Recommendation: The Secretary of State, in consultation with the Administrator of USAID, should develop performance indicators that would enable State to assess progress toward the strategic objectives and goal of the U.S. conflict minerals strategy going forward. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of State
Status: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The Secretary of HHS should develop and implement a plan to improve data collected on the prevalence of brain injuries resulting from intimate partner violence and use these data to inform HHS's allocation of resources to address the issue. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Health and Human Services
Status: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness should fully include in the new policy for sexual harassment the principles in the Centers for Disease Control's framework for sexual violence prevention, including risk and protective factors, risk domains, and tertiary strategies. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: In written comments on the draft report, DOD concurred with this recommendation. In April 2020, officials with the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness stated that development of a new sexual harassment prevention strategy was complete and going through DOD's internal review process. The officials stated that the Undersecretary's review and approval of the assessment report will be complete before the end of the fiscal year, September 30, 2020. We will continue to monitor DOD's efforts and update the status of this recommendation as more information becomes available.

Recommendation: The Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness should direct the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Readiness to incorporate in its continuum of harm prevention strategy all the elements that are key for establishing a long-term, results-oriented strategic planning framework. The elements are (1) a mission statement, (2) long-term goals, (3) strategies to achieve goals, (4) external factors that could affect goals, (5) use of metrics to gauge progress, and (6) evaluations of the plan to monitor goals and objectives. (Recommendation 4)

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: In written comments on the draft report, DOD concurred with this recommendation. According to officials with the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, development of a new sexual harassment prevention strategy is complete and the strategy is going through DOD's internal review process. Additionally, a Defense Equal Opportunity Reform Group assessment report containing a review of the department's efforts to prevent sexual harassment was also submitted to the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. The official's stated that the Undersecretary's review and approval of both the new strategy and assessment report should be completed by the end of the fiscal year, September 30, 2020. We will continue to monitor DOD's efforts to address this recommendation and will update its status when more information becomes available.

Recommendation: To improve the effectiveness of the SEC's conflict minerals disclosure rule, the Secretary of Commerce should submit to the appropriate congressional committees a plan outlining steps that Commerce will take, with associated time frames, to (1) assess the accuracy of the independent private sector audits (IPSA) and other due diligence processes described under section 13(p) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934; (2) develop recommendations for the process used to carry out such audits, including ways to improve the accuracy of the audits and establish standards of best practices for such audits; and (3) acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities to carry out these responsibilities.

Agency: Department of Commerce
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: Commerce agreed with this recommendation. In response to this recommendation, Commerce indicated in an October 25, 2016 letter to GAO that it has developed a three-step approach which parallels the three distinct elements of the recommendation. To fully implement this recommendation, Commerce needs to submit the said three-step plan, including associated timeframes for their completion, to the appropriate congressional committees. Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act defines "appropriate committees" to mean the Committee on Appropriations, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Committee on Ways and Means, and the Committee on Financial Services of the House of Representatives; and the Committee on Appropriations, the Committee on Foreign Relations, the Committee on Finance, and the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs of the Senate. In a January 2018 email, a Commerce official indicated to GAO that the agency had reviewed the 19 IPSA audits filed by companies in 2016, and the agency plans to complete a review of the 16 IPSA audits filed in 2017 by the end of FY 2018. However, the official noted that the "Department will not undertake the development of recommendations and best practices while the SEC is revising its rule." Commerce cited SEC staff's recent updated guidance and ongoing reviews of the conflict minerals rule, among other things, as their primary reason. However, the SEC staff's updated guidance also clarified that the guidance "does not express any legal conclusion on the rule" and is "subject to any further action that may be taken by the Commission." Therefore, the rule is still in effect, according to SEC staff. We requested a status update in October 2019 and Commerce responded: "In National Association of Manufacturers v. United States SEC, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 135732 (2017), the District Court for the District of Columbia declared an element of the relevant SEC rule unconstitutional, necessitating that the SEC determine how that decision affects overall implementation of the Conflict Minerals rule. Until the SEC completes its deliberative process, makes such determination, and implements any necessary revisions to the rule, the Department does not intend to undertake additional work under Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act with regard to the assessment of the accuracy of the audits and other due diligence processes or recommendations regarding the audits. After which point, the Department will assess how the SEC determination and any revisions to the rule affect the Department's plans for implementing GAO's recommendation."

Recommendation: To help lessen confusion among the public and policy makers regarding federal data on sexual violence, the Director of OMB should establish a federal interagency forum on sexual violence statistics. The forum should consider the broad range of differences across the data collection efforts to assess which differences enhance or hinder the overall understanding of sexual violence in the United States.

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: At the time of our report, OMB neither agreed nor disagreed with this recommendation but stated that it did not believe convening a forum was the most strategic use of resources because agencies were not far enough along with their data collection efforts. We disagree with OMB's assertion because 7 of the 10 data collection efforts have been in place for more than 10 years, and several have been in place for multiple decades. As of December 2019, OMB has not provided information on any new efforts to establish a federal interagency forum on sexual violence statistics.