ForeignAssistance.gov is a great idea in theory—a one-stop shop for information about all US foreign assistance spending, reported quarterly and at the transaction level. In practice, the site has struggled to become a useful and reliable tool due in large part to missing data and poor quality information. Thus a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), critical of ForeignAssistance.gov, came as little surprise when it was released earlier this month. The headline finding highlights the website’s incomplete data and poor disclosure of data limitations. But if you look closely, important agency-level distinctions emerge. Here you’ll find some good stories…and some less good ones. Several agencies, like the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), are doing well reporting their data to ForeignAssistance.gov. Others, like the State Department, have more room for improvement. But one agency truly stands out for its reporting gap. The Department of Defense (DOD), which by some measures is one of the biggest players in US foreign assistance, reports very little to ForeignAssistance.gov, suggesting that this type of transparency is a low Department priority.
In coming up with its findings, GAO compared the data posted on the State Department-managed ForeignAssistance.gov with that available on a different foreign assistance data clearinghouse, the USAID-managed Foreign Aid Explorer. Foreign Aid Explorer reports annual data aggregable at the sector, country, or account level (among other options). Because the data on Foreign Aid Explorer go through a lengthy vetting and verification process, they are reported with over a year lag, making them of limited use for important things like coordinating spending in-country with host country governments and other donors. ForeignAssistance.gov attempts to remedy this and other transparency gaps by collecting and reporting data down to the transaction-level on a quarterly basis with information posted in a more timely fashion (i.e., within the current fiscal year). Because both sites use a similar definition of foreign assistance, however, aggregate comparisons are possible. In making these comparisons, GAO found that ForeignAssistance.gov is missing a substantial portion of the verified data on Foreign Aid Explorer, suggesting a persistent lack of transparency when it comes to the more useful, detailed, and up-to-date data.
Overall, the story is more encouraging than it seems. For several (small) agencies, including MCC, there is no discrepancy whatsoever. For several others, including USAID (which accounts for around 40 percent of the total sum evaluated), the discrepancy is pretty small. For the State Department and a few other agencies, GAO discovered larger discrepancies. But DOD is in a class of its own—responsible for almost all of the total discrepancy GAO uncovered. In fact, if you take them out of GAO’s analysis, the bottom line looks a lot different:
Without DOD, the reaction provoked goes from “That’s unacceptable!” to “Ok, not bad—room for improvement, but pretty close.” Of course, this doesn’t let other agencies with data discrepancies off the hook—especially since it’s only the tiny agencies whose data match exactly. But it points to the need for a deeper look at DOD.
DOD does provide a couple of reasons for the difference in reporting. One is definitional (while Foreign Aid Explorer attributes a chunk of security assistance to DOD, ForeignAssistance.gov assigns it to State). The other seems to boil down simply to incomplete reporting. Publish What You Fund notes that DOD’s reporting has actually improved over the years, but still ranks it the least transparent of the US agencies it reviews.
A possible clue to the reason behind the incomplete reporting is found in the discussion on agency-identified impediments to collecting and reporting data to ForeignAssistance.gov. Presented with a number of options—things like lack of technical capacity and IT limitations—most agencies identified technical limitations of one sort or another. Not DOD. The Department’s only claimed impediment was lack of staff time for the process. It was the only agency to cite this as a constraint. And it would seem to suggest that DOD’s data is reportable, the agency just hasn’t put sufficient resources behind making it happen.
For those counting, the foreign assistance data captured on ForeignAssistance.gov and Foreign Aid Explorer reflect military as well as economic assistance, so not all of it is classified as official development assistance (ODA). The bulk—94 percent—of DOD spending is military assistance, so while DOD is responsible for around a quarter of Fiscal Year 2014 obligations on Foreign Aid Explorer, it is responsible for just 1 percent of 2014 ODA obligations (and <1 percent of ODA disbursements). It follows, then, that most the data missing from ForeignAssistance.gov is military rather than development assistance. That said, because a considerable amount of military assistance, for instance Foreign Military Financing, comes from the same account function as development assistance, transparency around both components is critical for enabling stakeholders to better understand the intra-account tradeoffs being made among defense and development objectives.
Over the next few months Rethink plans to dive deeper into the question of DOD’s role in US international development efforts. We’ll delve into where the money is going and for what purpose with a view toward better understanding objectives and results as well as exploring the fundamental question of the role the Department plays in interagency (and international) development strategy.
Disclaimer
CGD blog posts reflect the views of the authors, drawing on prior research and experience in their areas of expertise. CGD is a nonpartisan, independent organization and does not take institutional positions.
