[Senate Hearing 112-202]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
S. Hrg. 112-202
PEACE CORPS, THE NEXT 50 YEARS
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON WESTERN HEMISPHERE, PEACE
CORPS, AND GLOBAL NARCOTICS AFFAIRS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 6, 2011
__________
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts, Chairman
BARBARA BOXER, California RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey BOB CORKER, Tennessee
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
ROBERT P. CASEY, Jr., Pennsylvania MARCO RUBIO, Florida
JIM WEBB, Virginia JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire JIM DeMINT, South Carolina
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
TOM UDALL, New Mexico MIKE LEE, Utah
William C. Danvers, Staff Director
Kenneth A. Myers, Jr., Republican Staff Director
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SUBCOMMITTEE ON WESTERN HEMISPHERE, PEACE
CORPS, AND GLOBAL NARCOTICS AFFAIRS
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey, Chairman
BARBARA BOXER, California MARCO RUBIO, Florida
JIM WEBB, Virginia MIKE LEE, Utah
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire JIM DeMINT, South Carolina
TOM UDALL, New Mexico JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia
JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Buller, Kathy A., Peace Corps Inspector General, Office of the
Inspector General, Washington, DC.............................. 38
Prepared statement........................................... 39
Dodd, Hon. Christopher J., D-CT, former Member, U.S. Senate,
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, Washington, DC................. 10
Prepared statement........................................... 16
Isakson, Hon. Johnny, U.S. Senator from Georgia, statement....... 3
Menendez, Hon. Robert, U.S. Senator from New Jersey, opening
statement...................................................... 1
Odongo, Elizabeth, Training and Outreach Director, D.C. Coalition
Against Domestic Violence, Washington, DC...................... 53
Prepared statement........................................... 54
Quigley, Kevin F.F., Ph.D., President, National Peace Corps
Association, Washington, DC.................................... 47
Prepared statement........................................... 49
Rubio, Hon. Marco, U.S. Senator from Florida, opening statement.. 20
Williams, Hon. Aaron, Director, Peace Corps, Washington, DC...... 26
Prepared statement........................................... 28
Responses to questions submitted for the record by Senator
Robert Menendez............................................ 58
Responses to questions submitted for the record by Senator
Jeanne Shaheen............................................. 62
Wofford, Hon. Harris, D-PA, former Member, U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC................................................. 4
Prepared statement........................................... 7
(iii)
PEACE CORPS: THE NEXT 50 YEARS
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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2011
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere,
Peace Corps, and Global Narcotics Affairs,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 11 a.m., in
room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Robert
Menendez (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Senators Menendez, Shaheen, Rubio, and Isakson.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT MENENDEZ,
U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW JERSEY
Senator Menendez. The hearing will come to order. Our
apologies to our former colleagues, who I know understand the
process of the Senate and votes and that we have no control
over when that happens. So thank you for bearing with us.
This year, as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the
Peace Corps, signed into law on September 22, 1961, we
celebrate the success of the Peace Corps' first 50 years. And
today, we convene this hearing to evaluate what needs to be
done to ensure its continued success over the next 50 years.
Clearly, it is a new world since President Kennedy created
the Peace Corps, a vastly different place than it was when he
signed the concept into law. In 1961, we were in the midst of
the cold war. The Berlin Wall had gone up on August 13 of that
year, only a few weeks earlier. The Soviet Union dominated our
foreign policy agenda. Kabul and Baghdad were not even blips on
our radar screen, let alone a click away on a computer screen
on Google Earth.
Now, in the post-9/11 digital world, the task and mission
of the Peace Corps may not have changed, but the world and
circumstances into which we send our Volunteers has changed
considerably.
Today, I hope to hear from our panelists on what those
changes are and how they have affected the Peace Corps' overall
mission, if at all. And if so, what we can do to mitigate any
adverse impact on the effectiveness of the program.
I hope to hear from our experts about how we can enhance
the mission of the Peace Corps and make it even more effective
in living up to the idealism, innovation, and generosity of
more than 200,000 Americans who have volunteered in over 139
nations in the last half century.
When John F. Kennedy created the Peace Corps, he saw it as
more than a quixotic agency of young people on a mission of
peace. He saw it as a fulfillment, a fundamental fulfillment of
our values as a nation. He sought to encourage a better
understanding between Americans from every walk of life and the
people and cultures of other nations.
I am sure my good friends, the distinguished Senators,
former Senators, sit before us, especially Chris Dodd, one of
our panelists today, a Peace Corps Volunteer himself, remembers
what our late friend and colleague Ted Kennedy always used to
say. ``It is always better to send in the Peace Corps than the
Marine Corps.''
Sending in the Marines, albeit necessary on occasion, is
never a welcomed option. But sending in the Peace Corps is
always a welcomed opportunity for us to extend the hand of
freedom and democracy around the world and to show the world
the power of our values rather than the value of our power.
In the last 50 years, our Volunteers have enriched the
lives of thousands of people in thousands of villages around
the world, and by so doing, they have enriched their own lives.
And when they returned home, they have enriched our communities
and our Nation. We are a better place because of their
commitment to a program that has been one of our great
successes. Today's panelists will help us determine how we can
build on that success and make the Peace Corps better.
It is important to note that this hearing is to assess, not
to criticize--to evaluate, not to castigate. It is my hope that
this hearing will be a constructive discussion that moves us
closer to the goal of making the next 50 years of the Peace
Corps even better than the first 50.
One hundred years of progress, reaching out to those around
the world, extending American values and a helping hand is our
goal. And I am a firm believer that one must be open and honest
in acknowledging the progress and the challenges of the past
before one can plan for the future. Today is the beginning of
that process.
I have invited to testify before the committee witnesses
who love the Peace Corps, yet understand its challenges and
have a genuine interest in strengthening the organization. We
will hear testimony from Aaron Williams, the director of the
Peace Corps; my good friend and former colleague, Senator Chris
Dodd, who was the chair of this subcommittee and now chairman
and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America. And I am
ready to play a part any time you want me to, Chris.
[Laughter.]
And the former distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania,
Harris Wofford, who is former legal assistant to President
Kennedy and the associate director of the Peace Corps as well.
Kathy Buller, who is the inspector general of the Peace
Corps; Kevin Quigley, the president of the National Peace Corps
Association; Liz Odongo, the training and outreach director of
the D.C. Coalition Against Domestic Violence and a returned
Peace Corps Volunteer.
I know Senator Rubio is on his way. He got called, in
addition to the vote, to a meeting of the Commerce Committee
that is an important quick markup off the floor. He intends to
be here and has a statement to make.
But in the interim, I know that Senator Isakson is very
interested in the Peace Corps, and I would be happy to
acknowledge him at this time.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHNNY ISAKSON,
U.S. SENATOR FROM GEORGIA
Senator Isakson. Well, thank you very much, Chairman
Menendez, and welcome to my dear friend Chris Dodd. And Senator
Wofford, we are delighted to have you here today.
And I apologize that I am going to have to leave about as
quick as I make my remarks, but I have the same challenges that
Marco Rubio does.
You know, in my capacity the last 5 years as ranking member
or chairman, depending on who was in power, of the Africa
Subcommittee of Foreign Relations, I have traveled that
continent. And in that continent, I have met with Peace Corps
Volunteers all over Africa and, most recently, met with them in
Beijing, China, where we now have over 200 in China in the
Peace Corps. And they are remarkable emissaries of the United
States of America and the best ambassadors you could possibly
have.
I want to particularly pay tribute to Aaron Williams and
what he has done since he has taken over the realm of the Peace
Corps. As Chris Dodd will remember, he helped me last year try
and pass in the Senate the Kate Puzey Peace Corps Volunteer
Protection Act, and we came close but fell a little short. I am
pleased to say that we passed it 2 weeks ago in the United
States Senate. It will be passed in the House of
Representatives, I think, next week and will become law very
soon.
It is a tribute to a young lady who was a Peace Corps
Volunteer from my State who was brutally murdered in Benin, and
I think, as a victim of that, I have worked hard--and I
appreciate the help Harris has given us in this regard, by the
way--worked hard to see to it the Peace Corps had systems in
place so that our Volunteers had the best of protections equal
to that of whistleblowers in the Government.
