WASHINGTON – Sen Chuck Grassley and Sen. Dianne Feinstein are asking the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to account for how the agency can monitor and evaluate the success of U.S.-funded projects in Afghanistan when watchdogs have found major problems with fundamental facts such as the accurate locations of health care facilities provided by USAID. Grassley and Feinstein are concerned that USAID’s problems monitoring development programs could have a significant effect on U.S. counternarcotics strategy in Afghanistan. Grassley is chairman and Feinstein is co-chairman of the Caucus on International Narcotics Control. Grassley and Feinstein serve together on the Judiciary Committee, Grassley as chairman.
“USAID’s programs are an important aspect of sustaining a counternarcotics strategy in the country (Afghanistan), so it is vital that effective monitoring systems are in in place so that they can achieve their intended effects,” Grassley and Feinstein wrote to USAID Administrator Gayle E. Smith. “Moreover, we want to ensure that limited tax dollars are used as intended.”
Grassley and Feinstein noted that the agency inspector general found that USAID cannot verify that effective program oversight is under way, while such oversight is “especially important in Afghanistan because USAID has spent more than $17 billion since 2002 to improve Afghans’ security and prosperity and to support U.S. national interests.”
Grassley and Feinstein asked a series of detailed questions on current USAID projects in Afghanistan, funding levels of those projects and termination dates, steps taken by the agency to implement inspector general recommendations, and steps taken to update and account for problematic data that greatly interferes with USAID’s ability to monitor project success.
The letter is available here.
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