activities of its
volunteers who work at the local level with host country governments,
NGOs, and communities on projects aimed at promoting sustainable
development at the grassroots level and enhancing cross-cultural
understanding. The Peace Corps provides volunteers to work in developing
countries where they have been invited and determines which programs best
address a host country's need by consulting with host country officials.
Education is the Peace Corps' largest sector.^18 The volunteers' basic
education projects include training and mentoring teachers in K-12
schools, using radios to deliver educational content to HIV/AIDS orphans
and vulnerable children, and strengthening preschool programs through
teacher training and mentoring. For example, in Zambia, Peace Corps
volunteers assist the country's Ministry of Education in implementing a
primary school interactive curriculum, which is broadcast over the
national radio to increase access to basic education in rural settings
(see fig. 11). During fiscal year 2006, 2,674 Peace Corps volunteers
provided educational assistance in 52 countries worldwide.^19

Figure 11: Peace Corps Volunteers Using Interactive Radio Instruction in
Teachers' Workshop in Zambia

In addition, the Peace Corps supports basic education activities through
its Small Project Assistance (SPA) program, which provides hundreds of
small grants to volunteers' communities to increase the capabilities of
local communities to conduct low-cost, grassroots, sustainable development
projects. For example, in Morocco, Peace Corps volunteers used SPA funding
to construct latrines to increase children's attendance, particularly
girls. This program operates under the terms of an inter-agency agreement
between USAID and the Peace Corps. In fiscal year 2005, 57 Peace Corps
posts approved about $766,000 to support 354 different SPA education
projects.

Millennium Challenge Corporation

MCC supports international basic education as part of its larger mission
to reduce poverty through economic growth in developing countries that
create and maintain sound policy environments. The MCC provides developing
countries with monetary assistance--through compact agreements and
threshold agreements^20--to support a variety of development projects,
including basic education. For a country to be selected as eligible for an
MCC assistance program, it must demonstrate a commitment to policies that
promote political and economic freedom, investments in education and
health, control of corruption, and respect for civil liberties and the
rule of law by performing well on 16 different policy indicators. For
example, in fiscal year 2005, the MCC allocated $12.9 million to Burkina
Faso, through a threshold agreement to fund a USAID-implemented pilot
project with the objective to improve access to, and improve the quality
of, primary education for girls in 10 provinces that have historically
achieved the lowest levels of girls' primary education completion rates.
The project entailed the construction of "girl-friendly" schools with
canteens and community-managed child care centers; provision of textbooks,
supplies, and take-home rations; teacher training; mentoring; literacy
training for women; merit awards for teachers; and a societal awareness
campaign on the benefits of educating girls. MCC also plans to provide
funding for the implementation of basic education activities in Mali,
Ghana, and El Salvador.

Agencies Did Not Always Coordinate International Basic Education-Related
Activities, Which Resulted in Some Missed Opportunities to Collaborate and
Maximize Resources

We found that agencies did not always coordinate in the planning or
delivery of international basic education-related activities. From fiscal
years 2001 to 2006, there was no government-wide mechanism to facilitate
interagency collaboration and, as a result, at the headquarters level we
identified instances where agencies missed opportunities to collaborate
and maximize U.S. resources. Further, in the eight countries that we
visited, we noted several instances where agencies did not collaborate or
take advantage of opportunities to maximize U.S. resources in areas in
which they had similar objectives of improving the quality of education.
In addition, we found that the level of U.S. coordination with host
governments and other donors in the eight countries we visited also
varied. Without effective coordination, donors cannot easily monitor or
assess the host government's progress toward achieving international
goals, such as Education for All by 2015, one of State-USAID's strategic
goals.

The United States Lacked a Government-Wide Mechanism to Coordinate
International Basic Education Activities

We found that, for international basic education-related activities that
we reviewed, between 2001 and 2006 there was no government-wide
coordination mechanism to facilitate interagency planning and delivery of
U.S. basic education assistance. While some agencies met periodically to
discuss and plan specific basic education activities--usually those
involving joint- or multiagency agreements--these activities often did not
include all cognizant officials or agencies responsible for planning or
delivering basic education assistance. As a result, at the headquarters
level, interagency coordination was mixed and resulted in some missed
opportunities to collaborate on the planning of U.S. basic education
assistance. The following are some examples:

oDOD guidance calls for Combatant Commands to coordinate Humanitarian
Assistance Program projects with other agencies at the country level
before they are submitted to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency
(DSCA), which then forwards the program descriptions to State for review
and concurrence. However, staff we spoke to within USAID's Economic
Growth, Agriculture, and Trade Bureau (EGAT), which manages USAID's basic
education activities, were not aware of DOD humanitarian assistance
projects.

oUSDA calls annual meetings with USAID's Food for Peace Office, State, and
Office of Management and Budget officials to discuss and coordinate
upcoming projects for its McGovern-Dole International Food for Education
Program. However, staff from USAID EGAT do not attend these meetings, even
though some of USDA's school feeding activities coincide with USAID's
basic education activities.

oDOL officials provided several examples of efforts to coordinate programs
with other agencies, including USAID and State. For example, DOL's Office
of Child Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking (OCFT) convenes annual
meetings with State and USAID to discuss its upcoming programs, including
those related to DOL's Child Labor Education Initiative. Until 2004, USAID
had an informal focal point who attended these meetings. After this focal
point retired in early 2004, DOL sent a letter to USAID in April 2004
requesting a formal point of contact. According to DOL officials, USAID
never replied to this letter. Since then, although DOL has regularly
requested the attendance of USAID desk officers and technical staff to
brief them on its upcoming projects, those USAID staff did not always
attend, and those that attended may not have been the most knowledgeable
about existing basic education programs. Although one member of USAID EGAT
attended the February 2007 coordination meeting, there is still no formal
USAID focal point for these meetings. In addition, DOL copies State on
letters to foreign governments regarding DOL programming in their
countries.

oPeace Corps officials stated that the agency does not coordinate
programming priorities with USAID in Washington because programming is
determined by host governments, in collaboration with the Peace Corps,
once the agency is invited to serve in country.^21

oBeyond USAID's implementation of the single MCC basic education program
in Burkina Faso, coordination between MCC and USAID was characterized by
USAID and MCC officials as minimal, namely because MCC is not organized
around technical sectors. However, MCC officials said that they share
proposals and lessons learned with other U.S. agencies.

oState's coordination of basic education activities with USAID at the
headquarters level occurred primarily through the MEPI program, in which
USAID serves as an administrative partner and manages over one-third of
MEPI's basic education programs. This coordination included formal and
informal meetings to discuss the results of joint State and USAID
strategic reviews of existing bilateral development assistance in the
Middle East and North Africa and the identification of reform areas that
were not being addressed by other U.S. agencies.

