Peacekeeping: Thousands Trained but United States Is Unlikely to Complete All Activities by 2010 and Some Improvements Are Needed

In response to our recommendation, State and the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) worked together to develop a position for a Training Center Plans Officer that was filled in May 2009. The responsibilities of this position include: assisting in the development of procedures that ensure COESPU's financial reporting, program performance analyses, work plans and budget requests meet U.S. government guidelines, and; assisting in the development and implementation of measures to evaluate the effectiveness of COESPU training.

State has taken a number of actions to implement this recommendation. It (1) established a logistics contract for the Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance (ACOTA) to oversee the entire logistics process for commercial acquisition from acquisition to delivery; (2) completed an accounting reconciliation through the ACOTA program office for all training event equipment purchased in previous financial years; (3) established a procedure for monitoring equipments purchased through States' Office of Acquisition Management's regional procurement support offices (RPSO) and hired additional personnel in the U.S. Southern Command to assist with this process; (4) for training equipment bought through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) system, jointly developed a "Title and Custody" note with the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), where the U.S. government keeps its rights over any defense articles being transferred through GPOI until they are officially delivered to a recipient country (this process also calls for a U.S. government agent to confirm and document delivery of defense articles); and (5) assigned program management employees in the GPOI Evaluation Team to monitor equipment procurement and delivery procedures as part of their routine data collection.

The Department of State noted in its agency comments that it concurred with this recommendation, and noted that GPOI has been examining mechanisms to improve data collection on the activities of COESPU graduates and is developing a systematic approach for the gathering of post-training data. In May 2010, State informed GAO that it and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs distributed a survey of COESPU partner countries to provide at least a mid-course analysis of post-graduation employment of students. In May 2012, State noted that since March 16, 2011, the United States and Italy, working with 23 GPOI/COESPU partner country Ministries of Foreign Affairs, have implemented a data collection effort which tracks COESPU graduate (a) deployments to actual peacekeeping missions/operations and (b) employments in peacekeeping/ capacity-building activities. State provided a sample of its Graduate Tracking Data as of May 14, 2012, to document its compliance with this recommendation.

In consultation with stakeholders in the United Nations and in cooperation with DOD, the Department of State developed training manuals that include task lists and training standards for military units, as well as guidelines for trainee evaluation. These manuals were finalized in September 2009 and distributed to GPOI implementers in May 2010. State also produced a monitoring and evaluation plan that includes reviewing training reports and conducting on-site assessments.

State noted in its comments to the report that it concurred with this recommendation. It noted that although evaluation data had been collected, the data had yet to be entered into State?s contracting databases, but expected to enter this data shortly. In April 2009, State noted the Office of Acquisition Management (AQM), International Programs Division, International Affairs Branch hired several additional contractor personnel to enter the past performance data for all contracts exceeding $100,000. A State official confirmed in July 2012 that AQM had captured all past contract performance data in the Contract Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS), but noted that AQM was still in the process of trying to complete all of the past evaluations it is required to enter into CPARS. However, State demonstrated compliance with the recommendation by providing examples of performance evaluations of GPOI?related contract activities in Africa recorded in CPARS in 2011.

In response to our recommendation, State began building a database in August 2008 to facilitate the record-keeping and recall of past vetting cases. The database became operational throughout the State Department in 2011. In addition, the Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI) program incorporated guidance on vetting procedures as part of its implementation guide, and distributed this to embassies around the world.

State and DOD have discussed resources and timeframes in several fora, including the Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI) Coordinating Committee, which meets annually and is chaired by State and DOD, and a lower level policy development oversight committee that is chaired by State and DOD representatives. Within these fora in 2007, 2008, and 2009, State and DOD Africa region representatives assessed resources and time frames to achieve GPOI goals in Africa by 2010. GPOI officials stated that their primary goal during their startup phase of 2005 to 2010 was to train 75,000 peacekeepers with an emphasis on Africa, and that they accomplished this by training 87,673 military peacekeepers during this time period, more than 77,000 of whom were from African partner countries.

State has developed a strategy for the second phase of the program, from 2010 to 2014, which was finalized and published in October 2009. The strategy highlights building long-term peacekeeping skills and infrastructure, such as strengthening the skills of local instructors, with a focus on Africa. African capacity building efforts are a priority in the strategy document. The strategy contains program activities, which are the criteria against which proposals for using Global Peace Operations Initiative funds are evaluated and funding allocations are determined.