And Aaron Williams has been instrumental in seeing to it
that that Peace Corps Protection Act and those policies are
basically almost totally already implemented within the Peace
Corps. And I want to publicly thank him on behalf of the Puzey
family and all the Peace Corps Volunteers who have served and
who do serve.
On this 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps, I think we
could do nothing better than to enhance and improve our
protection of Peace Corps Volunteers, and I thank all those,
Senator Dodd and Aaron Williams, who have helped me along the
way. And I appreciate your taking your time to be here today.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Menendez. Thank you, Senator Isakson.
So I believe both of our distinguished colleagues don't
really need an introduction, but I will give you one anyhow.
Senator Harris Wofford was a special assistant to President
Kennedy for civil rights, instrumental in the formation of the
Peace Corps, served as its special representative to Africa,
director of operations in Ethiopia, associate director before
being elected to the United States Senate from the State of
Pennsylvania.
He is a noted activist for volunteerism and national
service. And after his time in the Senate, Senator Wofford
served as the chief executive officer of the Cooperation for
National and Community Service and continues to serve on the
boards of several service organizations.
Senator Chris Dodd answered President Kennedy's call and
joined the Peace Corps after graduating college. He served in
the Dominican Republic from 1966 to 1968. He was Connecticut's
longest serving Member of Congress, having served 6 years in
the House of Representatives and 30 years in the U.S. Senate
and, as I said, a chair of this subcommittee. Introduced the
Peace Corps Empowerment Act in 2007, the Peace Corps
Improvement and Expansion Act in 2009, which combined a reform
and growth strategy for the Peace Corps.
So welcome back again. And Senator Wofford, please start us
off. Your full statement will be included in the record, but we
ask that you summarize it in 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF HON. HARRIS WOFFORD, D-PA, FORMER MEMBER, U.S.
SENATE, WASHINGTON, DC
Senator Wofford. Senator Menendez, thank you for your
leadership and, Senator Isakson, for yours.
I have heard you tell reports of coming back and having met
Peace Corps Volunteers on several occasions, and I have
followed suit in recent years with my grandsons. Whenever we
get a 6-week trip around the world that they earn when they
turn 12, we see Peace Corps Volunteers, and it is one way to
keep up.
And thank you for inviting me to talk about the Peace Corps
and particularly to give a historical perspective on the Peace
Corps and the vision behind its establishment.
Excuse me. Reading glasses are worthwhile.
For many of us, the celebration of the Peace Corps' 50th
anniversary last October 14 at the University of Michigan began
there, when hundreds of former Peace Corps Volunteers, staff,
students, gathered out at midnight outside the student union.
We were there on a cold, drizzling night to mark the time when
that Presidential candidate John Kennedy struck the spark that
led to the Peace Corps' establishment 4\1/2\ months later.
Kennedy was late in arriving, about 2 a.m., but found
thousands there on that cold night and decided to make
impromptu remarks. Fifty years later, we heard and saw on a big
screen Kennedy's
3-minute talk. He asked, ``How many of you are going to be
doctors, are willing to spend your days in Ghana?'' He asked
how many technicians and engineers were willing to serve 1 or 2
years around the world and if others were willing to contribute
part of their lives.
He thought Americans would be willing, but the effort must
be far greater than we have ever made in the past, he said.
There was loud applause that night, but almost no press
treatment. A small group of students quickly formed an
organization, Michigan Students Committed to World
Responsibility, and drafted and began circulating a pledge
saying they were willing.
Back at Kennedy campaign headquarters, Sargent Shriver and
I knew nothing about all of this until the mother of one of the
students called to say that nearly 1,000 students had signed
the pledge, and they wanted help in arranging a time when they
could present it to Kennedy. When Kennedy was told about this
remarkable response, before he even saw the pledges, he said,
``I want to propose an overseas Volunteer Program in one of my
last major campaign speeches.''
At the Cow Palace in San Francisco in the last days of the
campaign, he did. He promised to create a Peace Corps to
widespread press coverage and a subsequent wave of enthusiasm
on college campuses.
On January 20, 1961, while watching the inaugural parade,
Kennedy asked Sargent Shriver to study and recommend how to
create such a Peace Corps. As the campaign deputy to Shriver, I
was lucky that next day to be asked to help him gather and to
participate in the task force that for 5 weeks, day and night,
prepared the plan for launching the Peace Corps.
Volunteers would serve for 2 years, plus training. They
would be of all adult ages, but the signs were that most would
be recent college graduates. Within 4 days of receiving
Shriver's report, the President on March 1, by Executive order,
established the Peace Corps and simultaneously sent a message
to Congress asking for legislation to authorize and appropriate
funds to support it.
Meanwhile, with discretionary funds in the State Department
budget, the President enabled Shriver to enlist a staff,
recruit and select Volunteers, and send the first Volunteers
forth, landing in Ghana before the end of August. There were
several hundred Volunteers in the first countries by the time
Congress passed the Peace Corps Act September 22.
Now, can you imagine all that happening--first, by
Executive order and then, in a few months, congressional
action--with large bipartisan support? In the next 2 years,
while serving as special assistant to President Kennedy, I was
on call to Shriver, including the first 3-week trip around the
world to heads of state to see if they wanted Peace Corps
Volunteers. They did.
In that short history, note the crucial role of students in
the Peace Corps' creation, beginning with a small group who
were determined to act. Sargent Shriver repeatedly said if
those Michigan students had not taken that initiative and got
nearly 1,000 students to sign that pledge saying they were
willing to serve, there is no reason to think that in the
pressures of the transition and the crises that followed, the
Peace Corps idea would have emerged as a priority.
Sargent Shriver's name became a verb. To ``shriverize''
meant to be bolder and faster and to make it big. Senator Jay
Rockefeller the other day, who was on the first organizing
staff, and I think the great champion of the Peace Corps in the
Senate in my time--Chris Dodd, was there--recently said that
Sargent Shriver was the greatest one, bar none, that he ever
worked with. He was also the most fun.
He believed that for the Peace Corps to be small and to
develop slowly, it would be seen merely as a symbolic
Government public relations effort. When we came out of the
State Department one day, and an expert there had said it would
take 2 years or more maybe before a project that started could
actually land Volunteers on the ground in the other country, he
said, ``We are going to get 600 Volunteers in six countries in
6 months.'' I think we did. He aimed to make the Peace Corps
the most antibureaucratic bureaucracy in Government history,
and I think it was.
In August 1962, I briefed the President before he went out
to the White House lawn to send off some 600 Volunteers,
including 300 going to teach in Ethiopia, where I was soon to
become the country director and Peace Corps' special
representative to Africa for the next 2 years with my family.
Walking back to the Oval Office, Kennedy conveyed his delight
that the Peace Corps was proving itself. ``This will be really
serious,'' he said, ``when it is 100,000 Volunteers going
overseas each year, and then there will be 1 million Americans
who have had firsthand experience in Asia, Africa,'' as he
would say, ``and Latin America. Then, for the first time, we
will have a large constituency for a good foreign policy.''
The Peace Corps now numbers a little more than 8,000
Volunteers a year, and if the President's budget is cut back
substantially, that number will decrease and probably no new
countries will have their wish for Peace Corps Volunteers
fulfilled. In 50 years, only 200,000 have served, not the
several million Kennedy would have hoped for by now.
When Shriver and I left the Peace Corps in late 1966, there
were 16,000 Volunteers overseas or in training, and the plan
was soon to reach 250,000. By then, President Johnson had
called the Peace Corps a worldwide training for great citizens.
Vice President Humphrey, who chaired the Peace Corps Advisory
Council, said that by 1970, we hope there would be about 50,000
back here in the United States.
Now fast forward to 2 weeks ago when some 5,000 returned
Volunteers and staff came to Washington for 4 days of
celebrations, conferences, and country reunions. On Sunday, in
a march of flags, we walked down from John and Robert Kennedy's
graves at Arlington Cemetery, across the Memorial Bridge to the
Lincoln Memorial. The sun came out, and for the long, colorful
line of Volunteers carrying the flags of the 139 countries in
which they had served, we were proud; proud of what 200,000
Volunteers had accomplished.