We have previously reported on the importance of collaboration among
executive agencies in maximizing performance.^22 Officials at all of the
agencies that we reviewed agreed that coordination of basic
education-related activities could be enhanced. USAID officials believe
that annual meetings involving all of the U.S. agencies involved in
international basic education would produce better U.S. policy coherence.
However, USAID does not have the authority to formally convene such a
meeting. In June
2004, in response to a fiscal year 2005 congressional directive,^23 USAID
informed State it would develop an agenda for such a meeting if State, as
a cabinet-level agency, would convene it, but according to USAID, State
has not yet convened an interagency meeting on international basic
education. Although State's DFA has begun to address the issue of better
coordinating all U.S. foreign assistance by bringing together core teams
to discuss U.S. development priorities in each recipient country, it is
unclear to what extent these efforts will be accepted and implemented by
agencies whose foreign assistance programs are not under DFA's direct
authority.

Interagency Coordination in the Eight Countries We Visited Varied

During our fieldwork, we found several examples of good coordination among
U.S. agencies implementing basic education projects. Among these examples
were the following:

oIn South Africa, the Peace Corps provided USAID with a volunteer to
support the implementation of a USAID distance learning project. The
volunteer assisted in improving teacher training models and in utilizing
program content, in addition to providing ongoing technical feedback to
the project implementer on the function and efficiency of the project's
media delivery system. Additionally, DOD and USAID cooperated to provide
signs bearing the U.S. and South African flags for display at project
sites, including schools.

oIn Mali, USAID allocated SPA funding for the implementation of
community-based projects in communities where Peace Corps volunteers were
working. In addition, the Peace Corps provided USAID with one volunteer to
assist in USAID's implementation of a girls' scholarship program in the
northern region of the country. Also, the U.S. embassy purchased 750
radios for listening groups in the northern region, and 200 of the radios
were distributed directly to a USAID distance-training program for
teachers.

oIn Morocco, the Peace Corps has used SPA funding to construct a library,
school latrines, and residential student housing.

oIn Honduras, a regional DOL program seeking to provide educational
opportunities to children engaged in, or at risk of, exploitative labor
incorporated an existing USAID distance-learning program into its set of
14 pilot projects. In the municipality of this particular pilot project,
children, aged 13 to 16, were quitting school after the sixth grade in
favor of working on the local coffee farms. The objectives of the local
DOL implementer were to reduce the working hours of these children and
provide them with an opportunity to complete their primary-level
education. The USAID distance-learning program was particularly suited to
these objectives, as it was capable of targeting children in seventh
through ninth grade, was aligned with the national curriculum and
certified by the Ministry of Education, came with predesigned materials,
and could be tailored to fit participants' scheduling needs.

oIn the Dominican Republic, USAID and USDA, along with the local host
government, coordinated to provide school lunches in order to increase
primary school student enrollment. Originally begun under the GFEI in
2001, the program continued under USDA's FFE program in 2004. In addition
to the school lunches, activities under this program included repairs to
existing schools, renovation of buildings and water systems, health and
nutrition workshops, deworming, vitamin distribution to supplement
nutrition, and animal husbandry activities to supplement incomes.

oIn Zambia, the Peace Corps supplied over 20 volunteers to work with the
USAID-funded implementer of a radio-based, primary-level, distance
learning program. The volunteers focused on mentoring and training school
committees in leadership and school management, with the hope that
communities will become better equipped to support and maintain their own
learning institutions. The volunteers also assisted the implementer in
piloting new educational initiatives.

Despite these examples of good coordination, we also observed several
instances where agencies, particularly USAID and DOL, missed opportunities
to collaborate and maximize their program efforts. In some of the
countries we visited, we found that USAID and DOL implementers of projects
to increase children's access to basic education did not take advantage of
opportunities to collaborate and leverage resources when coordination of
activities would have been of mutual benefit. In several of these
countries, DOL could have joined USAID's efforts to affect policy reforms
directed at rural youth by using USAID's delivery mechanisms of radio and
television programming as well as printed materials to raise public
awareness of child labor issues. Likewise, USAID could have utilized the
Student Tracking System developed by DOL to monitor enrollment and
retention rates in its sponsored schools. Additional examples of
coordination between USAID and other agencies follow.

USAID and DOL Country Coordination

Unlike USAID, which had education teams in the countries we visited to
coordinate and manage implementation of its education-related activities,
DOL does not have a physical presence in-country and attempts to
coordinate through other means. Specifically, DOL coordinates as follows:

oAfter holding their annual coordination meeting with USAID and State
staff, DOL planners in Washington, D.C., communicate by cable activities
planned for the fiscal year to State staff at overseas embassies. These
cables list DOL's planned projects, their prospective countries, estimated
funding amounts, and a deadline for when the project Requests for Proposal
will be made public. Although DOL's fiscal years 2004 and 2005 cables do
not mention coordination with USAID in-country, the fiscal year 2006 cable
lists one USAID/EGAT staff member as an addressee and requests that the
information be passed to the local USAID mission "where applicable."

oDOL is represented in country by selected State embassy staff that it
informs of its upcoming projects through cables. State representatives
serving in these positions that we interviewed appeared to have general
knowledge of DOL's basic education activities in-country but did not
appear to have detailed project knowledge that would be required to
coordinate effectively with USAID. This means that DOL must rely on either
these State embassy staff or its project implementers to coordinate with
the local USAID mission.

oIn its Solicitation for Grant Applications for basic education projects,
DOL informs potential applicants of ongoing USAID efforts and expects
applicants to implement programs that complement, and do not duplicate,
existing efforts.

Despite these efforts, coordination between local USAID missions and DOL
project implementers varied across the countries we visited. For example,
in Honduras, DOL's implementer was collaborating with the USAID mission in
country to adapt the mission's distance-learning program to a child labor
project. However, in Peru, the USAID mission lost its institutional
knowledge of an existing DOL program upon the departure of its education
team leader. The remaining USAID education team remained unaware of this
project until the DOL implementer briefed the new USAID education contact
3 years into the project's implementation. Additionally, in Peru, the
USAID mission was not aware of a public DOL Request for Proposal to
conduct new basic education activities in country. In Morocco, USAID and
the local DOL implementers were aware of each other's programs but did not
directly coordinate beyond minimal information exchanges. By contrast, in
South Africa, a DOL implementer was unaware that USAID was also conducting
basic education activities in-country. Similarly, in Zambia, the local
USAID mission knew of a DOL EI program in country, but was unaware that
the ILO-IPEC program also operating in country was DOL-funded. The
turnover of agency and implementer staff in overseas locations may lead to
challenges in coordination efforts.

