Foreign Assistance: Actions Needed to Improve Transparency and Quality of Data on ForeignAssistance.gov

The overarching goal ofForeignAssistance.gov is to enable a variety of stakeholdersincluding U.S. citizens, civil society organizations, the U.S. Congress, federal agencies, partner countries, and other donorsto research and track U.S. government foreign assistance investments in an accessible and easily understood format. GAO was asked to review the collection and reporting ofForeignAssistance.gov data. GAO examined (1) States data collection and publishing process; (2) key impediments, if any, that agencies face in collecting and reporting data to State; and (3) the data published onForeignAssistance.gov. GAO reviewed agency documents, assessedForeignAssistance.gov data for completeness by comparing them to USAIDs Foreign Aid Explorer data on U.S. foreign assistance for fiscal year2014, and conducted semi structured interviews with the 22 agencies on their data collection and verification processes. GAO also interviewed OMB officials.