Chief FOIA Officer's Report

USAID’s core mission is to demonstrate democratic values abroad, and advance a free, peaceful, and prosperous world. These values include the tenets of democratic governance, such as building open, responsive, transparent, and accountable institutions and processes that serve the needs and preferences of the public. These values are emblematic of the FOIA, which encourages accountability through transparency.

USAID’s core mission is to demonstrate democratic values abroad, and advance a free, peaceful, and prosperous world. These values include the tenets of democratic governance, such as building open, responsive, transparent, and accountable institutions and processes that serve the needs and preferences of the public.

USAID continues to take significant steps to increase proactive disclosures. USAID began publishing data dashboards to its new, public-facing Tableau server. Dashboards include the Evaluation Registry, which documents USAID’s evaluations and links to documents in the Development Experience Clearinghouse (DEC), and a dashboard produced for the National Security Council (NSC) depicting countries’ COVID-19 response in the Indo-Pacific Region.

In FY 2019, USAID committed to the key areas of success codified in our FOIA‐Backlog‐ Reduction Plan (“Plan”):  obtaining leadership support; routinely reviewing processing metrics; using resources more effectively; increasing staff training and engagement; increasing proactive disclosure; and communicating effectively with internal and external stakeholders.  Through this commitment, USAID reduced our backlog of requests from 273 in FY 2018 to 238.   

USAID is committed to the principles embodied in the FOIA and responds to all requests in an open and transparent manner. As such, USAID continues to take significant steps to improve its overall FOIA administration and compliance, as evidenced in its year-over-year improved processing performance.

USAID improved its online FOIA Library through: Identifying and posting five (5) categories of information that are frequently requested: Travel and Transportation; FOIA Logs; FOIA Reports; News Events; and Purchase Card Holders; Adding records to each category; Ensuring the records are 508 compliant and electronically searchable.

USAID, in a very concerted effort, closed all of its ten oldest FOIA requests, appeals and consultations reported pending in its Fiscal Year 2015 Annual FOIA Report.

USAID significantly reduced its backlog of appeal requests in Fiscal Year 2015 to 35%. This is a 78% reduction from 112.5% of backlogged appeal requests in Fiscal Year 2014.

USAID rolled out the Public Access Link (PAL) in FY 2014. The PAL allows FOIA requesters to submit their request on-line; attach supporting documents; correspond with the Government Information Specialist assigned to their request; receive status updates; view the entire request submission history; and also receive the final response letter and documents. The portal also allows the public to download frequently requested records from USAID’s FOIA Library.