USAID and Peace Corps

In Morocco, the USAID mission's strategy stated that projects to create
rural dormitories for girls may be implemented in partnership with Peace
Corps volunteers who would assist with the community's management of the
dormitories and development of after school programs. However, the Peace
Corps and USAID senior staff we spoke with in country had not considered
such an idea during the actual planning and implementation of the girls'
scholarship program.

USAID and DOD

USAID and DOD almost missed an opportunity to coordinate their
construction of school dormitories in Morocco. Prior to 1999, the local
USAID mission did not know that DOD was implementing humanitarian
assistance projects in Morocco. At the time, USAID's basic education
program in country had concluded that one reason rural girls were dropping
out of school before sixth grade was that the middle schools were too far
away from their homes. According to USAID officials, parents had safety
concerns about sending their daughters to attend school so far away and
were reluctant to make the financial sacrifice of having their daughter
finish primary school if she could not also attend secondary school.
Subsequently, USAID and DOD coordinated with local communities to build
school dormitories for middle school girls in three towns. According to
the USAID officer responsible for coordinating this initiative, the
coordination between USAID and DOD resulted in DOD building five
dormitories.

The Level of U.S. Coordination with Host Governments and Other Donors
Varied

Coordination between the United States, host governments, and donors
varied in the countries we visited. Coordination was stronger in
countries, such as Egypt, Mali, Zambia, and Honduras, that possessed a
combination of strong host government commitment to education reform,
formal donor-led working groups specifically for education, and systems of
mutual accountability, such as the World Bank's Education for All-Fast
Track Initiative. For example, in Egypt, the host government was working
closely with international donors to develop a new National Strategic Plan
for Education. Under the leadership of USAID, each donor had assumed
responsibility for developing a portion of this plan. Additionally, the
major education donors in Egypt met monthly to discuss division of
responsibilities and upcoming efforts. We observed a similar situation in
Mali, where the host government had allocated 30 percent of its budget
toward education--60 percent of which went to basic education--and worked
with donors to establish a framework through which the donors could invest
in specific education sectors. These education donors in Mali held monthly
meetings among themselves, as well as separate meetings with the host
government, and collaborated on strategic planning, action plans, and
common progress indicators, among other issues.

At the time of our review, Mali, Zambia, and Honduras had also
implemented, or were in the process of implementing, systems of mutual
accountability associated with the World Bank's Education for All-Fast
Track Initiative. The Initiative provides for mutual accountability, where
international donors provide coordinated and increased financial and
technical support in a transparent and predictable manner, while host
governments commit to primary education reform through the development of
national education strategies in concert with the donors. Donors in
Honduras met monthly and pooled their funding to provide direct budget
support to the education sector to accelerate progress. According to
donors, the pooled funding gave donors a means to ensure that the host
government continued to implement the national education strategy. They
stated that this is very important in countries where there is frequent
political turnover. Although USAID usually does not give funds directly to
government institutions, in Zambia, the USAID mission provides some funds
to the Ministry of Education to support policy reform. The USAID mission
also participates in high-level meetings and contributes to the
decision-making process.

Coordination between the United States, host governments, and donors was
weaker in countries lacking a lead donor or host government committed to
coordinating donor assistance. This included the Dominican Republic,
Morocco, South Africa, and Peru. For example, in recent years donors have
sought to strengthen local ownership of the education reform process by
assigning host governments a key role in the donor coordination process,
according to USAID. However, governments in several countries we visited
lacked the capacity or will to hold such meetings. In Peru, for example,
officials from bilateral donors and the host government stated that the
concentration of donor efforts in rural areas working with regional
administrators had isolated those projects from the national government,
which tended to view project schools as "donor schools" unconnected to the
larger education system. According to these officials, the disconnect
between the central government and the bilateral programs inhibited the
expansion of these programs to other areas and threatened their long-term
sustainability. Similarly, in South Africa, the host government Ministry
of Education had not called a donor meeting in almost a year and was not
aware of all ongoing donor activities in basic education. In Morocco, one
donor was unaware of the details of USAID's basic education activities,
and both agencies had independently developed their own matrices of other
donors' basic education projects, neither of which were updated or
complete. By contrast, the host government in the Dominican Republic did
call high-level donor meetings but discouraged the donors from meeting on
their own. None of these countries had strong, donor-led coordination
groups, with the exception of Peru, where donors had formed a formal
coordination group, as well as an informal group of three donors,
including the United States, focusing on decentralizing the host
government's education system.

According to USAID, host government commitment, the development of sound
education strategies, and effective donor coordination are essential to
reforming basic education. Most donors we spoke to acknowledged that
further improvements in coordination could result in more efficient
delivery of assistance. Without good coordination, donors, including the
United States, cannot easily monitor or assess host governments' progress
toward achieving Education For All by 2015--which is a strategic goal
shared by State and USAID.

Assessing Basic Education Programs' Quality Results Is Difficult

While U.S. agencies we reviewed conduct basic education-related activities
to achieve different goals, most assess and report on the results of their
activities by collecting and using output measures--or the direct products
and services delivered by a program, such as numbers of schools built or
children enrolled. While USAID can measure education access through
outputs such as the numbers of students enrolled in primary school
programs, it does not, in many instances, measure education quality, a key
program outcome measure--or result of products and services provided, such
as increased literacy rates. Our analysis showed that USAID can report on
some outcomes such as primary school retention rates but faces challenges
in collecting valid and reliable data on student learning in areas such as
math and reading, which, according to USAID, provides the most direct
outcome measure of increased educational quality. Furthermore, USAID
cannot compare its program results between countries. To better assess its
goal of improving education quality, USAID is developing a standardized
test that could provide data on primary-level reading ability and would be
comparable across countries. Other agencies measure progress in relation
to their respective missions. In addition, State's Office of the Director
of Foreign Assistance plans to work toward developing methods to assess
outcomes of all foreign assistance; however, these efforts are only in the
early discussion phase. Without this information, agency officials cannot
determine if programs are achieving their strategic goals.

Most Agencies Use Output Measures to Assess Results

We have previously reported that both output and outcome measures are
extremely valuable for determining success of federally funded programs.
Table 3 shows the measures reported by U.S. agencies in their fiscal year
2006 Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) performance and
accountability reports.

