Table Of ContentUnited States Department of State
United States Agency for International Development
FY 2015 Annual
Performance Report
FY 2017 Annual
Performance Plan
Table of Contents
Department of State and USAID Overview ................................................................................................... 4
Strategic Objective 1.1: Expand Access to Future Markets, Investment, and Trade ................................. 21
Performance Goal 1.1.1: Advocacy to Support U.S. Export of Goods and Services .............................. 26
Performance Goal 1.1.2: Science, Technology, and Innovation Cooperation ....................................... 29
Strategic Objective 1.2: Promote Inclusive Economic Growth, Reduce Extreme Poverty, and Improve
Food Security .............................................................................................................................................. 34
Performance Goal 1.2.1: (Agency Priority Goal) - Food Security ........................................................... 37
Performance Goal 1.2.2: Strengthening Gender Integration in Development Programming ............... 41
Performance Goal 1.2.3: Resilience to Recurrent Crisis ........................................................................ 45
Strategic Objective 2.1: Build a New Stability in the Middle East and North Africa .................................. 48
Performance Goal 2.1.1: Expanded Trade and Investment in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)
................................................................................................................................................................ 52
Strategic Objective 2.2: Rebalance to the Asia-Pacific through Enhanced Diplomacy, Security
Cooperation, and Development ................................................................................................................. 56
Performance Goal 2.2.1: Strengthen Regional Economic Integration ................................................... 62
Strategic Objective 2.3: Prevent and Respond to Crises and Conflict, Tackle Sources of Fragility, and
Provide Humanitarian Assistance to Those in Need ................................................................................... 68
Performance Goal 2.3.1: Conflict and Fragility ...................................................................................... 71
Performance Goal 2.3.2: Humanitarian Assistance: Response ............................................................. 73
Performance Goal 2.3.3: Humanitarian Assistance: Refugees .............................................................. 77
Strategic Objective 2.4: Overcome Global Security Challenges through Diplomatic Engagement and
Development Cooperation ......................................................................................................................... 79
Performance Goal 2.4.1: Arms Control and Nonproliferation ............................................................... 80
Performance Goal 2.4.2: Reduce Transnational Organized Crime and Strengthen Rule of Law ........... 83
Performance Goal 2.4.3: Securing Cyberspace ...................................................................................... 87
Strategic Objective 2.5: Strengthen America's Efforts to Combat Global Health Challenges ................... 90
Performance Goal 2.5.1: Create an AIDS-Free Generation.................................................................. 106
Performance Goal 2.5.2: End Preventable Maternal and Child Deaths (Agency Priority Goal) .......... 110
Strategic Objective 3.1: Building on Strong Domestic Action, Lead International Actions to Combat
Climate Change ......................................................................................................................................... 120
Performance Goal 3.1.1: (Agency Priority Goal) – Building on Strong Domestic Action, Lead
International Actions to Combat Climate Change ................................................................................ 124
Strategic Objective 3.2: Promote Energy Security, Access to Clean Energy, and the Transition to a
Cleaner Global Economy ........................................................................................................................... 129
Performance Goal 3.2.1: Strengthen Global Energy Governance ....................................................... 131
Performance Goal 3.2.2: Open International Electric Power Markets ................................................ 133
Performance Goal 3.2.3: Power Africa ................................................................................................. 137
Strategic Objective 4.1: Encourage Democratic Governance as a Force for Stability, Peace, and Prosperity
.................................................................................................................................................................. 139
Performance Goal 4.1.1: Strengthen Democratic Institutions ............................................................ 146
Performance Goal 4.1.2: Improve Fiscal Transparency and Accountability ........................................ 151
Strategic Objective 4.2: Promote and Protect Human Rights through Constructive Bilateral and
Multilateral Engagement and Targeted Assistance .................................................................................. 153
Performance Goal 4.2.1: Support Human Rights Defenders and Civil Society Organizations (CSO)
Under Threat ......................................................................................................................................... 160
Performance Goal 4.2.2: Prevent, Mitigate, and Redress Atrocities, Address Gross Human Rights
Violations, and Combat Human Trafficking .......................................................................................... 164
Strategic Objective 4.3: Strengthen and Protect Civil Society, Recognizing the Essential Role of Local
Capacity in Advancing Democratic Governance and Human Rights ......................................................... 175
Performance Goal 4.3.1: Strengthen Civil Society, including Youth-Led Civil Society Organizations .. 177
Strategic Objective 5.1: Enable Diplomats and Development Professionals to Influence and Operate
more Efficiently, Effectively, and Collaboratively ..................................................................................... 184
Performance Goal 5.1.1 (Agency Priority Goal): Excellence in Consular Service Delivery................... 188
Performance Goal 5.1.2 (Agency Priority Goal): USAID Procurement Reform .................................... 191
Performance Goal 5.1.3: Stakeholder Collaboration and Audience Engagement ............................... 198
Performance Goal 5.1.4: Human Capital Management and Business Process Improvement ............. 202
Performance Goal 5.1.5: A Secure Diplomatic and Development Platform ........................................ 203
Annex I: Summary of Key Performance Indicators .................................................................................. 206
Annex II: Data Quality Assessments ......................................................................................................... 218
Department of State and USAID Overview
Department of State and USAID Overview
Introduction
The FY 2017 Annual Performance Plan (APP) and FY 2015 Annual Performance Report (APR) for the U.S.
Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) presents a description of the
work conducted by the Department and USAID to achieve the strategic objectives and Agency Priority Goals
(APGs) articulated in the FY 2014 – FY 2017 Joint Strategic Plan (JSP).
Department and Agency Overview
The Department of State is the lead U.S. foreign affairs agency within the Executive Branch and the lead
institution for the conduct of American diplomacy. Established by Congress in 1789 and headquartered in
Washington, D.C., the Department is the oldest and most senior executive agency of the U.S. Government. The
head of the Department, the Secretary of State, is the President’s principal foreign policy advisor. The Secretary
implements the President’s foreign policy worldwide through the Department and its employees. The
Department of State promotes and protects the interests of American citizens by:
• Promoting peace and stability in regions of vital interest;
• Countering the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL);
• Supporting key personnel to carry out the Departments’ mission;
• Enhancing U.S. national security via public diplomacy by influencing foreign publics and strengthening
people-to-people relationships;
• Creating jobs at home by opening markets abroad;
• Helping developing nations establish investment and export opportunities; and
• Bringing nations and people together and forging partnerships to address global challenges, such as
climate change and resource scarcity, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, gender inequality, human
trafficking, the spread of communicable diseases, cross-border pollution, humanitarian crises, nuclear
smuggling, and narcotics trafficking.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent federal agency that receives overall
foreign policy guidance from the Secretary of State. In 1961, Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act to
administer long-range economic and humanitarian assistance to developing countries. Two months after
passage of the act, President John F. Kennedy established USAID. USAID’s mission is to partner to end extreme
poverty and promote resilient, democratic societies while advancing security and prosperity. The Agency
accelerates human progress in developing countries by:
• Promoting broadly shared economic prosperity;
• Strengthening democracy and good governance and protecting human rights;
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• Improving global health;
• Advancing food security and agriculture;
• Improving environmental sustainability;
• Furthering education; and
• Helping societies prevent and recover from conflicts and providing humanitarian assistance in the wake
of natural and man-made disasters.
USAID is headed by an Administrator appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. USAID plans its
development and assistance programs in coordination with the Department of State, and collaborates with
other U.S. government agencies, multilateral and bilateral organizations, private companies, academic
institutions, and non-governmental organizations.
Organizational Structure
Department of State: The Foreign Service and Civil Service employees in the Department of State and U.S.
missions abroad represent the American people. They work together to achieve the goals and implement the
initiatives of American foreign policy. The Department operates more than 275 embassies, consulates, and
other posts worldwide staffed by over 49,000 Locally Employed Staff (which includes Foreign Service Nationals)
and almost 19,000 Foreign Service employees. In each embassy, the Chief of Mission (usually an ambassador
appointed by the President) is responsible for executing U.S. foreign policy goals and for coordinating and
managing all U.S. government functions in the host country. A Civil Service corps of roughly 12,000 employees
provides continuity and expertise in performing all aspects of the Department’s mission. The Department’s
mission is supported through its regional, functional, and management bureaus and offices. The regional
bureaus, each of which is responsible for a specific geographic region of the world, work in conjunction with
subject matter experts from other bureaus and offices to develop policies and implement programs that achieve
the Department’s goals and foreign policy priorities. These bureaus and offices provide policy guidance,
program management, administrative support, and in-depth expertise.
USAID: USAID staff are working around the world and at home inspired by the same overarching goals that
President Kennedy outlined 50 years ago – furthering America's foreign policy interests in expanding democracy
and free markets while also extending a helping hand to people struggling to make a better life, recovering from
a disaster, or striving to live in a free and democratic country. With an official presence in 87 countries and
programs in several other non-presence countries, the Agency’s mission is supported by more than 2,099 career
Foreign Service employees and 1,700 in the Civil Service. Additional support comes from nearly 4,498 Foreign
Service Nationals, and approximately 1,485 other employees.
More information on the organizational structure of the Department of State and USAID can be found at
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/rls/dos/99494.htm and http://www.usaid.gov/who-we-are/organization,
respectively.
