Pursuit's Take
Foreign assistance resources managed by the U.S. Department of State (Department) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) under the direction of the Secretary of State grew from less than $10 billion in FY 2000 to more than $26 billion in FY 2010. The Department’s current core financial systems meet many of the Department’s needs; however, they were not designed to track and report on foreign assistance funds.
The Office of Inspector General (OIG), in a number of inspections and audits dating back more than a decade, has found that neither the domestic Global Financial Management System (GFMS) and its data repository (Data Warehouse) nor the overseas Regional Financial Management System (RFMS) and its data repository (Consolidated Overseas Accountability Support Tool or COAST) currently track funding and expenditures by program, project, country, region, or purpose (sector). This is information that bureaus need to track and manage their funds and that the Department needs to respond to external queries.