Table 3: Agency-Wide Reporting on Basic Education Activities

                                        

    USAID and      DOL             USDA             DOD^b           MCC       
     State^a                                                                  
ostudents   ochildren    onumber of mothers, onumber of    Broad "Rate of  
enrolled in removed or   infants and         schools built Reform for      
primary     prevented    schoolchildren      or renovated  Investing in    
school      from         receiving daily     in Iraq,      People"         
               exploitive   meals and take-home Afghanistan,  calculated      
ostudents   work         rations through the and the Horn  through changes 
completing               McGovern-Dole       of Africa     in:             
primary     ocountries   International Food                                
school      with         for Education                     ototal public   
               increased    Program                           expenditure on  
oadult      capacity to                                    health          
learners    combat child                                                   
completing  labor                                          ototal public   
basic                                                      expenditure on  
education                                                  primary         
                                                              education       
                                                                              
                                                              oimmunization   
                                                              rates           
                                                                              
                                                              ogirls' primary 
                                                              education       
                                                              completion      
                                                              rates           

Source: FY 2006 Annual Performance and Accountability Reports.

Note: Peace Corps' small-scale, individual volunteer activities in basic
education do not lend themselves to systematic measurement, and are not
addressed in the GPRA reporting.

^aState and USAID share a joint strategy with the same goal of increased
access to quality basic education. State assigns responsibility for
accomplishing this goal to USAID.

^bDOD does not have specific goals for, or report on the educational
effects of its assistance.

USAID's Process for Collecting and Using Performance Measures

USAID works with its project implementers to establish project performance
measures before an activity is approved. These measures vary according to
the objectives of the specific activities. The implementers then collect
information on the required measures and submit quarterly or annual
reports detailing progress against those measures to technical officers at
the local USAID mission. Missions are then required to submit annual
reports summarizing the progress of their activities, which often contain
both specific output and outcome measures. Some of these measures are
input to the Annual Report Application (AR) system,^24 which currently
serves as the repository of USAID performance data from all USAID
missions. Information in the AR system is used in USAID headquarters to
support strategic planning, budget preparation, and performance reporting
requirements. To report on its agency-wide progress, USAID reports on
students enrolled in primary school, students completing primary school,
and adult learners completing basic education. These output measures have
also been used to determine which education programs have not met, met, or
exceeded their output objectives. Some of the programs that have exceeded
these output objectives have been terminated. For example, the joint
State-USAID Congressional Budget Justification for the 2007 budget request
showed that India and South Africa had exceeded their program goals for
basic education. These countries were eliminated from the list of
countries proposed to receive basic education allocations in the 2008
budget request.

USAID Faces Challenges Assessing Quality-Related Outcomes

USAID, the primary provider of U.S. basic education assistance, is the
only agency to track progress toward an agency-wide, education-specific
goal--promoting increased access to quality basic education. However,
USAID faces challenges collecting data on student learning, such as levels
of reading comprehension, and cannot compare the results between
countries. As a consequence, USAID is unable to report on the overall
results of its basic education activities on the quality of education,
which can deny planners valuable information needed to prioritize and fund
future programs. Prior GAO work on assessing performance measures for
federally funded programs shows that both output and outcome measures are
extremely valuable for determining program success. USAID has begun to
address this issue by developing systematic methods to compare education
quality across countries and working with donors to identify common
indicators for assessing student learning. In addition, USAID is
considering the development and administration of new tests to assess
learning outcomes in a select number of countries.

Collecting Country-Level Data on Quality Remains a Challenge for USAID

According to USAID and UNESCO, testing of student achievement is a good
measure of educational quality--particularly tests that assess learning in
core subjects such as reading and basic mathematics. However, obtaining
this type of data remains a challenge for various reasons. According to
USAID, designing tools to assess student learning and, particularly,
deciding on which methodology or standards to apply, can be time-consuming
and expensive when done independently by USAID implementers and may also
not be cost-effective given the objectives of a program. For example, a
USAID official at one mission stated that a change in teacher practices
resulting from a teacher training program would be significant in itself
and that not all basic education interventions should be expected to
result in improved student achievement. Poor host-country infrastructure,
unfriendly geography, or both can also make systematic nationwide testing
expensive and difficult. In countries where the USAID mission has the
benefit of working with an existing national student examination, those
exams may not test to existing international standards, and any changes to
the national examination and its underlying curriculum can be politically
sensitive. However, in some countries such as the Dominican Republic,
teachers' unions can be resistant to the use of tests to evaluate student
learning for fear that they will be held accountable for the results. Even
if a national exam is successfully administered, the host government may
not have the methodological expertise necessary to reliably compile and
analyze the resulting statistics.

We examined 40 basic education programs in the eight countries we
visited--including both USAID basic education programs and DOL programs to
combat child labor through the provision of quality primary education--and
found that about half of the 40 programs utilized outcome performance
measures, or the results of products and services. These included, among
other things, increased student performance, improved instructional
methods, and increased community participation. Not all of these outcome
measures were related to education quality. For example, DOL projects
contained outcome measures specific to child labor, such as media coverage
and local awareness of child labor issues. Most of the programs that
utilized outcome measures set baselines and targets for these measures.
All 12 of the Department of Labor programs we examined reported outcome
measures compared with approximately one-third of the 28 USAID programs
that did so. The remaining 19 USAID programs did not use outcome measures.
See appendix V for more details on our analysis.

According to USAID and UNESCO, testing of student achievement is a good
measure of educational quality. USAID programs aimed at improving
educational quality varied in their measurement of student achievement.^25
Several lacked means to fully gauge student performance. For example,

oIn South Africa, one teacher training program could not monitor student
achievement in its preservice training component due to insufficient
funds, although the program's in-service component did contain student
testing. In addition, a distance-learning program in one country province
contained no means to assess teacher performance or student achievement,
yet was planned to be expanded to a second province.

oIn Zambia, a teacher training program contained output indicators
mandated by the Africa Education Initiative and the President's Emergency
Plan for AIDS Relief, such as the number of teachers trained, but these
initiatives did not require an evaluation of teacher or student
performance. The program independently added an additional measure to
evaluate teachers on their implementation of the program materials and
used student pass rates on the host-country's seventh grade graduation
test as a substitute, or proxy, measure of student achievement. Such
graduation tests are designed to identify students who will advance to the
next phase of schooling but are not necessarily designed to provide data
on trends in student learning.

oIn Peru, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic, a regional Latin American
teacher training program begun in 2002 did not require implementers to
begin measuring impact on student performance until 2005.

Other programs we examined, however, did have or were developing student
assessment components, as follows:

oIn Egypt, we observed perhaps the most extensive evaluation component for
a program that was working closely with the host-government's Ministry of
Education to develop tools for assessing student learning, teacher
performance, and school management capacity nationwide. The student
learning assessment tool specifically measured critical thinking capacity,
problem solving skills, and subject matter knowledge in Arabic, science,
and math.

oIn Honduras, one program was developing primary school learning standards
to strengthen the host government's national student testing process.
Additionally, according to USAID, one distance learning program is
developing standardized testing to monitor variations in student
achievement.

oIn the Dominican Republic, a similar program was developing test
instruments and analytical techniques to build the evaluation capacity of
the host government's educational system.

oIn Peru, one pilot program conducted student testing solely in its
sponsored schools specifically to demonstrate the effectiveness of the
program to the host government's Ministry of Education.

