As USAID responds to the COVID-19 pandemic, OIG is implementing an organization-wide strategy to promote accountability and provide oversight for related agency programs and activities. This covers the agency’s use of supplemental funding as well as pre-existing funds and programs to address COVID-19 around the world.
- In September 2022, we issued a COVID-19 Oversight Summary outlining our past, present and planned oversight activities related to USAID's COVID-19 programming.
- Early on, we issued an advisory notice, “Key Questions To Inform USAID’s COVID-19 Response,” for USAID to consider when planning and executing its response to the pandemic. The notice provides a roadmap for Agency response efforts that is linked to our Top Management Challenges report and informed by our prior and ongoing work on public health emergency response, global health supply chain, humanitarian assistance, and other relevant topics. See our global health page for prior work related to these topics.
Our investigators and attorneys have provided fraud awareness briefings for USAID and implementer personnel that are tailored to the COVID-19 pandemic. See our Office of Investigations’ COVID-19 Fraud Awareness and Reporting Fact Sheet for more information on fraud reporting and indicators specific to COVID-19 response efforts. Our investigators respond to instances diversion, corruption, and procurement fraud affecting global health programming. We work closely with the U.S. Department of Justice to address fraud and other misconduct related to the pandemic, including through the Metropolitan Area COVID-19 Anti-Fraud Task Force.
We have also conducted dedicated performance audits and evaluations related to USAID’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, while incorporating COVID-19 oversight into ongoing work. In addition, we will identify and discuss the impacts of COVID-19 as part of our ongoing quarterly reporting on overseas contingency operations with the inspectors general for the Departments of Defense and State.
We will also look to capitalize on other opportunities to prepare advisories on time-sensitive issues to help inform agency responses to the pandemic. We issued several editions of our COVID Information Brief, which provides information on USAID’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and associated challenges, as well as related OIG oversight plans and activities. We prepared this informational brief to increase stakeholder knowledge and public transparency regarding these efforts.
We continue to work with our oversight partners, including other Federal offices of inspectors general , the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee under the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, and the U.S. Government Accountability Office, to coordinate our audits and investigations and address matters of interagency or cross-jurisdictional concern related to U.S. Government’s international response to the COVID-19 pandemic.