U.S. Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) pressured the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for answers about when it would implement reforms pertaining to food assistance, human trafficking, fraud oversight, management challenges and other areas.
USAID provides economic, development and humanitarian assistance around the world and promotes U.S. interests abroad.
“In order to ensure that USAID performs optimally and serves as a responsible steward of American tax dollars, USAID must constantly seek to improve operations and adopt sensible reforms,” Young wrote in a letter on Tuesday to USAID.
During a hearing in March, Young, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, questioned Gregory Gottlieb, the acting assistant administrator of USAID’s Bureau of Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, about recommendations made by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) that would help the agency improve its operations.
In that hearing, Young asked Gottlieb to provide him with an update on the GAO’s list of 53 recommendations and 12 priority recommendations for USAID that had not yet been implemented. Some of those open recommendations date back to 2013. Young also asked for an explanation for any recommendations USAID decided not to adopt, as well as a timeline for the adoption of any open recommendations that USAID had adopted.
On Monday, Young’s office received a response from USAID on implementation of the GAO recommendations, but it was incomplete.
“While I appreciate the informative response, USAID did not provide a timeline for the adoption of the open recommendations,” Young wrote.
As a result, Young asked USAID to provide within two weeks an adoption timeline for the 20 recommendations that have not been implemented.