USAID Is Developing Methods to Better Measure Improved Educational Quality

In the absence of an indicator to illustrate improved quality across
countries, USAID uses primary school completion rates as a proxy measure
in its agency-wide reporting. However, USAID acknowledges that completion
rates do not directly correlate to educational quality. As described
earlier, according to USAID and UNESCO, testing of student achievement is
a good measure of educational quality. However, while national
examinations may exist in certain countries, the curricula these tests are
based on vary widely in their subject matter and academic standards.
Additionally, very few developing countries incorporate existing
international standards for student learning in their testing. These
factors prevent meaningful comparisons of educational quality between
countries, which could inform funding and programmatic decisions at the
headquarters level.

For fiscal year 2005, USAID's Bureau for Policy and Program Coordination
(PPC) began collecting data to better allow USAID to find an appropriate
indicator to measure quality outcomes of its basic education programs. The
information that USAID began collecting in its annual reporting system
database included, to the extent available, results of host country
national-level testing systems and USAID attempts to measure learning
achievement. However, this information was never fully analyzed, and
USAID's database for the information will be terminated in fiscal year
2007, and replaced by a new joint State-USAID performance measures
database called the Foreign Assistance Coordination and Tracking (FACT)
system, which will be managed by the DFA. According to DFA officials, the
FACT system is meant to primarily contain numerical output indicators
common across State and USAID missions and not include the
mission-specific outcome indicators contained in USAID's former annual
reporting system. These indicators contained in the FACT system will be
used to develop policy priorities, assess performance, and inform resource
decisions.

USAID, independent of the DFA process, began a new initiative in September
2006 to develop a better measure of educational quality across countries
through the development of new testing instruments. These instruments are
designed to provide data on primary-level reading comprehension comparable
across countries. This project grew out of a World Bank Initiative in Peru
that developed a Spanish-language reading comprehension test. USAID is
attempting to build on the World Bank's success by developing a simple
screening instrument, which can provide general information on literacy
within a given community, and an in-depth assessment instrument intended
to provide cross-country comparisons of the degree of reading skill
acquisition, determination of the grade at which a country's education
system is able to impart the capacity to read, and identification of the
specific areas of weakness. According to the contract for the instruments,
performance data provided by the new tests should permit comparison across
countries and the tracking of changes in performance over time and should
also be adaptable across languages and cultures to the degree possible.
USAID plans to field test the instruments in English, Spanish, or French
and is in negotiations with two host governments to begin pilot testing.
USAID plans for the contract implementer to submit a report on the pilot
tests' results and their implications by September 30, 2007. According to
one USAID official, it is expected that these new instruments, if
successful, will allow USAID to better measure and compare educational
quality across countries where it conducts basic education activities.
USAID has also initiated discussion with other Education for All-Fast
Track Initiative donors on how donors can assess the collective impact of
their basic education assistance on learning outcomes.

Additionally, in an effort to collect better data on education quality,
USAID's Education Office is considering the development and administration
of new tests to assess learning outcomes in 10 countries over 12 months.
The goal is to produce an assessment that will better demonstrate the
impact of projects to improve educational quality, but that can be adapted
by different missions facing different educational circumstances. The
proposal recommends identifying two or three countries from each of the
new foreign assistance categories,^26 with representatives from Africa,
Asia, and Latin America. The tests would cover literacy and mathematics
and target fourth and eighth grade students, but would be adjustable for
different grades and ages. The 12-month activity would cover initial
development, and country applications would occur through mission buy-in
into the activity. Although the primary purpose of this assessment would
not be to directly compare different programs or countries with respect to
what students know, the proposal estimates that, for cost-effectiveness,
likely two-thirds of the test materials would be portable across
countries, with the remaining items unique to local circumstances.

Other Agencies Measure Progress Related to Their Respective Missions

While USAID, as noted earlier, is the only agency to track progress toward
an education-specific goal, other agencies track progress related to their
agency-specific missions or do not address their basic education
activities in their agency-wide performance reporting because these
activities are not directly related to their overall agency objectives.^27
For example, agencies track progress as follows:

oDOL and USDA report performance measures related to their particular
agency objectives. For example, DOL primarily uses education activities as
a mechanism for alleviating child labor and reports on children removed or
prevented from exploitive work. USDA reports on the number of
beneficiaries of its school lunch program. Both of these measures are tied
to enrollment and attendance rates collected at the project-level and are,
therefore, related to educational access. DOL programs include
project-level quality indicators, such as primary school completion rates.

oThe MCC initially reported a single "rate of reform" measure based on
multiple outcome-based health and education-related indicators, including
total public expenditure on primary education and girls' primary education
completion rates. MCC now breaks these individual indicators to compare
performance among countries with threshold programs and compacts, as well
as to determine the eligibility of countries for MCC assistance.

oDOD provides basic humanitarian aid and services to avert political and
humanitarian crises, as well as promote democratic development and
regional stability. It collects information on how many projects it has
funded and their costs, but does not address the educational impact of
these projects. A DOD official stated that he would like to see the
Humanitarian Assistance Program begin to measure its impact on countering
terrorism, promoting goodwill, stabilizing the country, and increasing
economic growth.

oAlthough the Peace Corps tracks the number and location of its
volunteers, it does not assess the impact of its basic education
activities because, according to Peace Corps officials, these activities
are too small in scale to be suitable for such monitoring.

State's Office of the DFA Is Planning to Address Improving Interagency
Coordination and Performance Measures for All Foreign Assistance

In January 2006, the Secretary of State appointed a DFA and charged him
with directing the transformation of the U.S. government's approach to
foreign assistance and ensuring that foreign assistance is used as
effectively as possible to meet broad foreign policy objectives.^28
Specifically, the DFA:

ohas authority over all State and USAID foreign assistance funding and
programs, with continued participation in program planning,
implementation, and oversight from the various bureaus and offices within
State and USAID, as part of the integrated interagency planning,
coordination, and implementation mechanisms;

ohas created and directed, through a foreign assistance framework,
consolidated policy, planning, budget, and implementation mechanisms and
staff functions required to provide umbrella leadership to foreign
assistance;

oplans to develop a coordinated U.S. government foreign assistance
strategy, including multiyear, country-specific assistance strategies and
annual country-specific assistance operational plans; and

oplans to provide guidance to foreign assistance delivered through other
agencies and entities of the U.S. government, including MCC and the Office
of the Global AIDS Coordinator.

