Fiscal Year 2019 Inspector General Statement on the U.S. Agency for Global Media’s Major Management and Performance Challenges

Each year, in accordance with the Reports Consolidation Act of 2000,¹ the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) identifies the most serious management and performance challenges facing the agency and briefly assesses progress in addressing those challenges. The resulting report is included in the agency’s annual performance and accountability report.
Our oversight work gives us unique visibility into the most significant challenges facing USAGM, and OIG concludes that the following were the most important challenges in FY 2019:

• Information security and management
• Financial and property management
• Grant management

These issues go to the core of USAGM’s programs and operations and have been crucial challenges for the past 5 years.

OIG acknowledges that USAGM has made substantial progress in its corporate structure. OIG’s targeted inspection of USAGM governance concluded that changes made since 2015 had significantly improved the executive direction of the agency compared to the board-led governance structure in place during OIG’s 2013 inspection.² All USAGM board members described the change as not merely positive but transformational in its effect on the agency. Also, changes in the board’s structure permitted it to meet its responsibilities while avoiding problems associated with the previous structure, in which individual members demonstrated, or were perceived to demonstrate, favoritism to the entity on whose board they served when they made agency-wide budget and policy decisions. Although OIG noted a number of areas for improvement and made five recommendations,³ the improvements in corporate governance are positive steps that will hopefully place USAGM in a stronger overall position to address the broader management challenges facing the organization.
 

_{1 The Reports Consolidation Act of 2000, § 3, Pub. L. 106-531 (amending 31 U.S.C. § 3516).
2 OIG, Inspection of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (ISP-IB-13-07, January 2013).
3 OIG, Targeted Inspection of the Governance of the United States Agency for Global Media (ISP-IB-19-22, April 2019).}