The Government Accountability Office has found that the departments of Defense and State facilitated 194 security cooperation and assistance efforts during fiscal 2016 to help build foreign partners’ capacity to mitigate security-related threats.
GAO said Friday DoD ran 56 security cooperation programs for which associated legal authorities did not require the State Department‘s involvement and 87 efforts that did.
The State Department conducted 22 foreign security assistance efforts for which associated authorities did not necessitate DoD involvement and 30 initiatives wherein some level of DoD participation was required, GAO added.
A provision of the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act directed GAOÂ to report on an inventory of DoD security cooperation programs intended to boost foreign partners’ security capacity.
Public policy research firm RAND Corp. said the growth of legal authorities and efforts associated with security cooperation and assistance has caused duplications, limitations and gaps as well as exapanded demands on demands on DoD staff, according to GAO’s report.
