US Govt Not Aware If $560Mln Caribbean Security Program Succeeds, Fails - Report

00:01 GMT, 28 February 2019

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – The US government has spent more than half a billion dollars on a Caribbean security program from 2010 through 2018, but the Department of State does not know whether it is working, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said on Wednesday.

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"The US government has undertaken some planning and reporting of CBSI [Caribbean Basin Security Initiative] activities, but State has not created an initiative-wide planning and reporting mechanism”, the GAO said in a new report.

The initiative was launched as a collaborative effort with 13 Caribbean nations to try to reduce drug trafficking, increase public safety, and promote social justice in the region, the report acknowledged.

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However, “State has not created an initiative-wide planning and reporting mechanism that facilitates interagency coordination or establishes consistent performance indicators across agencies, countries, and activities — key elements for effectively aligning foreign assistance strategies”, the GAO said.

Without such a planning and reporting mechanism, overall progress cannot be assessed. Also, the program monitoring data’s reliability cannot be ensured because collection and maintenance is conducted differently in each country and there is no centralized data storage system, the report said.