Inspector General Robert P. Storch announced that the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General released the “Evaluation of the Assessment, Monitoring, and Evaluation of Global Health Engagement Activities in USINDOPACOM, USEUCOM, and USAFRICOM.”
The report evaluated the Department of Defense's assessment, monitoring, and evaluation (AM&E) of global health engagement activities (GHE) between July 2018 and June 2022. GHE activities are interactions between the DoD and partner nation military and civilian authorities intended to establish, maintain, or improve the capabilities of the partner nation’s military or civilian health sector. The DoD Office of Inspector General found that the Geographic Combatant Commanders (GCCs) followed the required AM&E procedures outlined in DoD policy. However, we found that the AM&E requirement applied to only one of the more than 500 GHE activities conducted by the GCCs because, read together, GHE policy and Security Cooperation AM&E policy only require AM&E for activities determined by the DoD to be Significant Security Cooperation Initiatives and there is no dedicated funding for the AM&E of GHE activities.
The report also found that the GCCs did not use Socium, the security cooperation system of record, to record GHE activities, limiting the DoD's ability to evaluate the outcomes of GHE activities. The DoD OIG recommended that the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy establish policies to determine which GHE activities require AM&E and specify roles and responsibilities for conducting AM&E, and that the Defense Security Cooperation Agency upgrade Socium’s functions to align GHE activities to campaign objectives and enable the AM&E of GHE activities.
“Implementation of the recommendations in this report will strengthen the DoD's ability to comprehensively assess GHE activity outcomes and make informed decisions regarding them,” said IG Storch. “This will enable the DoD to comprehensively plan and observe GHE activities worldwide to further U.S. national security goals.”