But many of us also remembered the high hopes and potential
that was lost by the drain of resources for the Vietnam war. By
the early 1970s, the Corps was down to just a little over 5,000
a year. It is painful to think of that lost opportunity for
Americans to have made a far larger contribution to mutual
understanding and the world's economic and educational
development and to peace.
You, on this committee, face very difficult budget choices.
The urgent is often the enemy of the important. But in this
case, the important and the urgent come together. Many of us
from the training school of the Peace Corps hope that the
President and Congress will find the way to get on the track to
double the Peace Corps.
After 9/11, President George Bush asked for that. And in
his Presidential campaign, Barack Obama repeatedly called for
the doubling of the Peace Corps and, in a message to the
National Peace Corps Association, called for the renewal of
President Kennedy's hope for 100,000 a year.
The Peace Corps and other forms of international service,
Mr. Chairman, are as important today as they were in 1960, when
Kennedy said that the effort must be far greater than we have
ever made. It is my hope that such effort may yet be possible
when, once again, idea and fate meet in a creative hour.
In closing, I want to call your attention to two recent
documents that are pertinent to the issues in this hearing. The
National Peace Corps Association, whose president, Kevin
Quigley, is a witness today, and Civic Enterprises, headed by
John Bridgeland, President George W. Bush's assistant for
service and his White House USA Freedom Corps director, they
have just released a report, ``A Call To Peace: Perspectives of
Volunteers on the Peace Corps at 50.''
It includes a comprehensive survey of the representative
sample of Volunteers from all five decades conducted by Peter
D. Hart Research Associates. The survey asked the Volunteers to
answer some of the questions you are asking about what the
Peace Corps does well, what its challenges were and are, and
what is the vision for the future? A good sign for the future
is that the survey found that 98 percent said they would
recommend the Peace Corps to their child, grandchild, or close
family member.
Kevin Quigley will be putting that report in the hearing
record and discussing it in his testimony. As two of the
coauthors, we think you will find it of value in assessing the
Corps' strengths and weaknesses and pointing the way forward to
a stronger, better, and much larger Peace Corps. We will be
ready to talk with you or your staff after you or they have a
chance to read this report.
I want to put in the record now, and last, a different kind
of report that I find of great value that has just been
published by the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the
University of Michigan, sponsored by the Brookings Institution
Initiative on International Volunteering and Service and the
National Peace Corps Association, with support from the
Building Bridges Coalition, entitled ``Peace Corps: Charting
the Future of International Service.''
[Editor's note.--The report referred to was too voluminous
to include in the printed hearing. It will be maintained in the
permanent record of the committee and can also be accessed by
the following link: http://www.fordschool.umich.edu/news/
peacecorps.]
Senator Wofford. It gives well-edited excerpts from talks
during the university's national symposium on the future of
international service that we were at last October. They
entitled my keynote talk there, ``Time To Be Inventive Again.''
With those as watch words for the next 50 years, I will
stop. For the Peace Corps to be ready for new opportunities
when idea and fate once again meet, we will need to be more
inventive if we are going to do our duty.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Senator Wofford follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Harris Wofford
Chairman Menendez and Ranking Member Rubio, thank you for inviting
me here today to join Senator Dodd, who was a great champion of the
Peace Corps in the Senate, and other key colleagues--the excellent
director of the Peace Corps and the president of the National Peace
Corps Association. You asked me to give a historical perspective on the
Peace Corps--the vision behind its establishment, my assessment of the
Corps' strengths and weaknesses, and the importance of international
volunteer service.
For many of us, the celebration of the Peace Corps' 50th
anniversary began last October 14 at the University of Michigan when
hundreds of current University and former Peace Corps Volunteers and
staff gathered after midnight outside the student union. We were there
on a cold, drizzling night to mark the time and place that Presidential
candidate John Kennedy struck the spark that led to the Peace Corps'
establishment 4\1/2\ months later. Kennedy was late in arriving, nearly
2 a.m., but found thousands waiting on a cold fall night and decided to
make some impromptu remarks.
Fifty years later, we heard and saw on a big screen Kennedy's 3-
minute talk. He asked, ``How many of you who are going to be doctors
are willing to spend your days in Ghana?'' He asked how many
technicians and engineers were willing to serve around the world--how
many young people there are willing to serve ``1 or 2 years . . . to
contribute part of your life.'' He said he thought ``Americans are
willing . . . but the effort must be far greater than we have ever made
in the past.'' He ended with a challenge: ``This university is not
maintained . . . merely to help its graduates have an economic
advantage in the life struggle. There is certainly a greater purpose.''
There was loud applause and cheers that night in 1960, but almost
no mention of Kennedy's call to serve in the news media. A small group
of students quickly formed an organization, ``Michigan Students
Committed to World Responsibility,'' and drafted and began circulating
a pledge saying they were willing ``to apply their knowledge through
direct participation in the underdeveloped communities of the world.''
Back at Kennedy campaign headquarter Sargent Shriver and I knew
nothing about all this until the mother of one of the students, Mildred
Jeffrey, who was a leader in our campaign civil rights section, called
to say nearly a thousand students had signed the pledge and they wanted
help in arranging time when they could present it to Kennedy. According
to Ted Sorensen, it was when Kennedy was told about this response,
before he even saw the pledges, that he decided to propose an overseas
volunteer program in one of his last major campaign talks. At the Cow
Palace in San Francisco in the last days of the campaign, to widespread
press coverage and a subsequent wave of enthusiasm on college campuses,
he described and promised if elected to create a Peace Corps.
On January 20, 1961, according to what Sargent Shriver told me,
while they were watching the Inaugural parade, Kennedy asked Sargent
Shriver to study and recommend how to create such a Peace Corps. As a
campaign deputy to Shriver, I was lucky the next day to be asked to
help him gather and participate in the task force that for 5 weeks, day
and night, prepared the plan for launching the Peace Corps. The three
goals were set--to help other countries meet their needs for
development, to help people in those countries better understand
America, and for Americans to better understand other people.
Volunteers would serve for 2 years, plus training. They would be of all
adult ages, but the signs were that most would be recent college
graduates and both Shriver and Kennedy wanted to move fast and be able
to enlist some of the best graduates of the 1961 year, who in large
numbers were writing the White House to ask how they could apply.
Within 4 days of receiving the Shriver's report, the President, on
March 1, by Executive order, established the Peace Corps, and
simultaneously sent a message to Congress asking for legislation to
authorize and appropriate funds to support it. Meanwhile with
discretionary funds in the State Department budget, the President
enabled Shriver to enlist a staff, recruit and select Volunteers, and
send the first Volunteers forth, landing in Ghana before the end of
August. There were several hundred Volunteers in the first countries or
in training for other countries by the time Congress passed the Peace
Corps Act on September 22.
Can you imagine all that happening today, first by Executive order
and in a few months congressional action with large bipartisan support?
In the next 2 years, while serving as Special Assistant to
President Kennedy I was on call to help Shriver, including accompanying
him on his first 3-week trip, around the world trip, to meet heads of
state in Africa and Asia, to see if they wanted Peace Corps Volunteers.
They did.
In the first country, President Kwame Nkrumah of newly independent
Ghana invited the Peace Corps to help meet Ghana's urgent need for
teachers. You might be interested to know that Nkrumah then asked if
American schools would welcome some graduates of the University of
Ghana to come and teach African history in our schools. Shriver
enthusiastically said ``Yes,'' and as the outgoing president of the
School Board of Chicago assured them a warm welcome in that city's
schools.
Nkrumah was gone and Lyndon Johnson was President before the idea
of reciprocity was tried in a Peace Corps initiated small-scale pilot
program called Volunteers to America. It continued with great promise
until negative opposition in Congress to the idea of foreigners coming
to teach and serve in America and budget pressures of the Vietnam war
caused cutbacks in President Johnson's ambitious international
education programs. I would put some substantial form of reciprocal
international service high on the list of unfinished business for the
Peace Corps or for other appropriate channels to supplement traditional
academic study abroad for Americans and here for foreign students in
international exchange with the powerful education in action of
service.
