U.S. Department of State Fiscal Year 2019 Agency Financial Report

M aximizing A merica ’ s I nvestment T hrough I nnovation and E vidence Evidence and Evaluation The Department supports the analysis and use of evidence in policymaking by training staff, creating groups for knowledge sharing, establishing and monitoring evaluation requirements, providing funding opportunities to gather better evidence, and maintaining a central database to manage and share evalua- tions. The Department continues efforts to strengthen the use of data and evidence to drive better decision making, achieve greater impacts, and learn what works and what’s not working in order to more effectively and efficiently achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives. Ongoing performance monitoring data provide a picture of how programs are doing, and program evaluation is used to understand why they are working. The Department’s learning agenda is encompassed and supported in the MfR framework, which integrates planning, budgeting, managing, and learning processes to inform and support programmatic, budget, and policy decisions. Through this approach, the Department examines programs and operations in such a way that is relevant to its bureaus and the stakeholders they serve. The introduction of a program and project design and monitoring policy in 2018 further strengthened this framework. This program and project design work serves as a foundation for the collection and validation of performance monitoring data, confirming alignment to strategic objectives, and purposeful evaluative and learning questions. The MfR intranet site offers guidance, tools, updates and opportunities to engage with technical experts. Bureaus can locate key strategic planning documents including the Department’s Joint Strategic Plan, bureau and mission-specific strategic plans, and tools for facilitating progress reviews against strategic plans. The site is essential to supporting bureaus in their program design and performance monitoring work as it houses all of the guidance and resources for these processes. The site also offers templates and guides for evaluation plans. professionals. To meet these challenges also requires a nimble and efficient support platform for our professionals representing the United States around the world. Department leadership and financial managers seek to foster an expansive and forward-leaning approach to enterprise risk management, retaining the agility to respond to demands, events, conditions, or trends at times when significant changes trigger the need to take action. Another focus of the Department is transitioning engagement activities from limited, exclusive, and direct contacts to an approach based on a culture of openness. This has resulted in expanding the use of digital communications such as social media, video conferencing, and smart phone applications that allow the Department to directly reach citizens and to open up our public engagement to all who are interested, not just the limited audience that can be invited to attend events in person. Evidence-based planning and increased operational efficiency and effectiveness are among the factors accounting for the improvements in performance and results. P rogram and P roject D esign , M onitoring , and E valuation P olicy The Department is committed to using design, monitoring, evaluation, and data analysis best practices to achieve the most effective U.S. foreign policy outcomes and greater accountability to our primary stakeholders; the American people. In response to requirements contained in the Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act and the Program Management Improvement and Accountability Act, the Department updated its evaluation policy to encompass the full spectrum of performance management and evaluation activities including program design, monitoring, evaluation, and analysis and learning. Bureaus are responding to this updated and expanded policy, located in 18 FAM 300 ( https://fam.state.gov/fam/18fam/18fam030104.html ) , by putting in place performance management documents and practices, including the use of logic models, theories of change, performance metrics, monitoring structures, and other foundational components, against which progress can be monitored and evaluated. 20 | U nited S tates D epartment of S tate 2019 A gency F inancial R eport MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS | PERFORMANCE SUMMARY AND HIGHLIGHTS