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Department of State and USAID Overview
Approach to Strategic Planning and Performance
Management
Performance Management
State and USAID have modified their approach to the
annual planning, budgeting and performance
management cycle since 2010 to create important
feedback loops between strategic planning, budgeting,
program management, and monitoring and evaluation
that maximize the impact of Department of State and
USAID resources. The Managing for Results Framework
is designed to link the Department of State’s strategic,
longer-term planning with budget formulation; to
institutionalize the use of evidence into planning,
program and project design, and good performance
management practices; to nurture innovation and
adaptation; to prioritize resources; and to better inform taxpayers and Congress of progress in carrying out the
Department’s mission.
The 2015 Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) calls for further enhancements to strategic
planning and performance management. Specifically, the QDDR highlights State and USAID efforts since the
prior QDDR on improving strategic planning, aligning budgeting and planning, and improving monitoring and
evaluation and calls for the Department and USAID to:
• Strengthen information-sharing and collaboration
• Institute senior-level bureau and mission reviews
• Deepen expertise in planning and performance
management
• Advance adaptive planning and assistance
USAID’s Program Cycle reinforces the links between USAID
policies and strategies, country-level strategic planning, project
design and implementation, and performance monitoring and USAID Program Cycle
evaluation. USAID’s Program Cycle sets the foundational
framework for evidence-based development to enable more effective interventions and to maximize
development impacts. It allows the Agency to provide analysis and data on what is working, determine strategic
opportunities and tradeoffs, evaluate projects, and feed knowledge back into programming and future policy
development. The Program Cycle provides a strategic and evidence-based approach to justifying resources and
serves as the basis for a more integrated budget cycle, enabling resource decisions to be built around strategic
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plans and priorities and performance and evaluation data. The Program Cycle emphasizes best practices, or
“evidence-based” programming to ensure highest impact and sustainability.
Strategic Planning
The Department of State is committed to using strategic planning to achieve the most critical U.S. foreign policy
outcomes and greater accountability to our primary stakeholders and the American people. Robust,
coordinated strategic planning processes are an essential component of the Managing for Results Framework
and serve as the basis for the Mission Resource Requests and the Bureau Resource Requests, which are
foundational documents used to begin the process of building the Department of State and USAID’s
Congressional Budget Justifications. Bureau and mission strategic plans are completed separately from the
annual budget process to encourage longer-term strategic thinking, and enable budgets to be guided and
informed by strategies. It also recognizes the broader interagency scope of the planning process. Planning also
creates a framework against which the agencies can monitor progress and measure results, drive policy
decisions, ensure accountability, and foster greater whole-of-government coordination, collaboration, and
transparency. In 2015, the Department and USAID updated regional and functional bureau and country-specific
strategic plans that were created in 2012.
The Department’s and USAID’s strategic planning documents include the following:
• The Joint Strategic Plan (JSP) – Four-year strategic plan that outlines Department of State and USAID
overarching goals and objectives, and guides bureau and mission planning.
• The Joint Regional Strategy (JRS) – Three-year strategic plan for each region that sets joint State and
USAID priorities and guides key partner bureau and mission level planning.
• The Functional Bureau Strategy (FBS) – Three-year strategic plan that sets priorities for each State
functional bureau and guides key partner bureau and mission level planning.
• The Integrated County Strategy (ICS) – Three-year strategic plan that articulates whole-of-government
priorities in a given country and incorporates higher-level planning priorities. As directed by the
Presidential Policy Directive on Security Sector Assistance, the ICS also represents the official U.S.
Government strategy for all Security Sector Assistance in its respective countries. Additionally, and in
line with the whole-of-government scope of each ICS, each USAID mission’s Country Development
Cooperation Strategy is nested within the ICS.
Mission Statement, Strategic Goals and Objectives
The shared mission of the Department of State and USAI D is to shape and sustain a peaceful, prosperous, just,
and democratic world, and foster conditions for stability and progress for the benefit of the American people
and people everywhere.
In FY 2014, the Department of State and USAID developed the 2014 - 2017 Joint Department of State – USAID
Strategic Plan through a consultative process involving the senior leadership of the two agencies. Their
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deliberations, shaped by Presidential directives and policies, previous strategic planning efforts, and the QDDR,
produced the strategic goals and strategic objectives for the next four years. Working groups took these goals
and objectives and identified programs and activities designed to achieve them. For more information on the
Joint Strategic Plan, please visit http://www.state.gov/s/d/rm/rls/dosstrat/2014/index.htm. The following chart
provides an overview of the Department of State – USAID Joint Strategic Goal Framework, which highlights the
Department’s strategic goals and strategic objectives.