In that short history note the crucial role of students in the
Corps' creation, beginning with that little group of Michigan students
who were determined to act. Sargent Shriver repeatedly wrote and said
that if those Michigan students had not taken the initiative and got
nearly a thousand students to sign the pledge saying they were willing
to serve there is no reason to think that in the pressures of the
transition and the crises that followed for the new administration the
Peace Corps idea would have emerged as a priority.
But Shriver's own role in making the Peace Corps a success cannot
be overemphasized. For those who worked with him in the 1960s his name
became a verb: To ``Shriverize'' meant to be bolder and faster and to
make it big. Senator Jay Rockefeller, who was on the first organizing
staff, recently said at a 50th anniversary event that Shriver was the
greatest one, bar none, he ever worked with. I also think he was the
most inventive and the most fun.
Shriver believed that if the Peace Corps were to be small and one
that developed slowly it would be seen merely as a symbolic public
relations effort. When a professional aid expert in the State
Department advised that it would take 2 years or maybe more to get an
overseas project actually operating in a country, Shriver went out
telling us we were going to get 600 Volunteers in six countries in 6
months--and I think we did. He aimed to make the Peace Corps the most
antibureaucratic bureaucracy in government history. and I think it
probably was. I also like to think it can still be that kind of pace-
setting agency.
Kennedy liked that spirit, and kept asking for speed. In August
1962 I briefed the President before he went out to the White House lawn
to send off some 600 Volunteers, including 300 going to teach in
Ethiopia (where I was soon to become the country director and the Peace
Corps' special representative to Africa for the next 2 years). Walking
back to the Oval Office, Kennedy conveyed his delight that the Peace
Corps was proving itself and said, ``This will be really serious when
it's 100,000 Volunteers going overseas each year and then there will be
a million Americans who have had firsthand experience in Asia, Africa,
and Latin America. Then for the first time we'll have a large
constituency for a good foreign policy.''
The Peace Corps is now sending a little more than 8,000 Volunteers
a year, and if the President's budget request is cut back
substantially, that number will decrease. In 50 years only 200,000 have
served, not the several million Kennedy would have hoped for by now.
When Shriver and I left the Peace Corps in late 1966 there were 16,000
Volunteers overseas or in training, and the plan was soon to reach
25,000.
In 1965, at President Johnson's request, Vice President Humphrey
and the Peace Corps Advisory Council, which he chaired, convened a 3-
day conference--``Citizens in a Time of Change''--that drew to
Washington 1,000 of the first 3,000 Returned Volunteers. For 3 days,
with more than a hundred leaders of the major sectors of our society,
they discussed the future of America and their role in it, including
what they could do to bring their new understanding of the world home
to this country. The President called the Peace Corps ``a worldwide
training school for Great Citizens.'' Vice President Humphrey told
them: ``By 1970 we hope there will be about 50,000 back here in the
United States.''
Fast forward to two weeks ago when some 5,000 Returned Volunteers
and staff came to Washington for 4 days of celebrations, conferences,
and country reunions. On Sunday we marched down from John and Robert
Kennedy's graves at Arlington Cemetery, across Memorial Bridge to the
Lincoln memorial. The sun came out for the long colorful line of
marchers carrying the flags of the 139 countries in which they had
served. We were proud of what 200,000 Volunteers had accomplished but
many of us also remembered the high hopes and the potential that was
lost by the drain of resources for the Vietnam war. By the early 1970s
the Corps was down to just a little over 5,000 a year. It is painful to
think of that lost opportunity for Americans to make a far larger
contribution to mutual understanding and economic and educational
development--and to peace.
You on this committee face very difficult urgent budget choices.
The urgent is often the enemy of the important, but in this case the
important and the urgent come together. Most of us from the ``training
school'' of the Peace Corps hope that the Congress and the President
will find the way to get on the track to double the Peace Corps. After
9/11 President George Bush asked for that. In his Presidential
campaign, Barack Obama repeatedly called for that doubling of the Corps
and in a message to the National Peace Corps Association called for the
renewal of President Kennedy's hope for 100,000 a year.
The Peace Corps and other forms of international service are as
important today as they were in 1960 when Kennedy said the ``effort
must be far greater than we have ever made.'' I hope that such effort
may yet be possible, and that once again idea and fate will meet in a
creative hour.
In closing, I call to your attention two recent publications that
are pertinent to the issues in this hearing. The National Peace Corps
Association, whose president, Kevin Quigley, is testifying today, and
Civic Enterprises, headed by John Bridgeland, President George W.
Bush's assistant for citizen service and the White House USA Freedom
Corps director, have just released a report, ``A Call to Peace:
Perspectives of Volunteers on the Peace Corps at 50.'' It includes a
comprehensive survey of a representative sample of Volunteers from all
five decades conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates. The survey
asked the Volunteers to answer some of the questions you are asking
about what the Peace Corps does well, what its challenges were and are,
and what is the vision for the future.
A good sign is that the survey found that 98 percent said they
would recommend the Peace Corps to their child, grandchild, or close
family member. Kevin Quigley will be putting that report in the hearing
record and discussing it with you. As two of the coauthors, we hope you
will find it of value. We will be happy to talk with you or your staff
after you or they have a chance to read it.
I want to put in the record another report dealing with your
questions today, ``PEACE CORPS: Charting the Future of International
Service,'' by the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the
University of Michigan. It contains the talks given at their symposium
on last October, sponsored by the Brookings Institution Initiative on
International Volunteering and Service and the National Peace Corps
Association, with support from the Building Bridges Coalition. Entitled
``PEACE CORPS: Charting the Future of International Service.'' You will
find further thoughts by Kevin Quigley and Peace Corps director Aaron
Williams.
The School entitled my talk: ``Time to Be Inventive Again.'' Those
are good watch words for the next 50 years. For the Peace Corp to be
ready for new opportunities when idea and fate meet again we need to be
more inventive if we are going to do our duty.
Senator Menendez. Thank you, Senator Wofford.
Senator Rubio has joined us. He is the ranking member of
the committee and graciously agreed to delay his opening
statement so that we may hear from Senator Dodd.
Senator Dodd.
STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, D-CT, FORMER MEMBER,
U.S. SENATE, RETURNED PEACE CORP VOLUNTEER, WASHINGTON, DC
Senator Dodd. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And Senator Rubio, it is a pleasure to meet you, see you. I
think I went by, in fact, on your swearing-in day. I missed you
and your celebratory gathering in the Senate office building.
So nice to see you this morning, and welcome.
This is my maiden voyage back to the Senate, and it has not
been a year yet, but my first time back in the buildings. And
hearing these bells going off, I am having a reaction here to
myself. [Laughter.]
I feel like I should be jumping up and running over for a
quorum call or casting a vote.
And so, I thank you for inviting me, Senator Menendez, to
be a part of this hearing today, to be with Harris Wofford, who
I have admired immensely for so many years, have worked with
him when I sat in the chair, as you point out, of chairing this
subcommittee or being the ranking member for 30 years, from my
first days when I sat down at the very end of this table and
took over as a member of the committee then, but moving up in
the seniority and being deeply involved in this issue of the
Western Hemisphere.
So I am delighted to be here in your presence and Senator
Rubio's, Johnny Isakson, who I have a great regard for. I
worked very closely with during my service here. We did a lot
of things together. And his leadership on legislation affecting
the Peace Corps as well.
So I will take a few minutes and share some thoughts with
you. Having been involved in this organization 45 years ago
when, as a 22-year-old graduating from college, applied to the
Peace Corps. I didn't know you could be country specific in
applying, and the application asked me where I would like to
serve. And I remember filling it out, and I said, ``I would
like to serve anywhere in Africa, Asia, or Latin America.''
Pretty much the world. I didn't know you could--and they sent
me to the Dominican Republic, which was a wonderful, wonderful
experience and life-altering. Sort of an epiphany in many ways
in my life. To this day, I maintain strong relations with
people that I met and worked with during those days.
In fact, I took my two very young children with me last
winter back to my village in Benito Moncion in the Dominican
Republic. And we spent 2 days with friends that I had made 45
years ago that maintain those relationships. So the lasting
effects of the Peace Corps go far beyond your service years,
but rather continue.
