SIGAR 24-20-AR Afghanistan Competitiveness of Export-Oriented Business Activity Program: USAID Did Not Perform All Required Oversight and the Program Has Yielded Mixed Results

USAID AND DAI DID NOT CONDUCT ALL OF THE REQUIRED OVERSIGHT AND MONITORING OF ACEBA We found that USAID did not conduct all of the monitoring and oversight of the ACEBA program that Mission Order 201.05 requires. [...] In June 2022, the ACEBA program began using the Afghanistan Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Activity (AMELA) contract to undertake in-person site visits of ACEBA activities.13 The AMELA program addresses the Mission Order 201.05 requirement to perform site visits through the direct observation of each activity USAID manages during the life of the award, and documenting observations in Afghan. [...] However, according to USAID officials, DIA incorporated lessons learned in the “Challenges” and “Constraints” sections of the annual reports.18 We found that the Constraints section of the FY 2021, 2022, and 2023 reports discussed USAID and DAI actions to remedy the challenges and constraints encountered, but unlike the FY 2020 annual report, the section did not discuss the effects or lessons lear. [...] Moreover, according to the contract, DAI and USAID should use the annual and quarterly targets established within the MEL to assess the impact of the activity to determine if objectives are being achieved and adjust targets and indicators as appropriate. [...] However, because of the issues with performance measurement and reporting, and the resulting inability of USAID and DAI to then have fully comprehensive performance data, USAID may have lacked the information necessary to assess the successes and failures of specific actions ACEBA took to meet its implementation goals.