According to a DFA official, the DFA's office spent its first year
developing the foreign assistance framework, preparing the proposed 2008
consolidated State and USAID budget, and providing guidance for country
teams to develop operational plans. The foreign assistance framework
includes five objectives: (1) peace and security, (2) governing justly and
democratically, (3) investing in people, (4) economic growth, and (5)
humanitarian assistance. Basic education falls under the objective of
investing in people. According to a State official, the new budget and
planning process is intended to give the Secretary of State the ability to
evaluate the effectiveness of foreign assistance to improve effectiveness,
impact, and efficiency through better coordination, at every level.
Looking forward, the DFA is examining ways to improve (1) coordination of
foreign assistance, including basic education and (2) measurement of
program outcomes.

DFA Plans to Improve Coordination of Foreign Assistance, Including Basic
Education

While the DFA has begun to address the issue of better coordinating all
U.S. foreign assistance by bringing together core teams to discuss U.S.
development priorities in each recipient country, it is unclear to what
extent these efforts will be accepted and implemented by agencies whose
foreign assistance programs are not under DFA's direct authority.
According to DFA officials, during the first phase of coordination
efforts, USAID, State, and DOD (as an implementing partner of certain
USAID and State programs) have been meeting to discuss coordination of
assistance. The DFA plans to engage other agencies such as USDA and DOL in
the coordination discussions. However, DFA officials stated that there is
no requirement for other agencies to participate in these dialogues.

DFA Is Considering Methods for Measuring Program Outcomes

DFA acknowledges the need for outcome measures to better describe the
impact of basic education, as well as other foreign assistance areas.
According to a DFA official, developing outcome indicators for all
assistance programs is difficult because of the differing program
objectives those programs may possess. For example, some programs may meet
the political objectives of the United States, while others may meet
purely development objectives. DFA plans to use as many outcome measures
as possible generated by third parties, such as World Bank statistics and
UNESCO literacy rates. Also, DFA plans for missions to submit "Foreign
Assistance Reports" back to Washington, which would combine their FACT
data with locally generated outcome measures to demonstrate the cumulative
effects of their programs. However, this process and the outcome measures
it might contain have not been developed, and DFA does not currently have
a timetable for implementing these initiatives. Although an agency can use
outputs, outcomes, or some combination of the two to reflect the agency's
intended performance, the GPRA is clearly outcome-oriented and thus an
agency's performance plan should include outcome goals whenever
possible.^29 DFA officials acknowledged that the new performance reporting
system as it currently stands will not report the outcome results of basic
education programs to managers in headquarters.

Conclusions

Without a government-wide mechanism to systematically coordinate all
agency efforts in basic education at the headquarters level, agencies'
programs may not maximize the effectiveness of U.S. assistance. The new
State DFA efforts to implement a country-wide program planning and
budgeting process, which is designed to better manage the delivery of
foreign assistance, may improve coordination of basic education programs
at the country level, but this process is still evolving, and it is yet to
be determined what impact these efforts will have on future strategic
planning of education-related assistance. Moreover, having reliable and
systematic methods to determine if basic education programs are meeting
their goals could help better inform U.S. agencies' decisions regarding
the planning and execution of basic education-related assistance. Although
the DFA plans to work toward developing methods to assess outcomes of all
foreign assistance, these efforts are only in the early discussion phase.

Recommendations for Executive Action

To enhance efforts to coordinate and better assess the results of U.S.
international basic education-related activities, we are making three
recommendations:

oto improve interagency coordination of basic education efforts at
headquarters in Washington, we recommend that the Secretary of State work
with the heads of executive branch agencies responsible for international
basic education-related assistance to convene formal, periodic meetings at
the headquarters level amongst cognizant officials;

oto improve interagency coordination in recipient countries, we recommend
that the Secretary of State direct the relevant countries' Ambassadors to
establish a mechanism to formally coordinate U.S. agencies' implementation
of international basic education-related activities in the relevant
country; and

oto better assess the results of U.S. basic education assistance, we
recommend that the Secretary of State, through the DFA, work with USAID
and to the extent practicable, with other U.S. agencies providing basic
education related-assistance to develop a plan to identify indicators that
would help agencies track improvements in access to quality education.
Indicators could include:

ooutput measures, such as the numbers of U.S. programs designed to improve
curriculum and teacher training, and to develop and validate student
tests; and

ooutcome measures, such as literacy and numeracy assessments of student
achievement.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

We provided a draft of this report to State, USAID, USDA, DOD, DOL, MCC,
and the Peace Corps. We obtained written comments on the draft of this
report from State, USAID, and USDA (see apps. VI, VII, and VIII). State
generally concurred with our recommendations and noted that its Office of
the Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance is in the process of developing
mechanisms to ensure coordination of U.S. assistance programs with other
federal agencies, implementers, and stakeholders. In addition, State's
Office of the Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance is working with USAID,
State, and others in the international community to develop appropriate
measures for learning outcomes. We agree that these are positive steps
toward improving the coordination of U.S. supported basic education
programs and the ability to measure whether basic education programs
abroad are achieving their goals, and we encourage State to continue to
work with the heads of executive agencies to this end. USAID concurred
with our recommendations and agreed with the need for greater U.S.
government coordination and that more needs to be done in the areas to
improve education outcomes in country and to better understand the impact
of U.S. support to basic education. USDA concurred with our
recommendations and indicated that it will work with the Department of
State in the manner which the report recommends. We also received
technical comments on this draft from State, USAID, DOL, MCC, and the
Peace Corps, which we incorporated where appropriate.

We are sending copies of this report to appropriate Members of Congress,
the Secretaries of the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Labor, and
State, as well as the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International
Development, the Director of the Peace Corps, and the Chief Executive
Officer of the Millennium Challenge Corporation. We also will make copies
available to others upon request. In addition, this report will be
available at no charge on the GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov .

If you or your staff has any questions concerning this report, please
contact me at (202) 512-4128 or [email protected]. Contact points for our
Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the
last page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to this
report are listed in appendix IX.