Anyway, I am glad to be with you today to share some
thoughts about this next 50 years, and it is a timely topic,
given the anniversary of this remarkable organization and given
how much the world has changed since March 1961, when, as
Harris has pointed out, President Kennedy signed the Executive
order establishing the Peace Corps. It is also an appropriate,
I think, time to take stock, as you pointed out in your opening
comments, Mr. Chairman, of the challenges facing the
organization so it will remain relevant and productive for the
next 50 years as well.
So let me say at the outset that I think Aaron Williams is
doing a terrific job. We served together as Peace Corps
Volunteers in the Dominican Republic. We overlapped. He arrived
a year after I was already in the country. We didn't serve
together in the same area, but I have known him for a long time
and have a great deal of respect for him, and I think he has
handled the job tremendously well.
And challenges that have obviously been raised, he and his
staff are really doing a fine, fine job in addressing those
issues and responding appropriately and quickly to the
questions that have been raised, legitimate questions raised
about the safety and security of Volunteers and the job that
they are doing. But I wanted to begin my comments by publicly
expressing my support for him and the staff and the job that
they are doing.
I may be slightly biased about Aaron, as I said, because we
served together in the Dominican Republic. And like many other
Peace Corps Volunteers in 1966, I was fresh out of college and
learned on the job with the support of some wonderful families
in that small village in the mountains of the Dominican
Republic. Together, we built a school, established a maternity
clinic, organized a youth club, among other things.
I believe that these were useful endeavors for the village,
and I did some good, I suppose, for those living there during
my service. I know that I benefited far beyond I think anything
I contributed to that small community from the experience.
And my worldview was forever influenced by my experience as
a Volunteer in that small town. It is where I developed my
passion for public service, and it is where the seeds of my
lifelong interest in Latin America first began.
I have had the privilege of observing the Peace Corps over
the past 50 years, a good part of those 50 years, 45 of them,
been
deeply involved with the organization as a member of this body
as well during my 30 years in the Senate. And let me state
without reservation that it has been and remains a remarkable
organization.
In this city of partisan divides, the Peace Corps has
always managed to stay above the fray and enjoy strong
bipartisan support. As you heard this morning from Johnny
Isakson and certainly I experienced that during my three
decades here as well, with great support on both sides of that
proverbial aisle. And that is because the organization is at
its heart all about Volunteers.
More than 200,000 men and women, as you heard already, have
served in 139 countries spanning the globe. And today, more
than 9,000 Volunteers are serving in 76 countries. Eighty-five
percent of those currently serving are recent college
graduates. Eighty-four percent of them are under the age of 30.
These demographics are much the same as when I served, with one
exception. Today, 60 percent of our Volunteers are women.
Each one of these individuals has served or is serving is
mindful of the three goals that have guided the Peace Corps'
mission for the last five decades, namely, to help people
interested in countries meet their need for trained citizens,
to help promote a better understanding of our own country, the
Americas, to people all over the globe, and third, to help
promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of
Americans.
Last year, the Peace Corps submitted a comprehensive agency
assessment of the organization to the Congress as mandated by
law. And I am proud to have authored that particular provision
calling for that assessment. So you could step back and take a
look exactly where we are and where we are headed. Probably
ought to be done every few years, in my view. Any organization
ought to do it, but I am proud of the fact that Peace Corps has
moved and taken steps already to not only make the assessment,
but then to respond to the assessment, as they have seen it.
Not surprisingly, that assessment reaffirmed the mission of
the Peace Corps as articulated by the three goals that I just
mentioned. The assessment also outlined six strategies for
reforming and strengthening the organization as it looks ahead
to the next 50 years.
I would not take issue with any of those strategies, Mr.
Chairman. But rather than reiterating those points made which
you have already and the staff does, let me share with you some
additional areas that I think merit the committee's attention
as you make this assessment about the next 50 years of this
organization, as this organization gets underway.
First and foremost, as I stated earlier, the Peace Corps is
all about Volunteers. Peace Corps management should never lose
sight of that fact. And therefore, this committee should be
thinking creatively about how to help the agency maximize the
Volunteer experience.
The committee has already acted on legislation in this one
critical area, the safety and security of Volunteers. And I
commend the committee and Senator Isakson for his leadership on
this issue. We tried a year or so ago to get that bill passed,
but I am so pleased this committee and the Senate itself as a
body has already done that. And I gather the House will pick up
the legislation shortly.
When you reported the Katie Puzey Peace Corps Volunteer
Protection Act of 2011 on the 26th of July, this legislation is
a response, as all of you know, to the tragic murder of one
Volunteer and the brutal rape of another. It is intended to
encourage and support the steps the agency is taking to respond
appropriately and sensitively to the victimized Volunteers and
their families.
And as importantly, it mandates preventive measures be
taken to protect Volunteers from future incidents as well. And
I was pleased to see the Senate, of course, pass the entire
bill on the 26th of September.
I know that as part of the committee's deliberations of
this legislation, you struggled with the issue of the
colocation of Volunteers. I was the only Volunteer in that town
of Benito Moncion back in the 1960s. And for that reason, it
was a unique experience.
I think my Spanish improved dramatically because I didn't
have the opportunity to converse in the evenings with a fellow
Volunteer. I learned the customs. I became far more involved in
that community for 2 years I think as a result of being the
only Volunteer in that community.
But having said that, I think there is many circumstances
where colocation makes a great deal of sense, particularly in
this day and age and the circumstances under which people are
serving. I believe the agency should show flexibility and
common sense in this area. It may be particularly appropriate
in areas with high crime rates or when the nature of the
project being undertaken is larger than any one Volunteer could
handle on their own.
The Peace Corps itself has made great strides in protecting
Volunteers against sexual assault, and I commend them for that.
Under Director Williams, the Peace Corps has issued a set of
core principles to ensure that timely and compassionate support
is available to victims of sexual assault, as well as
guidelines and training for responding promptly and effectively
to an incident of sexual assault.
In addition, the Peace Corps has created a Volunteer sexual
assault panel made up of outside experts and former Volunteers
who were victims themselves of sexual assault in order to
provide advice and input to the Peace Corps sexual assault risk
reduction and response strategies. And you will hear more about
that in the testimony from Director Williams this morning.
All of these efforts are in an attempt to provide greater
security and support for that Volunteer, which is the core,
obviously, of this entire discussion. Volunteers are spread
throughout the world, and the staff and directors of the Peace
Corps must be supported in these efforts to provide better
protection and security for the Volunteer.
Another way to improve, I think, Volunteer experience is to
institute a formal mechanism for getting feedback from
Volunteers and for creating opportunities for future Volunteers
to have access to these insights. Volunteers know better than
anyone whether a site selection has been a mistake, and many of
them have been over the years, whether a project has been
poorly thought out, or whether the community really is
welcoming of that Volunteer.
They can provide that kind of information, and they ought
to be listened to, in my view. They also know whether their
country director or their health and security officers are
there 24/7 for them, if needed. This is all useful information
that headquarters should be sifting through and paying
attention to.
I attempted to tackle this and several other insights in
the legislation that Johnny Isakson and I worked on together in
2007 with the Peace Corps Volunteer Empowerment Act.
Unfortunately, the bill never became law, as you heard earlier
today from Johnny.
But I would encourage us to look at those provisions. Some
of them can be just implemented. You don't need laws to do
them. They have the power, in my view, to implement a lot of
these ideas without legislation.
There has also been a debate over time as to how large the
corps of Volunteers should be. Sarge Shriver was always rather
expansive in his description of the size of the Peace Corps
Program.
President Bush called for doubling the number of Volunteers
to 14,000 a few years ago. I was supportive of his call for a
larger Peace Corps at the time, with a caveat, Mr. Chairman,
that, first and foremost, the agency must ensure that the
Volunteer experience wouldn't be diminished in the process. And
that always ought to be central.
So any increase in size must keep in mind these provisions
about providing that Volunteer with the safety, the security,
and the support they need. Just expanding the numbers without
doing that, in my view, would be a tragedy, and welcoming a
tragedy to occur in too many instances. But I certainly would
like to see the numbers increased. But to increase them, you
have got to provide that support as well.
