Sara Jacobs Grills Top State Department Official On Ensuring 'Adequate Staffing' Amid Mass Layoffs

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At Tuesday's House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA) questioned Michael Rigas, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources at the State Department.

Transcript

00:00This law was designed to implement many of the lessons from years of costly and

00:04unsuccessful US stabilization efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan and Somalia, and it

00:09was designed to make foreign assistance more strategic and effective, something

00:12I know the Secretary has said he cares about. Congress remains very committed

00:17to this law. I just recently introduced a GFA reauthorization bill with Chair

00:21Emeritus McCall and the House National Security Appropriations Bill, just

00:25appropriated money for GFA implementation. Secretary Rubio also recently promised

00:30Senator Coons in an appropriations hearing that GFA would still be

00:34implemented at the department. However, the RIFS announced last week closed the

00:38office, the Conflict and Stabilization Operations Bureau, and fired the staff

00:42that have implemented GFA since its passage. So Deputy Secretary Rodriguez, how

00:47does the department intend to implement the Global Fragility Act if you just

00:50fired all of the relevant staff with the institutional knowledge and expertise to

00:54do this effectively? So thank you for that question, Congresswoman. The functions

00:59of that office are going to be carried out at the Regional Bureau level. This is

01:03something the Secretary's talked about is empowering both our ambassadors and the

01:07regional bureaus who are charged with doing the diplomacy rather than sort of

01:11specific functional offices. So we're focusing the functional offices and

01:15empowering the regional offices to be able to carry out those diplomatic functions.

01:20Sure. There are about 20 people who were previously dedicated to GFA implementation

01:27who were carrying out important coordinating, monitoring, evaluation, and

01:32learning, and planning functions. Exactly how will that be replaced? So those functions are

01:39going to be done at the regional bureau. So each of the regional bureaus will take

01:44responsibility for those functions to ensure, and they're taking responsibility for foreign

01:48assistance in their regions, and the ambassadors are going to have... Yeah, no, I understand.

01:53But why didn't you move over anyone with any actual experience with GFA to the regional bureaus,

02:01if that was your intent, instead of firing them? So the folks, I mean, the folks who are in those offices

02:08are also working contemporaneously with people in the regional bureaus. So I don't think it's correct

02:13to say people in the regional bureaus or at post don't understand how to carry out foreign assistance

02:17in accordance with the Global Fragility Act. So I'm very confident they're going to be able to do that

02:23going forward. Deputy Secretary Regas, you and I both know that foreign service officers and civil

02:31servants in the regional bureaus are already stretched thin. And the idea that we are now putting on top of

02:38that significant programmatic and coordinating and monitoring and evaluation on top of their existing

02:44workload without any of the expertise or institutional knowledge from that process over the last five

02:51years. And remember, this bill passed when President Trump was president the first time. This is not some,

02:55like, lefty priority. This is a bipartisan priority of Congress. Can you provide to our committee a clear

03:05plan for how the department will implement GFA including by ensuring adequate staffing with the

03:11appropriate conflict expertise and implementation experience? Sure. So we have, we have hired or in

03:18the process of hiring back about 400 folks who had worked at USAID at the regional bureaus and at the

03:26at post overseas in addition to hiring about another 400 folks who are going to be locally employed staff

03:32who help to administer these programs. So to the extent that we, and this is something we're going to

03:38be under constant evaluation and review to ensure that our ambassadors and regional bureaus have the

03:44staff and expertise they need to be able to execute and implement on that. So are you going to hire back

03:49any people from CSO or people who work specifically on the GFA? So the, to the extent that there are jobs that,

03:59so there are very prescriptive rules around how rifts reductions in force have to be done in the

04:06federal government and how people can be hired back. So we'd have to make sure we are abiding by

04:12how those rules are promulgated. But if there are, if there is a need that our ambassadors or regional

04:17bureaus are demonstrating that they want or need a particular expertise, we'd be happy to consider that.

04:22Okay, well I will look forward to that written response from you on what the actual plan is.

04:30I will also say in the CN that we received, the reorganization CN, it said the Office of Foreign

04:35Assistance Policy was going to take on certain statutory policy. What you're telling me is that it will

04:40actually be the regional bureaus who are doing the GFA implementation. So if we could also get

04:47clarification on who actually will be responsitory, bipartisan, congressionally mandated GFA

04:55implementation, please include that in your written response on the plan to implement it. Thank you. I yield back.

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