Issue Summary
Many of the meaningful results that the federal government seeks to achieve require the coordinated efforts of more than one federal agency. GAO’s leading practices for collaboration can help address crosscutting challenges, such as infectious diseases, climate change, cybersecurity, and other areas identified in GAO’s High-Risk List and those involving fragmentation, overlap, and duplication.
Federal agencies can enhance and sustain their collaborative efforts by engaging in the following eight leading collaboration practices:
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Additionally, federal agencies have used a variety of mechanisms to implement successful interagency collaborative efforts—such as the President appointing a coordinator, agencies co-locating within one facility, and interagency task forces. These mechanisms can address things like policy development, program implementation, oversight and monitoring, information sharing and communication, and building organizational capacity (e.g., staffing and training).