The number of Volunteers has grown modestly over the past
9 years, but it certainly did not double, as we all know. It
was in part, obviously, resource questions, which you are,
obviously, grappling with today again as well. In part, it was
an enormous undertaking to screen more Volunteers, sign on new
countries, and identify additional sites for Volunteer
placements as well. All of those factors have contributed to
that result.
In light of the serious Federal deficit and mounting
Federal debt, it may be unrealistic to believe that you will be
able to find the resources to support such an expansion for the
foreseeable future. Now your energy may be better spent
maintaining funding levels to support the 9,000-plus Volunteers
that are currently serving.
Since the Peace Corps opened its doors, there has also been
a debate about the so-called 5-year rule, which places term
limits on Peace Corps management and staff. The purpose of that
rule has always been to keep the organization infused with
fresh ideas. I, for one, have supported this policy over the
past 45 years because it also reinforces the concept that the
organization is about the Volunteers and not about management
or staying on a job for a career in the Peace Corps.
Certainly, there needs to be flexibility in certain areas,
such as health and security, where experience is absolutely
critical. But I believe the director has sufficient discretion
to respond to specific requirements as they arise while still
preserving the spirit of the 5-year rule.
The Peace Corps has done a very good job, in my view, of
fulfilling its first and second goals. Where it has done less
well over the years, I would point out, is with respect to the
third goal that was outlined back 50 years ago, namely,
promoting a better understanding of other peoples on the part
of Americans.
There is, of course, the Paul Coverdell World Wise School.
Paul, obviously, is a former colleague of ours and was Peace
Corps director, and I strongly supported his nomination at the
time that he was nominated for that position. And naming this
organization, this program for him I thought made wonderful
sense.
But the resource allocated to that program and other third-
goal initiatives have been miniscule over the years, Mr.
Chairman. In FY 2010, the Peace Corps received an appropriation
of $400 million. Of that, $1.8 million was spent on the third-
goal activities.
Many of the third goal activities are being undertaken by
returned Volunteers on their own, with little or no support
from the agency. Clearly, there are cost-effective ways to
harness the experience and energy of the 200,000 alumni of
Returned Volunteers. Many of them are eager to give back to
their communities, to share their experiences as Volunteers, as
witnessed by the turnout of some 5,000 or 6,000 that I had the
privilege of addressing in the amphitheater of the Arlington
Cemetery on that Sunday that Harris and Kevin and, of course,
Aaron were all part of that program where we recognized and
memorialized the 300 Volunteers who lost their lives during
service as Volunteers.
But again, that 5,000, if you had asked them that day to
get up and do something in Washington, DC, I guarantee you, 95
percent of them would have joined not in the march just with
the flags going down toward the Lincoln Memorial, but would
have been delighted to be asked once again to Volunteer to do
something on behalf of their country.
The Peace Corps needs to devote, I think, more thinking and
resources to enable more Americans to learn about the world and
about public service from those who served as Volunteers and
have returned to their communities.
And finally, let me just say a word or two, if I can, about
the Peace Corps Response Program. Formally established as the
Crisis Corps during the Clinton administration, this was a very
creative way to harness the skills of former Peace Corps
Volunteers to assist on a short-term basis in providing
emergency, humanitarian, and reconstruction assistance at the
community level in the aftermath of natural disasters.
And while Peace Corps Response Volunteers are generally
deployed overseas, they were deployed domestically as well in
2005 to assist in the relief efforts associated with Hurricane
Katrina. And this committee should encourage, in my view, the
agency to continue to build its roster of returned Volunteers
who can be called upon and who would be delighted to be asked
when disaster strikes to put their skills and that
determination to do something, to be a part of something larger
than themselves to better mankind.
With those thoughts, Mr. Chairman, again, I can't tell you
what an honor it was to be asked to come back up to this room,
which holds many, many fond and cherished memories, and I thank
you.
[The prepared statement of Senator Dodd follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Christopher J. Dodd
Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee thank you for inviting me
to share my thoughts on a subject matter near and dear to my heart--the
Peace Corps. This is certainly an opportune time for the committee to
reflect on the record of the Peace Corps, as it celebrates 50 years of
public service by its Volunteers. Given how much the world has changed
since March, 1, 1961, when President Kennedy signed the Executive order
establishing the Peace Corps, it is also an appropriate time to take
stock of any challenges facing the organization so it will remain
relevant and productive for the next 50 years.
Let me say at the outset that I think Aaron William, the current
Peace Corps Director, is doing a fine job and is the right person to
lead the organization into its next 50 years. I may be slightly biased
about Aaron as his service in the Peace Corps overlapped mine in the
Dominican Republic. As many of you know, I served as a Peace Corps
Volunteer back in the days when I still had dark hair. Like many other
Peace Corps Volunteers, I was fresh out of college and learned on the
job with the support of the wonderful families in my village of Benito
Moncion. Together we built a school, established a maternity clinic,
and organized a youth clinic. I believe that these were useful
endeavors for the village and that I did some good for those living
there during my service. I know that I benefited enormously from the
experience and my worldview was forever after influenced by my
experience as a Volunteer. It is where I developed my passion for
public service and it is where the seeds of my lifelong interest in
Latin America first began.
I have had the privilege of observing, up close, the Peace Corps
over the majority of its first 50 years. I have been deeply involved
with the Peace Corps for 45 of the 50 years since its creation. And let
me state without reservation that it has been and remains a remarkable
organization. In this city of partisan divides, the Peace Corps has
always managed to stay above the fray and enjoy strong bipartisan
support, and that is because the organization is at its heart all about
the Volunteers. More than 200,000 men and women have served in 139
countries spanning the globe. Today more than 9,000 Volunteers are
serving in 76 countries. Eighty-five percent of those currently serving
are recent college graduates and 84 percent of them are under the age
of 30. These demographics are much the same as when I served, with one
exception: today 60 percent of our Volunteers are women. Each one of
these individuals has served or is serving, mindful of the three goals
that have guided the Peace Corps' mission for the last five decades,
namely to help people in interested countries meet their need for
trained citizens; to help promote a better understanding of Americans
on the part of the people served; and to help promote a better
understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.
Last year the Peace Corps submitted a comprehensive agency
assessment of the organization to the Congress as mandated by law. Not
surprisingly that assessment reaffirmed the mission of the Peace Corps
as articulated by the three goals that have served it so well. The
assessment also outlined six strategies for reforming and strengthening
the organization as it looks ahead to the next 50 years. I would not
take issue with any of these strategies. But rather than reiterating
the points made in the agency's assessment, let me share with you some
additional areas that merit the committee's attention as the next 50
years of the organization gets underway.
First and foremost as I stated earlier--the Peace Corps is all
about the Volunteers. Peace Corps management should never lose sight of
that fact. And therefore this committee should be thinking creatively
about how to help the agency to maximize the volunteer experience.
The committee has already acted on legislation in one critical
area--the safety and security of the Volunteers--when it reported the
Kate Puzey Peace Corps Volunteer Protection Act of 2011 on July 26 of
this year. This legislation is in response to the tragic murder of one
Volunteer and the brutal rape of another. It is intended to encourage
and support the steps the agency is taking to respond appropriately and
sensitively to victimized Volunteers and their families. As
importantly, it mandates preventative measures be taken to protect
Volunteers from future incidents. I was pleased to see the Senate pass
this bill on September 26, and hope the House will quickly follow suit.
I know that as part of the committee's deliberations of this
legislation you struggled with the issue of the colocation of
Volunteers. I was the only Volunteer in my community and for that
reason it was a unique experience. But having said that I think there
may be circumstances when colocation makes sense. I believe the agency
should show flexibility and common sense in this area. It may be
particularly appropriate in areas with high crime rates or when the
nature of the project being undertaken is larger than one Volunteer can
handle.
The Peace Corps itself has made great strides in protecting
Volunteers against sexual assault. Under Director Williams, the Peace
Corps has issued a set of core principles to ensure that timely and
compassionate support is available to victims of sexual assault as well
as guidelines and training for responding promptly and effectively to
an incident of sexual assault. In addition, the Peace Corps has created
a Volunteer sexual assault panel made up of outside experts and former
Volunteers who were victims of sexual assault in order to provide
advice and input on Peace Corps' sexual assault risk reduction and
response strategies. All of these efforts are in an attempt to provide
greater security and support to the Volunteers spread throughout the
world and the staff and directors of the Peace Corps must be supported
in these efforts.
