The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) provided at least $810 million to directly and indirectly support climate adaptation from fiscal years 2014 through 2018—the latest available data at the time of GAO's analysis. However, USAID ended new funding for programming activities that directly address climate adaptation (i.e., direct funding) in fiscal year 2017 in part due to a shif

The International Joint Commission's (IJC) process for developing and selecting the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Plan 2014 (Plan 2014) was generally consistent with relevant essential elements of risk-informed decision-making. During the 18-year process, IJC took steps to define objectives and performance measures to be used in its decision-making, identify various options, assess uncertaintie

The Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) uses a four-phase process to enforce section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930, which prohibits imports produced with forced labor, including seafood. CBP's Forced Labor Division, established in 2018, largely carries out this process. In phase 1, CBP assesses leads when deciding to initiate a case involving potential force

The overall proportion of racial or ethnic minorities in the Department of State's (State) full-time, permanent, career workforce grew from 28 to 32 percent from fiscal year 2002 to fiscal year 2018. The direction of change for specific groups varied. For instance, the proportion of African Americans fell from 17 to 15 percent, while the proportions of Hispanics, Asians, and other racial or ethni

The Department of State (State) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) allocated more than $2.7 billion for rule of law assistance from fiscal years 2014 through 2018—the latest available data as of GAO's review. Of that, State allocated over $2 billion and USAID allocated over $700 million. State and USAID funded some of these programs through the Department of Justice (DOJ)

For the 15 Department of State (State) Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (State/INL) projects GAO reviewed, State/INL generally followed key monitoring practices about half of the time. For example, State/INL almost always assigned staff with appropriate qualifications to monitor Mérida Initiative projects. However, for most projects, State/INL did not generally follo

The Departments of State (State) and Commerce (Commerce) have each provided guidance and outreach to support exporters' understanding of and compliance with their separate export control regulations. Exporters, including universities, are subject to these regulations if they ship export-controlled items overseas or if they share such items, including technology or source code, with foreign person

La Oficina Internacional de Asuntos Antinarcóticos y Procuración de Justicia (INL, por sus siglas en inglés) del Departamento de Estado (State, por su nombre en inglés) generalmente siguió las prácticas clave de monitoreo casi la mitad del tiempo en los 15 proyectos que analizó la GAO. Por ejemplo, State/INL casi siempre asignó a personal con las calificaciones adecuadas para monitorear l

The Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program is one of the primary ways the U.S. government supports its foreign partners, by annually selling them billions of dollars of military equipment and services. However, gaps in the Defense Security Cooperation Agency's (DSCA) oversight of Department of Defense (DOD) components' activities increase the risk that fees collected into the FMS transportation acc

Since 2008, when the United States and Saudi Arabia signed a memorandum of understanding on nuclear energy cooperation, the current and prior U.S. administrations have engaged in discussions and negotiations about nuclear cooperation with the Saudi government. However, these negotiations are stalled; the two countries have not been able to resolve disagreements on several nonproliferation conditi