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Progress Update for Strategic Goals and Objectives
The Department of State and USAID review progress against the 13 strategic objectives in the JSP through
various ongoing fora throughout the year and continue to leverage planning, performance, evaluation, and
budgeting processes to strengthen the use of data and evidence to inform decisions. This review fosters a
culture of continuous review and improvement. The 2015 Summary of Findings outlines several of these fora,
and provides a progress update on the strategic objectives and performance goals.
Major Management Priorities and Challenges
Every year, Inspectors General for the Department of State and USAID identify management challenges that
impact the ability of the Department and USAID to effectively engage diplomatically or to deliver foreign
assistance. The Department and USAID take immediate remedial actions in response to the Office of the
Inspector General’s (OIG) recommendations.
For a full description of the OIG’s identified challenges and the responses to them, please see:
• Department of State, see pages 118-127 of the Fiscal Year 2015 Agency Financial Report (AFR) (FY 2015
Department of State Agency Financial Report)
• USAID, see pages 129-140 of the Fiscal Year 2015 USAID Agency Financial Report (FY 2015 USAID Agency
Financial Report)
Strategic Goal 5, Objective 5.1 outlines USAID and the Department of State’s management priority areas. At
USAID, Angelique M. Crumbly, the Assistant Administrator for Management and Performance Improvement
Officer, is the agency official responsible for delivering greater impact through innovation, increasing
effectiveness and efficiency, and better customer service. At the Department of State, Douglas Pitkin, Director
of the Bureau of Budget and Planning serves as the Performance Improvement Officer.
Evidence Building
The Department of State and USAID continue efforts to strengthen the use of data and evidence to drive better
decision-making and achieve greater impact. The Department of State and USAID use evidence, evaluation, and
data as tools to improve program outcomes and scale up new approaches that have been tested and shown to
work. Ongoing performance monitoring data provide a picture of how the Department and USAID programs are
doing, and both organizations employ deeper analysis and program evaluation to understand “why” or “what”
about them is working. Please refer to the following publications for additional information on the Department
of State and USAID’s use of evidence and evaluation:
• Congressional Budget Justification Appendix 1: Department of State Diplomatic Engagement, pages 11-
13
• Congressional Budget Justification Appendix 2: Foreign Operations, pages 1-8
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In 2015, USAID finalized the Evaluation Utilization at USAID study and briefer. The Agency analyzed the most
recent data available, which was from 2011 to 2014. USAID also reviewed evaluation characteristics and the
Agency's business processes that most clearly fostered or impeded evaluation use. At several stages during the
USAID Program Cycle, evaluation use was evident. At the country level, 59 percent of approved strategies
referenced USAID evaluations; and 71 percent of respondents reported using evaluations to design or modify a
USAID project or activity. USAID found the most common changes were actions that refocus ongoing activities,
such as revisions to work plans, extending activity timelines, or expanding activity geographic areas. The study
concluded that USAID evaluation utilization practices are strong, and compare well to those of other US
Government agencies. The Congressional Budget Justification Appendix 2: Foreign Operations also
demonstrates USAID's and the Department of State's use of evidence in management decision making.
Data Quality and Validation
The Department of State and USAID obtain and use performance data from three sources: (1) primary collection
in which data are collected directly by the Department or USAID or a collection funded by the Department or
USAID, (2) partner data compiled by Department and USAID implementing partners in the field, and (3) third-
party data from sources such as other government agencies, non-governmental organizations, or other
development organizations. Tools and resources are provided for bureaus and field missions to assess and
verify the quality of primary and partner data against the standards of validity, integrity, precision, reliability,
and timeliness.
• An example of the Data Quality Assessment checklist is provided in Annex II.
• Performance indicators used in the field have associated Indicator Reference Sheets that fully define and
describe the appropriate use of the indicator.
• The Automated Directives System Chapter 203.3.11.2 (http://www.usaid.gov/ads/200/203) provides
additional details on data verification and validation policies for USAID. For each key performance
indicator in the APP/APR, there is an associated Indicator Methodology section that notes the data
source and any data limitations.
Lower-Priority Program Activities
The President’s Budget identified the lower-priority program activities, where applicable, as required under the
GPRA Modernization Act, 31 U.S.C. 1115(b) (1). The public can access the volume at:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/.
Federal Cross-Agency Priority Goals
The GPRA Modernization Act requires agencies to address Cross Agency Priority (CAP) goals in the agency
strategic plan, the annual performance plan, and the annual performance report. CAP Goals are a tool used by
leadership to accelerate progress on a limited number of Presidential priority areas where implementation
requires active collaboration between multiple agencies. Please refer to www.Performance.gov for State and
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Description:Strategic Objective 1.1: Expand Access to Future Markets, Investment, and . Performance Goal 3.1.1: (Agency Priority Goal) – Building on Strong Led by USAID, Feed the Future leverages the expertise and programs of 10