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Appendix A: FAC Recommendations to Complete the Task of Reform
I. Leadership:
1. State should continue to push the transformation of its organizational culture.
2. State should emplace rules and structures to institutionalize that new culture.
3. The Secretary of State should do more to ensure that appointees to ambassadorial positions are fully qualified, whether they come from the career service or from private life.
II. Resources:
1. The President should request, and Congress appropriate, funds to raise the budget for international affairs (Function 150 Account) by 30 percent within four years.
2. Congress should revamp its appropriations subcommittee jurisdictions so that just one subcommittee handles the international affairs budget.
III. Human Capital:
1. Congress should fund the remainder of Secretary Powell's Diplomatic Readiness Initiative.
2. State should follow through on its plan to create a personnel float to provide "bench strength" and permit expanded training.
3. State should expand long-term (including university) training to better equip its rising managers and experts.
4. State should better utilize Foreign Service retirees to temporarily fill vacant positions.
5. The President and Congress should act to restore pay parity between domestic federal employees (receiving locality pay) and overseas Foreign Service members.
6. State should continue its workforce planning efforts and seek additional staffing if required to fight the war on terrorism or address other emerging foreign challenges.
IV. Information Technology:
1. State should complete implementation of OpenNet Plus to provide employees with access to the World Wide Web and the Department's own secure Intranet.
2. State should complete implementation of the Classified Connectivity Program to allow its authorized employees to communicate classified information with each other.
3. OMB should request, and Congress fund, implementation by 2004 of the State Messaging and Archive Retrieval Toolset to replace State's obsolete telegram system.
4. State should provide employees with training and encouragement to assure that the new hardware and software has the intended positive impact on productivity and effectiveness.
V. Overseas Presence:
1. The President should request, and Congress appropriate, funds over the next five years to complete long-overdue worldwide security upgrades.
2. The President and Congress should rethink the "right-sizing" paradigm in the light of post-9/11/01 national security needs and increase overseas staffing where needed to advance vital national interests.
3. State's Office of Overseas Buildings Operations should attempt to better anticipate increasing space needs at overseas missions with frontline responsibilities in the war on terrorism.
4. State should expand its concept of embassy security to better encompass the evolving needs for improved security at "soft targets" frequented by U.S. diplomats.
5. Agencies in Washington and overseas should improve coordination to get maximum "bang for the buck" out of the multi-agency team working at post under Chief of Mission leadership.
VI. Public Affairs:
1. State should task a senior official in the Bureau of Public Affairs with working to tell the Department's story to the American people and responding to published attacks.
2. State should expand efforts to promote itself, and particularly the Foreign Service, as a frontline organization performing vital tasks while serving in harm's way, a central component of the war on terrorism.
3. State should expand its engagement with business and NGOs in order to build a broader understanding of the importance of all that State does.
4. State should coordinate with the "force multiplier" FAC member organizations to take advantage of their active public advocacy efforts.
VII. Public Diplomacy:
1. State should give the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy additional operational authority.
2. The President should request, and Congress fund, a doubling of the State Department's educational and cultural exchange programs.
3. State should require increased public diplomacy training for Foreign Service officers who are not public diplomacy specialists.
VIII. Consular Affairs:
1. The Congress should appropriate funds for additional personnel, language training, and facility upgrades to enable visa adjudication officers to better protect America's borders.
2. State must forge sound working relationships with the Department of Homeland Security.
IX. Congressional Relations:
1. State should be more proactive and forthcoming in reaching out to Congress.
2. State should authorize officers well below the assistant secretary-level to brief staffers.
3. State should routinely include instruction on congressional relations in professional training given to officers.
4. State should remind chiefs of mission that the visits of congressional delegations are unparalleled opportunities to promote the State Department's policy and resource agenda.
5. State should bring more congressional staff to FSI to learn about the functions of the State Department.
6. State should seek to recruit the best officers to work in the Bureau of Legislative Affairs.
7. State should better capitalize on the congressional expertise gained by Pearson Fellows and legislative specialists in the Bureau of Legislative Affairs after their tours are over.
8. The Senate should provide State with space on its side of Capitol Hill in which to open a liaison office.
9. State should create a forum that would link State with the Congress and the U.S. business community to enhance the advocacy of U.S. commercial interests abroad.
X. U.S. Foreign Service:
1. State should articulate a set of Foreign Service values and indoctrinate members in them.
2. State should improve Foreign Service morale by honoring the unique sacrifices required of Service members and their families.
3. State should better enforce the requirement of the worldwide availability of Service members.
4. State should improve compensation and conditions of service at dangerous and other hardship posts.
XI. USAID:
1. USAID should conduct a comprehensive workforce planning review to determine if it has sufficient direct hire staff to accomplish its mission.
2. The Administration should seek additional operating funds to enable USAID to handle its present duties, as well as potential emerging tasks.
3. The Administration should make provision for detailing experienced USAID development professionals to the headquarters and any field offices of the Millennium Challenge Corporation.