Another way to improve the Volunteer experience is to institute a
formal mechanism for getting feedback from Volunteers and for creating
opportunities for future Volunteers to have access to those insights.
Volunteers know better than anyone whether a site selection has been a
mistake, whether a project has been poorly thought out, or whether a
community really is welcoming of the Volunteer. They also know whether
their country director or their health and security officers are their
24/7 for them, if needed. This is all useful information that
headquarters should be shifting through and paying attention to. I
attempted to tackle this and several other issues legislatively in 2007
with the Peace Corps Volunteer Empowerment Act. Unfortunately the bill
never became law.
There has also been debate over time about how large the corps of
Volunteers should be. President George W. Bush called for doubling the
numbers of Volunteers to 14,000 over a 5-year period. I was supportive
of President Bush's call for a larger Peace Corps with the caveat that
first and foremost the agency must ensure that Volunteer experience
wouldn't be diminished in the process. The number of Volunteers has
grown modestly over the last 9 years but it certainly did not double in
size. In part it was a resources question. In part it was an enormous
undertaking to screen more Volunteers, sign on new countries and
identify additional sites for Volunteer placements.
In light of the serious federal deficit and mounting federal debt,
it may be unrealistic to believe that you will be able to find the
resources to support such an expansion for the foreseeable future. Your
energy may be better spent maintaining funding levels to support the
9,000 plus Volunteers that are currently serving.
Since the Peace Corps opened its doors there has also been a debate
about the so called 5-year rule, which places term limits on Peace
Corps management and staff. The purpose of the rule has always been to
keep the organization infused with fresh eyes and ideas. I for one have
supported this policy because it also reinforces the concept that the
organization is about the Volunteers and not about management.
Certainly there needs to be flexibility in certain areas, such as
health and security where experience is critical. I believe the
director has sufficient discretion to respond to specific requirements
as they arise while still preserving the spirit of the 5-year rule.
The Peace Corps has done a very good job of fulfilling its first
and second goals. Where it has done less well is with respect to the
third goal, namely promoting a better understanding of other peoples on
the part of Americans. Yes, there is the Paul Coverdell World Wise
School program. But the resources allocated to that program and other
third-goal activities are miniscule. In FY 2010 the Peace Corps
received appropriations of $400 million. Of that amount $1.8 million
was spent on third-goal activities. Many of the third-goal activities
are being undertaken by returned Volunteers--on their own and with
little or no support from the agency. Clearly there are cost-effective
ways to harness the experiences and energy of the 200,000 alumni of
returned Volunteers. Many of them are eager to give back to their
communities and to share their experiences as Volunteers. The Peace
Corps needs to devote more thinking and resources to enable more
Americans to learn about the world and about public service from those
who served as Volunteers and have returned to their communities.
Finally, let me say a few words about the Peace Corps Response
Program--formerly established as the Crisis Corps during the Clinton
administration. This was a very creative way to harness the skills of
former Peace Corps Volunteers to assist on a short-term basis in
providing emergency, humanitarian, and reconstruction assistance at the
community level in the aftermath of natural disasters. While Peace
Corps Response Volunteers are generally deployed overseas, they were
deployed domestically in 2005 to assist in the relief effort associated
with Hurricane Katrina. This committee should encourage the agency to
continue to build its roster of returned Volunteers who can be called
upon when disaster strikes to put their skills to work for the
betterment of mankind.
Mr. Chairman, thank you again for inviting me to participate in
this very important hearing. I look forward to responding to any of
your questions.
Senator Menendez. Well, thank you, Senator Dodd. Thank you
both for your insights and your service.
And I know we normally don't ask questions of members or
former members, but I am going to violate that rule and take
advantage of your expertise.
I heard your comments about Director Williams, and I take
them to heart. I have a broader question that goes beyond
Director Williams, and that is do you believe that there is a
culture in the Peace Corps such that particularly those who
lead it understand, incorporate, and act upon the very essence
of the value of Volunteers and their insights, or is that
something that needs to be further legislated in order for it
to be guaranteed?
Senator Dodd. Well, as I say, having sat in the chair you
are in and watched it, I can't comment specifically on
individuals. But my experience has been, like Senator Isakson,
as a person who traveled obviously extensively through the
Americas, but also around the world, I always made it a point
to meet with Volunteers.
I always found it to be not just something that was nice to
do as a former Volunteer. Kind of an interesting perspective
from a country. It isn't a highly sophisticated view,
necessarily, but rather, a different point of view you get.
And as a result of that, I come away, at least--and there
may be exceptions to this--that Volunteers in many ways
reflect, I think, the leadership, either the country director
or the staffs, at both a country and a regional level. And in
the years that I traveled, going back, I always witnessed
people deeply committed to that culture of service, of
Volunteering, of trying to make a difference.
I always had a sense there was support. I always asked
them, by the way, was there anything I need to know about how
this is working, how you are being supported? Is the Peace
Corps doing its job? I would be hard pressed to cite an
example, Mr. Chairman, over the years where a Volunteer, who
never was shy about expressing themselves on any number of
matters, took the opportunity to say we have a major problem.
We have a problem here. We are not getting the level of support
that we believe we ought to be getting.
So my answer to your question is--based on what I know and
my experience, limited as it may be, in that area--that the
answer would be, yes, they do support it, that culture. And
again, there are obviously examples where exceptions have
occurred to that, but overall.
In fact, I think it was interesting that even the
Volunteers who testified recently about the difficulties, when
asked the question--that received a lot of notoriety, as it
should have. But when they were also asked what their general
impression as a Peace Corps Volunteer is, they all had
tremendously positive things to say about their experience as
Peace Corps Volunteers. Even though they had gone through very
trying and difficult circumstances, the latter comments didn't
receive the notoriety that the initial comments did, for the
obvious reasons.
But I think it is worthy of note that the very same
Volunteers who raised criticisms also expressed a deep
commitment to the Peace Corps and its service and the job that
it has done.
Senator Wofford. I don't disagree with anything that Chris
Dodd just--I agree with what Chris has just said. I would like
to add that I have, over the years, been with the Peace Corps
in many countries on visits. Like Senator Isakson, I make a
point to it when I go in those countries.
I find both the Peace Corps Volunteers who are there now
and the staff, on balance, very much like it was in the days of
Sargent Shriver. The culture that got started by Shriver and
Kennedy and all of us crazy people who started it in 1961 is
very strong.
The 5-year rule is not just a turnover. It was called
``Shriver in, up, and out.'' And it was called ``the 5-year
flush.'' But the purpose of it was new blood, but it was linked
to a policy there would be high priority in appointment of all
jobs to returned Peace Corps Volunteers, and our excellent, and
I think outstanding, director, Aaron Williams, now has the top
three people in the agency with him--Returned Volunteers.
They pervade most of the country staffs. The leadership of
those country programs, of course, varies as the ambassadors
from the United States of the other kind vary. I can't,
obviously, speak for--how many countries are we in now?--77
countries, not at all. But a lot of people say, oh, the old
days of those first pioneers in the Peace Corps, that was the
golden time.
For the Volunteers who are there now, it is their golden
time, and I find them very much like them. And like our day,
some of the country directors disappoint you, but I think there
is outstanding leadership in the country directors. So I am
optimistic about the Peace Corps' ability to meet the challenge
of a 21st century very different world.
Senator Menendez. I have no doubt about the Volunteers
themselves. My question was to whether there is a culture
within the organization that does the very essence of what you
have suggested, Senator Dodd, that listens to Volunteers,
responds to them, and incorporates their ideas in order to make
the Peace Corps better? And that in the context, for example of
security, was it as responsive as it should have been.
I have no doubt about the Volunteers being the type that
would say what is on their mind and let it be known. I am just
wondering whether there is a culture at the organization that
actually incorporates those ideals.
With that, let me recognize Senator Rubio.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARCO RUBIO,
U.S. SENATOR FROM FLORIDA
Senator Rubio. Thank you. And I didn't know there was a
rule we couldn't ask former members for comments. And so, that
is good to know when I come back one day. [Laughter.]
