review encourages tigher project monitoring and prompt revision or termination of off-schedule projects.

A related effort is the semi-annual review of the

performance of A.I.D. contractors. This is also a continual review which we believe encourages early actions to correct or replace poorly performing contractors so that projects are not jeopardized by such performance.

Because of A.I.D.'s historic reliance on contractor

resources to carry out its programs, we have initiated a review of the policies and regulations governing our procurement to determine if options are available to shorten the time required by these processes. I expect the results from the review to be on my desk by April 30. We are hoping for some real time-savings for both prospective contractors and A.I.D. staff. While I'm pleased with what we've done, or started to do, to improve our program implementation, I've established an Implementation Task Force to take an overall look at all areas of implementation and make recommedations for further improvements by September, 1983.

The effort I'm most proud of in the personnel management

By spreading the staff

area is the one to reduce our direct-hire staff to OMB's ceilings without a reduction-in-force. reductions over a five-year period and concerted efforts by all of our managers, we have avoided a time-consuming and demoralizing process. Steps to improve the quality of our staff have included the development of the first Agency five-year workforce plan which permits targeted recruitment, training, career counseling and placement. We have also increased the accuracy in appraisals of employee performance and encouraged subsequent actions to reward highly productive employees, improve marginal employees and relieve from duty consistently poor performers. Finally, we are presently revamping our training programs to encourage career development.

At the same time that we are trying to improve staff

quality, we are also introducing state-of-the-art technologies to increase staff efficiency. These include the application of automation in the work environment and the introduction of

other technologies in such areas as telecommunications, space modularization, and records management.

One of the key management initiatives for FY 1983 is the integration of Management-By-Objective into A.I.D.'s programming process to form a more disciplined system of management planning and control. While I've set a number of program and management objectives for the Agency, there has been no systematic way to track the progress toward meeting them. The integration of MBO into our current processes will mean that A.I.D.'s major objectives will be issued at the beginning of each fiscal year with bureau, office and mission objectives developed to key into them. Progress reporting will occur in meetings with me or my Deputy for those offices in A.I.D./W and will be incorporated as part of the Agency's programming documents for the field. I believe that such an integrated system will ensure that our staff focuses on the Agency's major objectives and that progress in meeting those objectives can be tracked.

AFRICA

STATEMENT OF FRANCIS RUDDY, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR

Senator KASTEN. Why don't we start with Frank. If you would like to make a couple of brief comments.

Mr. RUDDY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

We find that the goal of the Africa Bureau specifically is to▬▬ Senator KASTEN. You will have to speak up a bit because people in the back of the room can't hear.

Mr. RUDDY. What we propose is that we will use all the resources available to us, developmental assistance, economic support funds, and Public Law 480 food resources, to combat hunger, disease, and poverty while at the same time helping the Africans achieve equitable economic growth.

We plan to do this basically under three general subsections to support the adoption of national policies which encourage the Africans to expand agricultural products, especially food crops, the development of self-sustaining institutions that respond to the agricultural, health, and educational requirements of the Africans themselves and development of self-sustaining private sectors in these countries.

When we singled out food production as our overall priority, we did so with the knowledge it is a priority of the Africans themselves. This gives us an opportunity to work together for what is a common goal.

There are lots of problems within Africa. The roads are underdeveloped or in need of repair. The institutions that are required for growth do not exist, the work force is largely untrained; to some degree this explains the lack of economic progress.

There are also external and uncontrollable forces such as recession, and markets have dried up for many of Africa's vital exports. The No. 1 cause of the economic failure to grow in Africa is unrealistic government economic policies. It is for that reason that the Africa Bureau is giving increased emphasis to policy change, particularly in the area of agricultural, administrative, and pricing policies that will emphasize incentives to stimulate production.

The Economic Support Fund [ESF] has been particularly effective in this policy dialog. In Zimbabwe, for example, we have indications that reforms are taking place. In Somalia there is a move by the government to get away from state monopolies and free up the agricultural sector to produce and to market and basically to increase production.

PUBLIC LAW 480 ASSISTANCE

The Public Law 480 assistance is also very important in this policy dialogue, and we have made a sustained effort to coordinate all these resources available to us for maximum effect.

We had a severe problem, as you know, Mr. Chairman, with the number of donors in Africa. We have more than 50. The problem is not only to coordinate them, but to make sure we don't go in different directions.

I think we have made some progress there through organizations like the CILSS, which is an organization working in the Sahel, and

Cooperation for Development in Africa [CDA], an organization which has a number of European donors and ourselves, and the Canadians as well. CDA is not a bureaucracy, but it works at focusing our assistance.

MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS IN SAHEL

We are not at all satisified with the management in the Sahel in the sense that it is not something that we would like to hold up to the world as a model for what management should be, but we think we have made substantial progress, and we think we have made it very clear to the Sahelians themselves that we mean business here.

Finally, on the point that Peter mentioned, on the overall economic crisis in Africa, the Africa Bureau along with the State Department, Treasury, our governors of the IMF and World Bank have gotten together so that we can have a focused approach and speak with one voice on the especially severe economic problems facing African countries, such as Sudan, Kenya, and Zambia.

That procedure has met with some success in Sudan. We are sanguine about the results in Kenya and Zambia.

I will stop here, Mr. Chairman.

Senator KASTEN. Thank you.

[The statement of Mr. Ruddy follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF FRANK RUDDY

ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR FOR AFRICA

AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

I am here today to outline the objectives of the U.S. aid program to Africa. The budget presented to you is an integrated foreign assistance budget. We intend to use Development Assistance, Economic Support Funds and PL 480 food resources to combat hunger, disease and poverty while at the same time assisting African nations achieve equitable economic growth.

These programs seek to reach these objectives by

supporting:

(1) the adoption of national policies which encourage Africans to expand agricultural production, especially food

crops;

(2) the development of self-sustaining institutions that respond to the agricultural, health and educational requirements of Africa nations; and

(3) the development of self-sustaining private sectors

in these countries.

There are no easy answers. African economic performance has seriously deteriorated. Seventy percent of the people in Africa depend on agricultural products for their livelihood. Agricultural production has grown by less than two percent per year, a rate that is .8 percent less than the population growth Africa also has the highest infant and child mortality rates and the lowest life expectancy of any region in the world. But there is cause for optimism. Africa does have

rate.

the capacity to produce food at home. Africa has tremendous economic potential. Millions of acres of land can be brought under irrigation. Women provide the major share of

agricultural labor in Africa, and effective integration of