on monitoring Agency response to the congressional mandate. Work has just been completed on a proposed new activity numbering and classification system for fiscal year 1976 installation to support the new information system. The classification systems provides for a new purpose code which is related to the new appropriation structure and which will facilitate management monitoring of the turnaround of the AID program. A country program data bank-to include data on other donor activity-design has been approved in principle. Proposals are being developed to change the financial information system to better support other information systems. A revised project reporting system has been approved in principle and work is underway to focus nonfinancial reporting on key events or key indicators. A study has been approved to consider the feasibility of establishing an automated data bank of economic and social indicators. All are directed at providing management with the tools to assure that AID programs are designed and carried out effectively and to provide the information necessary to demonstrate the results of AID's programs.

SUMMARY

The major Agency processes are shown diagrammatically, as they interact, in the chart on page 25. The bulk of the modifications to the management system are now in place; all elements are to be fully operational not later than fiscal year 1977. As a procedural system it appears well suited to our needs. However, even an excellent system will not succeed without clear policy guidance, such as is being provided via policy statements, definitions, and conceptual framework papers supporting implementation of the congressional mandate. Twenty-seven of these have already been issued thus far, 18 others are in process, and another 18 are projected. Nor will a perfectly designed procedural system succeed without effective project management, at all levels in AID/Washington and in the field. This is the job of our management information system and of seasoned, experienced leadership and staff.

All of the above enumerated changes in AID's systems should impact significantly on our ability to assure that the considerations which are central to a participation strategy of development are integral in every aspect of AID operations. We will be pleased to provide additional background and detailed description on any of the above program management systems if the committee wishes.

TRAINING AND EDUCATION IN TERMS OF THE MANDATE

The committee has urged that "every AID professional employee with any effect on the planning, programing, implementation or evaluation of the Agency's development aid programs be thoroughly exposed to the basic ideas behind the reforms." The Agency has focused on three major approaches to this task which we too believe to be of the utmost importance.

POLICY STATEMENTS

More than 60 policy statements and conceptual framework papers intended to explain and support implementation of the congressional mandate have been identified as necessary. This list attached at appen

dix 4, page 61 should be considered a dynamic and changing list which is being refined over time. Items are added or deleted as appropriate. Included in the nearly half of these already issued are papers dealing with such topics as: "Aiding the Poor Majority," "Working Definitions of Essential Mandate Concepts." "Integration of Women into National Economies," and "Expanded AID-PVO Relationships"; global policy statements and sector guidelines for rural development, health, nutrition, education, and population; and descriptive guidance establishing a revised project system and some other essential elements of the restructured AID program management system.

Still in process or projected are guidance papers dealing with topics such as rural production, land tenure, savings mobilization, relationships of rural infrastructure to agricultural production, risk avoidance for the small farmer, appropriately scaled technologies, ongoing innovations in low-cost health delivery systems, et cetera.

While the list does not include AID's congressional presentations for fiscal year 1975 and 1976 or reports of the various congressional committees concerned with AID legislation, these are important educational materials widely circulated and read in AID/Washington and in the field.

MEETINGS, CONEFRENCES, AND SEMINARS

There is a limit, of course, to the amount of paper that can be absorbed, and while there is much more to be done in providing guidance to missions we realize the importance of direct contact in conveying the essence of the reforms to our staff. Over the last year all the regional Bureaus have held conferences, seminars, and workshops in Washington and at field locations dealing entirely or in substantial part with matters relating to the congressional mandate; more are scheduled for this coming fiscal year.

For example, the East Asia Bureau held a series of extensive briefings and discussions on the mandate in which all but 9 of the approximately 80 professional employees of the Bureau participated. Most of these people have been involved in program and project reviews where specific new directions criteria have been applied. This same patterns has been followed in modified form in other AID/Washington Bureaus.

Mission directors in all Bureaus have been extensively involved in this educational process. A full day at the February 1975 Latin America Directors Conference was devoted to in-depth discussion of the mandate, particularly as it is translated into programs in the three basic sectors. In the same month, East Asia directors and program officers met to discuss the same topic as did the directors for Near East and South Asia (NESA) countries.

But meetings with a broader range of staff are also crucial. In December 1973 the then Asia Bureau (encompassing the current NESA and East Asia areas) held a session attended by a cross-section of program, capital development and technical officers from each mission and AID/Washington to review problems arising from mission efforts to reformulate program ideas along the lines suggested by the new legislation. New project ideas were discussed and problems

of design and implementation considered. At the same time, and stretching over many months, U.S. AID's conducted "training programs" for their professional staffs, sometimes joined by host country professionals. Such programs were carried out in Bangladesh, Afghanistan and other missions in the region.

In East Asia, two field conferences were held for about 70 project managers, about half of whom are host country officials and local national employees of U.S. AID's with additional conferences scheduled for 1975. The Assistant Administrator and Deputy Assistant Administrator for Africa have traveled to nearly every African mission in the past year. Their primary purpose has been to explain to and explore with the entire staff in each location the implications of the mandate for program development. A mission directors conference is planned for September which will especially focus on further developments in this area.

As the role of private and voluntary organizations is so important in the Agency's current approach, special efforts have been made to expose their staff and our own to the essentials of the new legislation. Several major conferences have been held in the past year in which about two-thirds of the participants have been PVO professional staff and one-third AID staff; conference reports have been widely circulated inside the Agency and to the PVO community.

