Report Contents
What OIG Inspected
OIG evaluated the executive direction, foreign policy priorities, staffing, policy and program implementation, resource management operations, and information management operations of the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs.
What OIG Recommends
OIG made 21 recommendations to the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. In its comments on the draft report, the bureau concurred with 20 recommendations and disagreed with 1 recommendation. OIG considers 20 recommendations resolved and 1 recommendation unresolved. The bureau’s response to each recommendation, and OIG’s reply, can be found in the Recommendations section of this report. The bureau’s formal response is reprinted in its entirety in Appendix B.
What OIG Found
- The Bureau of Political-Military Affairs’ Assistant Secretary and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary demonstrated Department of State leadership and management principles to communicate and foster resilience. The Assistant Secretary served as a principal advisor to Department leaders on policies relating to national security or U.S. military activities.
- The Bureau of Political-Military Affairs managed increased activity in several high-profile areas of concern to the Department, the administration, and Congress: support to Ukraine; the Indo-Pacific strategy, with a focus on Taiwan and the Australia-United Kingdom-United States enhanced security partnership; and support to Israel following the October 2023 Hamas attack.
- Bureau staffing did not keep pace with workload growth that resulted from the war in Ukraine, new Indo-Pacific strategy responsibilities, and the Israel-Hamas conflict. The bureau’s efforts and Department workforce planning processes were ineffective in addressing the bureau’s staffing requirements related to the surge of work on these foreign policy priorities.
- The bureau did not have a centralized system for tracking contracts. Contracting officer’s representatives did not perform the majority of contract oversight.
- The bureau had deficiencies in grants management, including the lack of full and open competition for assistance awards.
- The bureau’s systems development lifecycle process lacked documentation for management approvals and stakeholder decisions, and the bureau did not retain project documentation in a central location as required by Department standards.
- Spotlight on Success: The Bureau of Political-Military Affairs developed criteria-driven proposal processes for allocating certain assistance funding to meet specific strategic objectives.
Report Terms
Report Recommendations
The Bureau of Political-Military Affairs should integrate the U.S. Strategy on Women, Peace, and Security into its programs and assign responsibility for the coordination of this strategy to the Front Office.
The Bureau of Political-Military Affairs should implement a detailed plan for the coordinated performance of all program evaluation requirements bureau-wide, including systematic briefings to bureau leadership on evaluation results.
The Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, in coordination with the Bureau of Global Talent Management, should assess its outyear requirements for program management staffing and develop a bureau workforce plan that uses available personnel authorities, mechanisms, and funding sources to address ongoing staffing needs and balances the need for consistent staffing with the need for flexibility.
The Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, in coordination with the Bureau of Legislative Affairs, should develop a legislative strategy to secure funding and authorities that enable the bureau to use Foreign Military Sales fees and foreign assistance program funds for staffing so that it can meet its responsibilities for management and oversight of foreign assistance programs and arms transfers.
The Bureau of Political-Military Affairs should implement a process to assess long-term sustainment costs and funding mechanisms in its concurrence process for Department of Defense-provided equipment.
The Bureau of Political-Military Affairs should develop and implement parameters and oversight procedures for Foreign Military Financing administrative funds used by the Department of Defense.
The Bureau of Political-Military Affairs should implement a process, in coordination with relevant agencies, to reduce delays in completing commodity jurisdiction reviews.
The Bureau of Political-Military Affairs should standardize instructions for agencies requesting regulatory review letters.
The Bureau of Political-Military Affairs should bring licensing reviews into compliance with federal standards.
The Bureau of Political-Military Affairs should implement a centralized contract tracking system in compliance with federal acquisition regulations.
The Bureau of Political-Military Affairs should bring the contracting officer's representative program into compliance with Department standards.
The Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, in coordination with the Bureau of Administration, should bring its contract and contracting officer's representative files into compliance with Department and federal guidance.
The Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, in coordination with the Bureau of Administration, should clarify roles and responsibilities for site visits conducted by staff other than designated contracting officer's representatives.
The Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, in coordination with the Bureau of Administration, should bring the bureau's practices with respect to sole source awards into compliance with Department standards.
The Bureau of Political-Military Affairs should require all grants officers and grants officer representatives to monitor and track all award activity in the Department's official federal assistance management system in accordance with Department guidance.
The Bureau of Political-Military Affairs should ensure oversight practices are consistent with reporting requirements in interagency agreements.
The Bureau of Political-Military Affairs should implement a bureau-wide time and attendance policy that complies with Department guidance.
The Bureau of Political-Military Affairs should revise the Office of Defense Trade Controls Management systems development lifecycle process to include documented stakeholder decisions and management approvals throughout the lifecycle of a project and mandate use of a central repository of required documentation according to Department standards.
The Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, in coordination with the Bureau of Information Resource Management, should complete the assessment comparing bureau assets and inventory against Bureau of Information Resource Management data and correct any discrepancies.
The Bureau of Political-Military Affairs should develop and implement a process for determining connectivity needs of domestic and overseas Foreign Policy Advisors on a continuous basis.
The Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, in coordination with the Bureau of Information Resource Management, should determine a cross-domain solution to allow data transfers between systems.