Jess T. Ford
Director, International Affairs and Trade

Appendix I
Scope and Methodology 

To describe U.S. agencies' basic education activities and how the
activities are planned, we obtained and analyzed strategic, budget, and
programmatic documents for fiscal years 2001 through 2006 from the
Departments of Agriculture (USDA), Defense (DOD), Labor (DOL), and State
(State), as well as the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), the United
States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Peace Corps.
The documentation included, when available, strategic plans at the
mission, country, regional, and global levels. We also interviewed program
officials and requested data from these agencies in Washington, D.C., to
identify the types of basic education-related activities, the recipient
countries of these activities, and the estimated funding levels of the
programs. These included educational activities that corresponded to
USAID's definition of basic education, such as primary education,
secondary education, early childhood development, and adult literacy.
These activities also included those implemented under special or
administration-directed initiatives related to basic education. We
assessed the reliability of the funding data by reviewing existing
information about the data and the system that produced them and
interviewing agency officials knowledgeable about the data. USDA and DOL
did not disaggregate funds specifically allocated to the basic education
components of their larger programs. We found all agencies' data
sufficiently reliable for representing the nature and extent of their
program funding and activities. We did not assess the reliability of the
World Bank's selected indicator data because they were used for background
purposes only.

To learn about the implementation of international basic education
assistance overseas, we observed ongoing program activity in the following
eight countries: Dominican Republic, Egypt, Honduras, Mali, Morocco, Peru,
South Africa, and Zambia.^1 We selected a nonprobability sample of foreign
countries designed to ensure geographic diversity and representation of
basic education programs from multiple U.S. agencies and international
donors. In addition to geographic diversity and representation of multiple
agencies and international donors, our sample was designed to include
countries that implement special or administration-directed initiatives
related to basic education. In the countries, we met with representatives
from State, USAID, USDA, DOD, DOL, the MCC, and the Peace Corps; officials
representing embassies and USAID missions in the countries visited;
officials administering international basic education programs; and
officials from foreign governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs),
the United Nations (UN), and other international organizations. Within
each country, we examined all U.S. agency basic education activities
ongoing at the time of our visit and discussed these activities with
relevant agency officials.

To determine the mechanisms the United States uses to coordinate national
and international basic education assistance, we analyzed agency
coordination documents and interviewed relevant U.S. agency, host
government, and international donor officials in our eight sample
countries. Documentation we examined included e-mails, meeting minutes,
memoranda of understanding, policy agendas, host government education
sector strategies, and other supplemental documentation. We met with
officials from State, USAID, USDA, DOL, DOD, the Peace Corps, and the MCC
in Washington, D.C., to discuss interagency coordination at the
headquarters level. In each of our eight sample countries, we discussed
coordination of international basic education assistance with relevant
officials from U.S. agencies, U.S. program implementers, host countries'
Ministries of Education, and international donors with basic education
programs in-country.

To evaluate how U.S. agencies monitor and assess the results of their
international basic education programs, we obtained and examined
contractual and monitoring and evaluation documents for each of the basic
education projects we visited. For each ongoing project, we interviewed
officials from the implementing organizations, as well as any U.S. agency
official(s) monitoring the implementer's progress. In our interviews, we
discussed project monitoring, data baselines, and progress indicators. We
supplemented these interviews with a review of reporting documentation
associated with 40 of the basic education projects we discussed with
program implementers. This sample included all ongoing projects that we
visited in our eight sample countries. The documentation that we reviewed
included the contracts, cooperative agreements, statements of work
(program descriptions), performance monitoring plans, and monitoring
reports for the 40 projects. Furthermore, to describe USAID's process for
collecting and using performance measures, we interviewed USAID officials
and analyzed agency documents. To describe the new planning process for
foreign assistance and its impact on collecting indicator data, we
interviewed State and USAID officials and analyzed relevant documentation.

To determine the extent to which the projects had outcome measures, used
baselines, and set targets, we identified and analyzed the performance
measures in the programs' documentation. We coded performance measures as
outcomes if they were linked to program objectives and had clearly
reported results. We also assessed whether the outcome measures we
identified established clear baselines and set targets. To ensure accuracy
in our coding, two coders independently reviewed the program documentation
and met to reconcile any initial differences in their coding. In addition,
another staff member independently reviewed the coding decisions.

Although the findings from our site visits in each country and our review
of ongoing basic education projects are not generalizable to the
population of basic education programs, we determined that the selection
of the countries and programs reviewed was appropriate for our design and
objectives.

We conducted our fieldwork in Washington, D.C., and in the Dominican
Republic, Egypt, Honduras, Liberia, Mali, Morocco, Peru, South Africa, and
Zambia from December 2005 to March 2007 in accordance with generally
accepted government auditing standards.

Appendix II
Recipient Countries of Activities Related to International Basic Education
During Fiscal Year 2006

Legend

N/A=Countries that are not eligible for MCC funding

Source: U.S. agencies' data.

Note: Some of USAID's regional activities are not included.

^aFast Track Initiative countries.

Appendix III
Recipient Countries of USAID Basic Education Assistance, Funding Levels,
and Selected World Bank's Indicators

Legend

N/A=Data not available

Source: USAID data from the Annual Report System and World Bank's World
Development Indicators data from
[58]http://devdata.worldbank.org/dataonline/ .

Note: Funding figures include those allocated directly to USAID missions
in country. Funding does not include regional funding, which may
distribute basic education funds to countries through headquarters.

Appendix IV
List of International Basic Education Projects Reviewed

Source: U.S. agencies' data.

^aFunding covers global or regional projects.

^bFunding amounts represent the approximate distribution of scholarship
funds across countries.

^cFunding amounts only cover the basic education component of the project.

Appendix V
Analysis of the Performance Measures in Documentation for Selected
International Basic Education Programs

We studied 40 programs from the eight countries visited during fieldwork.
The programs had multiple performance measures and often included a mix of
outcome and output measures. We identified measures using criteria that
required them to be clearly identified as performance measures, have
clearly reported results, and be clearly linked to program objectives. See
appendix I for more details about how the programs were selected for study
and about the methodology we used to analyze their measures. Table 4 below
shows the type of measures contained in the programs we examined. Table 5
shows the characteristics of the outcome measures being used by the
programs, and Table 6 shows how these outcome measures were used.

Table 4: Performance Measures in the Programs Selected

                                        

                               Disposition                             Number 
Programs with outcome measures                                          21 
Programs without outcome measures but with output measures              10 
Programs with no clear performance measures reporteda                    6 
Programs early in implementation with no clearly reported                3 
performance measures                                                       
Total number of programs reviewed                                       40 

Source: GAO analysis of USAID and DOL project documentation.

^aSome of these programs did list activities or provide descriptions of
their progress; however, these activities did not meet our criteria for
clearly identified performance measures that linked to objectives.

Table 5: Characteristics of the Outcome Measures

                                        

                        Disposition                                    Number 
Programs that used quantitative measures                                21 
Programs that set baselines                                             14 
Programs that set targets                                               18 

Source: GAO analysis of USAID and DOL project documentation.