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Appendix B: Recent Reports on State Department Reform
- U.S. General Accounting Office, Tourist Visa Processing Backlogs Persist at U.S. Consulates, March 1998.
- The Henry L. Stimson Center, Equipped for the Future: Managing U.S. Foreign Affairs in the 21st Century, October 1998.
- The Center for Strategic and International Studies, Reinventing Diplomacy in the Information Age, October 1998.
- U.S. Department of State, Report of the Accountability Review Boards on the Embassy Bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, January 1999.
- McKinsey & Company (commissioned by the Department of State), The War for Talent: Maintaining a Strong Talent Pool, March 1999.
- U.S. Department of State, America's Overseas Presence in the 21st Century: The Report of the Overseas Presence Advisory Panel, November 1999.
- The RAND Corporation, Taking Charge: A Bipartisan Report to the President-elect on Foreign Policy and National Security, November 2000.
- U.S. Department of State, Diplomatic Readiness: The Human Resources Strategy, December 2000.
- Council on Foreign Relations and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Independent Task Force Report: State Department Reform, January 2001.
- U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century (a.k.a. Hart/Rudman Commission), Roadmap for National Security: Imperative for Change, January 2001.
- American Foreign Service Association, New AFSA, New Foreign Service (a statement by Foreign Service members and distinguished retirees elected to lead AFSA's Governing Board between July 2001 and July 2003), January 2001.
- U.S. General Accounting Office, Foreign Languages: Human Capital Approach Needed to Correct Staffing and Proficiency Shortfalls, January 2002.
- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Statement on FY 2003 International Affairs Budget to Senate Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, and the Judiciary, March 12, 2002.
- U.S. General Accounting Office, Staffing Shortfalls and Ineffective Assignment System Compromise Diplomatic Readiness at Hardship Posts, June 2002.
- Council on Foreign Relations, Public Diplomacy: A Strategy for Reform, July 2002.
- U.S. Department of State, Diplomatic Readiness: The Human Resources Strategy (2nd edition), August 2002.
- U.S. Department of State, FY2003 Performance Plan, September 2002.
- Una Chapman Cox Foundation, Congressional Staff Attitudes toward the Department of State and Foreign Service Officers, October 2002.
- U.S. Department of State's Office of Inspector General, Review of Nonimmigrant Visa Issuance Policy and Procedures, December 2002.
- U.S. General Accounting Office, Major Management Challenges and Program Risks: U.S. Agency for International Development, January 2003.
- U.S. General Accounting Office, Major Management Challenges and Program Risks: Department of State, January 2003.
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Appendix C: About the Foreign Affairs Council
The Foreign Affairs Council is a non-partisan umbrella group of 11 organizations concerned about U.S. diplomatic readiness. Its mailing address is 2101 E Street NW, Washington DC 20037. FAC member organizations are:
- Ambassador Thomas D. Boyatt, FAC Founder and President.
- American Academy of Diplomacy: a private, non-profit, non-partisan, elected society of men and women who have held positions of major responsibility in the formulation and implementation of American diplomacy. www.academyofdiplomacy.org
- American Foreign Service Association: the professional association and union of the career Foreign Service. Founded in 1924, AFSA has 12,000 members. www.afsa.org
- Associates of the American Foreign Service Worldwide: a non-profit organization that has been an independent advocate for Foreign Service spouses, employees and retirees since 1960. www.aafsw.org
- Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training: a private, non-profit organization founded in 1986 that advances understanding of American diplomacy and supports training of foreign affairs personnel at the Foreign Service Institute. www.adst.org
- Association of Black American Ambassadors: an organization of current and former African American ambassadors, career and non-career, working to enhance public understanding of foreign affairs, to strengthen the Foreign Service through improved diversity, and to document African American achievements in diplomacy.
- Business Council for International Understanding: founded in 1959 to support U.S. business interests internationally by convening member company executives with senior diplomatic and cabinet-level officials and foreign heads of state. www.bciu.org
- Council of American Ambassadors: composed of former and incumbent non-career ambassadors, the Council aims to support the role of the ambassador and the embassy Country Team in carrying out U.S. foreign policy. www.his.com/~council/
- Una Chapman Cox Foundation: dedicated to a strong, professional Foreign Service, its activities seek to enhance State's recruitment, professionalism, retention and constituency. www.uccoxfoundation.org
- Nelson B. Delavan Foundation: a family foundation that supports initiatives to improve the Foreign Service of the United States and the effectiveness of American diplomacy.
- Diplomatic and Consular Officers, Retired: sponsors educational, cultural, and advocacy programs for retired, former, and active duty Foreign Service Officers, their spouses, and others who have served in positions related to the conduct of foreign affairs. www.dacorbacon.org
- Public Members Association of the Foreign Service, USA: a non-partisan, non-profit organization composed of members who have served as Public Members on Foreign Service promotion boards or inspection teams, or as Public Members on delegations or commissions.
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