USAID/West Bank and Gaza Improved Conflict Mitigation Program Management but Has Not Completed an Evaluation

The USAID/West Bank and Gaza’s Conflict Mitigation and Management Program promotes peace through dialogue by bringing together Israelis and Palestinians; Israelis, Palestinians, and Jordanians; and Israeli Arab and Israeli Jewish citizens. The program makes grants to a variety of organizations, disbursing over $60 million since 2004. This followup audit set out to determine to what extent USAID/West Bank and Gaza had implemented recommendations OIG made in 2013 and evaluated the program’s impact. We found that the mission had implemented most of our prior recommendations. For example, it strengthened financial safeguards, performed a conflict assessment, and used the findings to shape subsequent solicitations for grant proposals. However, the mission had not corrected reported data errors and it had not completed an evaluation of the program as called for by USAID policy. The mission agreed with and took corrective actions on our two recommendations to further improve USAID’s management of the program.