Note: We analyzed the 21 programs that we identified as having clear
outcome measures. Many programs had multiple outcome measures. For this
analysis, we determined that the program had outcome measures that were
quantitative, or set baselines or targets, if any one of their outcome
measures had that characteristic. See appendix I for more details about
how we selected the programs and the methodology we used to analyze the
measures.

Table 6: Programs' Use of Outcome Measures

                                        

                               Disposition                             Number 
Programs with measures that addressed access issues                     16 
Programs with measures that addressed capacity issues                   15 
Programs with measures that addressed quality issues                    12 
Programs with measures that addressed access, capacity, and quality      8 
issues                                                                     

Source: GAO analysis of USAID and DOL project documentation.

Note: This analysis was conducted of the 21 programs that we identified as
having clear outcome measures. We analyzed the measures according to
whether they followed USAID's criteria for access, quality, and capacity.
Many programs had multiple outcome measures. For this analysis, we
determined that the program had outcome measures that addressed access,
capacity, or quality if any one of their outcome measures had that
characteristic. As a result, programs can have measures that address more
than one dimension; for example, as stated above, eight programs had
measures that addressed access, capacity and quality issues. See appendix
I for more details about how the programs were selected for study and
about the methodology we used to analyze their measures.

Appendix VI
Comments from the Department of State

The following are our comments on the Department of State's letter dated
March 26, 2007.

GAO Comments

1.State said that its Office of the Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance
over the past year has undertaken a process to ensure the kind of
coordination necessary for coherent U.S. government assistance programs in
all areas, including basic education. Also, State said that its experience
to date has demonstrated willingness by other federal agencies such as the
Department of Defense, U.S. Trade Representatives, and the Millennium
Challenge Corporation to work with us within the Foreign Assistance
framework. In addition, the fiscal year 2008 operational planning process
is expected to be the first year wherein there is full participation by
other agency implementers and stakeholders. At the time of our review,
some of the other agency officials that we met with in Washington said
that their respective agencies have not yet been invited to participate in
such coordination efforts. Therefore, we believe that State should
continue towards this end to improve coordination, both at the
headquarters and in recipient countries, among all agencies involved in
international basic education-related activities.

2.State said that USAID, State, and others in the international community
are working together to try to develop appropriate measures for learning
outcomes that would address the question of whether a quality education is
being provided.  Also, State noted that its Office of the Director of U.S.
Foreign Assistance is building on the long history and best practices that
USAID and other agencies have accumulated from many years of performance
management and thorough evaluation. Our report notes the efforts of State,
USAID, and the international community in this regard and that these
efforts have just begun. However, we maintain that a plan should be
developed to better guide these efforts to help agencies track
improvements in the access to quality education.

Appendix VII
Comments from the U.S. Agency for International Development

Appendix VIII
Comments from the U.S. Department of Agriculture

The following are our comments on the Department of Agriculture's letter
dated March 22, 2007.

GAO Comments

1.We deleted the statement that "USDA. . . can not disaggregate the amount
of funds allocated specifically for basic education related activities."
from the report. Also, in the report we explain that USDA funding
allocations include basic education components that support its broader
mission goals and provide examples accordingly.

2.We acknowledge USDA's coordination efforts with State, USAID, and the
Office of Management and Budget as a good example of interagency
coordination.

Appendix IX
GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Jess Ford, (202) 512-4128, [email protected]

Staff Acknowledgments

In addition to the individual named above, Zina Merritt, Assistant
Director; Virginia Chanley; Martin de Alteriis; Harriet Ganson; Emily
Gupta; David Hancock; Victoria Lin; Grace Lui; Grant Mallie; Patricia
Martin; Deborah Owolabi; and Anne Welch made key contributions to this
report. The team benefited from the expert advice and assistance of Joseph
Carney, Elizabeth Curda, Joyce Evans, Etana Finkler, Bruce Kutnick, Jena
Sinkfield, and Cynthia Taylor.

(320399)

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-523 .

To view the full product, including the scope
and methodology, click on the link above.

For more information, contact Jess T. Ford at (202) 512-4128 or
[email protected].

Highlights of [61]GAO-07-523 , a report to congressional committees

March 2007

FOREIGN ASSISTANCE

Enhanced Coordination and Better Methods to Assess the Results of U.S.
International Basic Education Efforts Are Needed

Pub. L. No. 109-102, section 567, mandated that GAO analyze U.S.
international basic education efforts overseas. In this report, GAO (1)
describes U.S. agencies' basic education activities and how the agencies
plan them; (2) examines U.S. coordination of basic education efforts among
U.S. agencies, and with host governments and international donors; and (3)
examines how U.S. agencies assess the results of their basic education
programs. In conducting this work, GAO obtained and analyzed relevant
agencies' documents and met with U.S. and foreign government officials and
nongovernmental organizations, traveling to selected recipient countries.

[62]What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that the Secretary of State work with the heads of other
U.S. executive agencies in (1) improving interagency coordination of basic
education efforts at headquarters in Washington and in recipient countries
and (2) developing a plan to better assess the results of basic education
programs, especially those programs aimed at increasing educational
quality. We received written comments from State, USAID, and USDA
indicating that they generally concurred with our recommendations. We also
received technical comments, which we incorporated where appropriate.

Several U.S. agencies--the Departments of Agriculture (USDA), Defense
(DOD), Labor (DOL), and State, as well as the Millennium Challenge
Corporation (MCC), U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and
the Peace Corps--support basic education activities overseas. State and
USAID have strategic goals specific to promoting improved education.
Several other U.S. agencies support basic education-related activities as
part of programs that address their broader mission goals. For example,
DOL supports alternative school programs as a way to remove children from
exploitative work, USDA provides school meals or take-home rations to
students, and DOD constructs dormitories and schools to provide better
access for children who have to travel long distances to attend classes.

GAO found that agencies did not always coordinate in the planning or
delivery of basic education-related activities. From 2001 to 2006, there
was no government-wide mechanism to facilitate interagency collaboration
and, as a result, GAO identified instances where agencies missed
opportunities to collaborate and maximize U.S. resources. In addition, GAO
found that the level of U.S. coordination with host governments and other
donors in the eight visited countries varied. Without effective
coordination, donors cannot easily monitor or assess the host government's
progress toward achieving international goals, such as Education for All
by 2015, one of State-USAID's strategic goals.

While U.S. agencies GAO reviewed conduct basic education-related programs
to achieve different goals, most collect and use output measures, such as
the numbers of schools built or children enrolled, to assess and report on
results. USAID is the only agency with an education-specific goal of
increasing access to quality basic education. However, in many instances,
USAID faces challenges in collecting valid and reliable data needed to
measure improvements in education quality. Without this information,
agency officials cannot fully determine if the programs are achieving
their strategic goals.

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References

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