Federal Manager's Daily Report

The Department of State and Agency for International Development haveyet to fully implement changes needed to improve contract support in overseas contingency operations, GAO has said.

It said State and USAID have increased their acquisition workforce by 53 and 15 percent from their 2011 levels and are in various stages of assessing their workforce needs for overseas contingency operations.

In October, State approved a number of actions to improve policies and procedures, including specific initiatives in acquisition planning and risk management, but has not developed plans to assess the impact of those and other initiatives, according to GAO-14-229. It said that continued management attention is needed to ensure that these efforts achieve their intended objectives.

Also in October USAID established a new working group to develop lessons learned, toolkits, and training and is expected to complete its efforts in late 2014 – and this working group could further assess the policies and procedures developed by the missions and offices, GAO noted.

State and USAID concurred with a recommendation to assess whether identified changes achieve intended objectives, and USAID agreed to further assess contingency contracting related procedures and practices.