How does the State Department plan security assistance?

The Department of State’s Managing for Results (MfR) framework is designed to create important feedback loops among the Department’s ongoing management processes. The process includes strategic planning, budgeting, program design, monitoring, evaluation, and learning through use of data and evidence. The MfR framework establishes bureau and mission strategic objectives as the building blocks against which resources are requested, and activities are managed and reviewed. This integrated approach helps the DOS effectively manage its resources and inform taxpayers and Congress of progress towards carrying out its mission. The DOS Office of U.S. Foreign Assistance Resources (F), in partnership with the Bureau of Budget and Planning (BP), develops and administers the guidance and tools necessary for the DOS to implement MfR.

Strategic planning ensures that U.S. foreign assistance helps achieve the broad foreign policy objectives. It gives the Secretary of State the ability to evaluate the effectiveness of U.S. foreign assistance and to make strategic decisions to advance diplomacy. The DOS follows a three-step, “top-down” approach to planning:

1. Agency planning allows the DOS and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to guide the direction and priorities of foreign assistance, and determines how the agencies will implement U.S. foreign policy and development assistance for the coming years.

2. Bureau planning provides the DOS and USAID Regional Bureaus a process for longer-term planning that is predictable, uniform, and conceptually rigorous. Bureau planning informs budget decisions and mission strategic planning.

3. Mission planning provides a multi-year overarching strategy that encapsulates USG policy priorities and objectives, and outlines how projects and programs will use foreign assistance and other tools to achieve these goals.

Agency-level planning is the first of three steps in the Department’s strategic planning process. The requirement to develop an agency plan is mandated by the Government Performance Results Act (GPRA) and the GPRA Modernization Act (GPRA-MA). The DOS and the USAID, agency-level plan is the Joint Strategic Plan (JSP). The JSP is derived from the National Security Strategy and defines the national strategic priorities that guide global engagement jointly for DOS/USAID. The JSP is a four-year joint plan that serves as the primary State and USAID strategy setting forth the direction and priorities for both organizations. It illustrates how the Department and USAID will implement U.S. foreign policy and development assistance for the coming years. Once published, the JSP informs the development of bureau-level plans, the JRS and FBS. DoW planners must be aware of the goals and objectives listed in the JSP, as many of the exigent objectives touch on areas in which the DoW will be engaged (e.g., stability/conflict resolution, human rights, rebalancing, security cooperation, among others). The regional bureaus at the DOS and USAID (e.g., the Bureau of African Affairs) prepare a JRS based on JSP guidance. The functional bureaus at the DOS prepare a FBS laying out their plan to achieve their part of the JSP. Both types of bureau strategies are four-year plans designed to articulate priorities within a region, bureau, or office and lay out specific tradeoffs necessary to bring resources in alignment with the highest potential for impact. The strategies are also used to inform budget decisions, advise Integrated Country Strategies, and shape performance reviews.

The country team, under the direction of the Ambassador, creates the ICS. The ICS is the four-year strategy that articulates the U.S. priorities in a given country and is led by the Chief of Mission. The ICS develops a common set of mission goals and objectives through a coordinated and collaborative planning effort among the DOS and other USG agencies with programming in-country. Once completed, the ICS frames and informs the annual Mission Resource Request (MRR) and mission-level performance management requirements. The ICS serves as an essential policy and management tool for missions, bureaus, and interagency partners and is the tool through which the mission directs office activities, measures progress, and conducts regular reviews. The SDO/DATT and SCO will be an integral part of the ICS and MRR development and implementation.

After the ICSs are completed, plans start to flow back up the “chain-of-command” as resource requests. Individual embassies and missions send consolidated MRRs to bureaus, which prioritize and prepare a Bureau Resource Request (BRR). At the department level, the DOS consolidates priorities and submits their budget requests to the Office of Management and Budget.

While DOS plans are coordinated with DoW plans (and vice-versa), it is important to remember that the planning process is only hard-wired together in the National Security Strategy and the ICS. It is vital that all planners along both planning chains keep their counterparts aware of institutional direction and planning intentions.

For the SCO or SDO/DATT, this system places a heavy burden of responsibility on their shoulders. It can be said that these two formal planning chains come together at the SCO and the President. In regards to SC, SDO/DATTs and SCOs must be extremely adept at keeping all parties informed, facilitating cooperation, and deconflicting priorities of the various departments, agencies, and commands involved.