There are many other examples which could be cited, but these are sufficient to suggest that nearly all the Agency's professional employees have been exposed to the basic elements of the legislative reforms. We had considered the desirability of a further 12-day orientation program in field missions and Washington to be certain that we had not missed any key staff. Upon further consideration, however, we concluded that while such an effort might be useful, the potential benefits did not outweight its estimated cost-well over $100,000—and the staff time involved.

TRAINING PROGRAMS

While we have set aside the idea of a brief orientation program for Agency staff, we are attempting to integrate a fuller examination of the many issues encompassed by the participation strategy and the other emphasis of the 1973 Foreign Assistance Act into our various AID training programs.

For example, AID has initiated a new 12-week development studies program designed to produce more highly qualified project development officers-some generalists are having their expertise in technical areas deepened, while some technicians are learning management skills. The first cycle begun on May 12 devoted its first week primarily to an analysis of new legislative initiatives. Both House and Senate staff personnel participated in one session. A field exercise component of this training will provide an opportunity for trainees to apply the analytical skills they have acquired in a U.S. development environment-viz. Garrett County, Md., part of the Appalachian region-working with county officials on an economic/sociological based study of the county's development.

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Other regular programs such as the MIDS course at Syracuse, the project management seminars, the Brookings and North Carolina university environmental training program-are now also bringing the concepts of the mandate into the curriculum where appropriate.

We now have in the planning stage three 1- to 2-week training programs. A Washington course is being developed which would provide an opportunity for Agency staff-both Washington and field-to think about, read, study, discuss and debate the many issues that grow out of this different approach to development. As is clear from the preceding section of this report, there are many policy issues and problems that are not easily grasped or understood and there is much room for honest disagreement between professionals in the development field. AID staff need the chance to consider the importance of these new-and old-ideas in the context of their own practical experience. We hope to have a program developed in the next several months which would be run many times throughout the year so that eventually all key staff would have this opportunity to deepen and enrich their knowledge and strength in these areas of the development art.

One of the two programs designed for overseas staff is an analytical skills workshop. This course will focus on sociological, mircoeconomic and political/organizational analysis and the techniques needed to carry them out in support of projects designed to aid the rural poor. The third program is called network management. Here training will support the role change required to shift from managing large directhire staff engaged in direct implementation of programs to a role which requires consulting skills, problem-solving, resource transfer and collaborative behavior with counterpart personnel responsible for implementation of projects. We shall keep the committee informed of our plans for these programs as they proceed.

PERSONNEL AND ORGANIZATION

We had hoped that adjustments in AID's staff due to the RIF underway since last October would not have had a substantial impact on the Agency's ability to carry out the reforms of the mandate, but we regret that this has not entirely been true and morale has, unfortunately, suffered. It is inevitable that RIF induced-and anticipated-movements of both Foreign Service and Civil Service personnel have obviously distracted some attention and energies away from program matters. It is a tribute to the Agency's staff that despite the upheavals and uncertainties caused by the RIF that so much progress has been made. But the pressure is not yet over, despite our original plans, for the events in Indochina have resulted in the reduction of several hundred additional overseas positions and so the RIF is as yet unfinished.

The RIF was intended, of course, to help bring our skill availabilities into line with our requirements; reduction of surplus personnel was the first step in the unhappy but long overdue action. We plan to follow it by recruiting additional personnel for certain specific categories especially related to implementing programs associated with the legislative reforms, but as the committee will understand it is a difficult task to be reducing personnel at the same time that other new staff are being hired.

The Agency is under no illusions about the difficulties inherent in mounting and maintaining effective, results-oriented programs. We

recognized early on that attacking the problems of the neediest would require more staff time and effort in the field and involve different disciplines than did the types of operations which characterized many of our programs of the 1960's. We also are deeply conscious of the long history of criticism and charges of overstaffing to which AID has been subjected. Moreover it is our desire and intent to reduce personnel wherever it can be done without serious impact on our programs. (For example, cumulative staff reductions from June 1968 to June 1976 will reduce AID's direct-hire staff by more than 56 percent.)

On the other hand the Agency is also conscious that the front line of the development effort continues to be in the field, and we are determined to assure that each mission is properly staffed with the manpower that a U.S. AID Director believes essential to plan, design, manage, monitor, and evaluate his program responsibility, and effectively.

Accordingly, AID/Washington has been in dialog with the field. since last fall in an effort to identify additional position requirements in priority sectors or for functions essential to support activities in such sectors. As of this time approximately 60 additional regular position needs have been identified and approved.

As the field missions become more deeply enmeshed in the complexities of program design and execution under our participation strategy, as additional guidance materials are issued and new program management systems installed, manpower requirements are expected to continue to undergo some adjustment. Often we will be looking for types of personnel in scarce supply anywhere. For example, some of the skill areas in which we already anticipate need for additional recruitment and/or retraining of existing staff are: Rural development generalists, regional planners, developmentfocused social scientists, practical rural educators, paramedical/lowcost health delivery and rural organization development experts. It is clear that many of these skills will best be obtained through PVO's, on contract from other Government agencies, or from experts of the recipient country, but some will need to be American direct-hire employees. Recent guidance messages to the field and the reopening of the fiscal year 1976 development intern program stress the importance of these new skill areas to Agency programing.

Some AID/W organizational adjustments may also be desirable as we proceed in the new assistance style. The organization of an Office of Rural Development in the Technical Assistance Bureau, mentioned in our preliminary report, is being established and staff are assigned, but here too the RIF action delayed the formal initiation of the office. After the RIF and as experience is gained with a Agency's new systems and procedures there will be an intensified look at the need to adjust the Agency's organizational structure to assure implementation of the new directions.