Money Poorly Spent

One thing I've mentioned regarding the Mérida Initiative is that it's hard to implement training programs on a significant effectively (hence the focus on hardware). Quite difficult indeed, as a new inspector-general's report on USAID's support for the Mexican legal system makes clear:

The objectives of the audit were to determine if USAID/Mexico’s rule of law and human rights program was achieving its main goals, which are to support the implementation of the criminal justice reforms at the federal and state levels and to strengthen civil society organizations’ promotion and oversight of human rights. Furthermore, the audit also determined if the mission’s program reporting was providing stakeholders with complete and accurate information on the progress and the results achieved.

Over the years, USAID/Mexico has supported a broad scope of activities in support of Mexico’s justice reform. In the last few years, USAID/Mexico has facilitated exchanges between attorneys from the United States and other countries with members of the Mexican justice sector at the federal level, and has played a key role in helping to draft the federal code that focused on starting the justice reform. As well, USAID/Mexico provided technical assistance to support the judicial reforms in Chihuahua, by training judicial officials on oral advocacy, and supporting the state of Oaxaca to promote its mediation initiatives through stakeholder exchanges and the input of mediation experts.

However, the audit found that under the current awards-implementing activities to support the rule of law program, USAID/Mexico has not delivered technical advisory services in a strategic manner to reach maximum efficiency, effectiveness, and sustainability, mainly because it lacks a strategic focus (see page 4). As a result, USAID/Mexico’s rule of law activities has had limited success in achieving their main goals: to support the implementation of the criminal justice reforms at the federal and state levels and to strengthen civil society organizations’ promotion and oversight of human rights.

The audit found that USAID/Mexico generally provided accurate information related to standard indicators in its performance plan and report for fiscal year 2009. However, the performance indicators and their respective targets are not appropriate for measuring progress toward accomplishing the subobjectives (see page 8).

Fixing this program would be a better use of American resources than seeing to it that the remaining helicopters are handed over with all due speed. (H/T)