I need to put that in here.
Senator Dodd. I was going to ask about that rule myself.
Senator Rubio. Oh, good. Well, actually, I had hoped to
engage you in a quick conversation about this.
Senator Dodd. Yes.
Senator Rubio. I will actually waive most of my opening
statement, there is just a couple of things I want to point
out. The first is I am very proud of the fact that my alma
mater, the University of Florida, ranks No. 2 in the country as
a fertile ground for recruiting Peace Corps Volunteers, and I
think that is something we Gators are very proud of.
I am a believer in the Peace Corps. I am a believer in that
Americans engaged internationally is positive for our country,
positive for our future, and positive for the world. I know we
are having a debate right now about what America's role in the
world should be, and there are some voices in America that are
asking us to look inward. And we certainly have serious
problems we have to solve here, but I hope we never
underestimate the power of people all over the world having
access to a free people with the diversity of people that we
are able to offer and the idealism at a time that I think we
have an extraordinary perfect storm.
We have what I believe in this generation of younger
Americans, one of the most idealistic, service-oriented,
community-oriented, collaboration-oriented young Americans
perhaps in the history of our country. It is amazing to watch
16-, 17-, 18-, 19-year-olds come together on social networks
behind causes and ideas, and I think that bears great
opportunity for our future.
Likewise, I think we have this extraordinary talent wealth
in our Nation of people that are reaching retirement, but are
extremely active, healthy, and capable of serving for years to
come. In fact, maybe repeat Volunteers who maybe served in the
1970s and 1980s who are now part of the famous baby boom
generation who now are going to retire, but really have many,
many years of productivity ahead of them.
And so, my question really in terms of engaging is two
things. No. 1: What opportunities lie in those two things?
And in particular, I don't believe the Peace Corps should
be an arm of American foreign policy. It is obviously to serve.
How much coordination there is between the Peace Corps and
America's foreign policy interests and where America needs to
be engaged?
Clearly, there is an environment of limited resources, and
there will always be limited resources. There are areas that
are going to give you higher returns per Volunteer. I don't
know how much of that has been discussed, but certainly, there
are areas where I think we can get a higher rate of return on
our investment from a foreign policy perspective. I am not sure
that is a bad thing or in any way counter to the overall
mission of the Peace Corps.
Senator Dodd. Well, a great observation. I note here I look
at numbers of next to California, and Florida has second--I
think the second-largest number of Volunteers serving today in
the country. I am looking at a number here, Senator, 324
Volunteers from Florida that are actively involved in the Peace
Corps.
I just agree with your comments. I think we are looking at
a generation of people who want to serve, and that is evidenced
by the number of applications the Peace Corps gets. I will let
the staff give you the exact numbers, but I think the numbers
are as high up. I don't think they are a reflection necessarily
of the economic times we are in. I think they have been rather
consistent, that desire to be a part of this, not just this
organization, but to give back I think is evidenced not only by
application to the Peace Corps, but AmeriCorps, and a variety
of other opportunities that are around today for people to step
up and serve.
I also think it is worthwhile to talk about older
Americans. This head of gray hair makes me more sensitive to
the subject as time goes on. But I think we are missing an
opportunity. I mentioned statistically the number of people who
are under the age of 30 in the Peace Corps, about 80-some odd
percent. Is it 84, 85 percent? And I think it is worthwhile to
be going out and attracting.
One of the things I have raised when I was sitting in the
chairman's chair was the health examinations and criteria, and
they are rather stringent, and I understand why. But if you are
going to make the same standards apply to a 22-year-old as you
do to a 65-year-old, obviously, you are going to have a very
few number of people who qualify.
I am not suggesting we ought to become lax in that regard,
but I think we are missing an opportunity to have older
Americans who either have served or would want to serve, who
bring a wealth of experience. And not to malign younger people,
but there is nothing like someone who has actually had a
lifetime of experience in certain areas to be able to provide
that service along the way.
And third, on your point about where the Peace Corps
serves, and again, I think this is extremely worthwhile to talk
about. And again, you have got to be careful. Obviously, the
world we live in today poses a lot more dangers and hazards
than we did back 40 years ago. And I think it is really
worthwhile, though, that we begin to focus.
Now correct me if I am wrong here, again, but I think in
the Arab world, is that correct, we have only two programs,
Morocco and Jordan. I tried for years to get Egypt to consider
having the Peace Corps. I was never able to actually convince
them to move in that direction, but we ought to, in my view.
And we ought to be reaching into those areas where exactly
the kind of job the Peace Corps has done over the years, giving
other people an opportunity to discover who we are through
those Volunteers I think would be tremendously valuable. It
shouldn't be part of short-term foreign policy. That has always
been the goal.
I recall in the Dominican Republic, in fact, in 1965, when
President Johnson put the Boxer off the coast of Santo Domingo,
the entire American delegation was asked to leave the country
except the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps had already in a few
short years had established a reputation of being involved in
things other than foreign policy. I know that doesn't get
repeated all the time, but it was worthy of note in a way that
we are not seen as part of that foreign policy goal.
The broader context I think is exactly what John Kennedy
talked about in his speech in the Cow Palace, by the way, as
being a part of the overall image of the United States. He
wanted it so enhanced as a result of a Peace Corps program.
So, in a larger context, it is. It is just the day-to-day
context, I think it is wise to keep it out of it. Too often you
get yourselves in a situation that would cause, I think, damage
to the Peace Corps and the mission which it was designed to
fulfill, but I think your three points are excellent ones.
Senator Wofford. Senator Rubio, I would like to comment on
the question of the Peace Corps and its contribution to foreign
policy. The Secretary of State Dean Rusk put it very well, and
the President endorsed it, and Sargent Shriver endorsed it. The
Peace Corps will contribute to American foreign policy to the
extent that it is not seen as an instrument of American foreign
policy.
Now I agree with your concern that there are countries of
great power and importance in the world where we don't have
Peace Corps Volunteers now, and I personally would want not
just in terms of winning their support at all in foreign
policy, but Peace Corps should be in those countries.
We are only minimally in China, and there may be ways that,
you know, they want tens of thousands of English teachers in
China, that there is a larger role the Peace Corps can play in
China. But India, Brazil, there are a number of countries that
I would love to see the Peace Corps go, and I think it should
be a priority.
Now the matter of older Volunteers is close to my heart, my
heart being, having been beating for 85 years. Sargent Shriver,
from the very beginning tried--well, first place, decided that
despite the origin in which it was sensed as a youth corps
almost, in fact, the first version of a Peace Corps was called
the Point Four Youth Corps, ``Point Four'' being Truman's
fourth point of special assistance to developing countries.
Shriver from the beginning said, no, that is wrong. It
should be for all ages. And he tried very hard, since more than
half of the first Peace Corps Volunteers were in teaching, in
formal teaching roles, 90 percent in Africa were in secondary
schools of Africa. We doubled the number of secondary school
teachers with the 400 that we had in Ethiopia in 1962, 1963,
and 1964. It enabled their university to grow and everything
else.
But they were--he tried hard. He had been school board
chair, president in Chicago. He went to the teachers
associations to recruit experienced teachers. Now we had about
20 over 50 and some over 60 in the 400 Peace Corps in Ethiopia.
Experienced teachers played a major leavening role or mentoring
role to the BA generalists that were the recent college
graduates.
So I would personally put--and the Peace Corps has begun in
recent years, even before the great Aaron Williams Peace Corps
50-plus recruiting effort to get more, I think it is not much
more than 10 percent who are older Americans. I think a major
problem now for older Americans is the 2-year rule.
In the report that Kevin Quigley is going to put in the
record, ``A Call To Peace,'' this remarkable survey that Peter
Hart did, the Volunteers say, no, stick by the gold standard of
the 2-year rule. There is something very important to that. But
they also said there should be other channels of Volunteer
service that could be 1 year or 9 months, and some of us who
have been involved with this are urging that Congress develop a
shorter term Volunteers system that would be parallel to the
Peace Corps, perhaps a track of the Peace Corps.
The Volunteers here said we want that, and a lot of them
would like to go in themselves, now that they are 60 and 65
themselves. So I would welcome your interest in keeping the
Peace Corps on the track of a much larger proportion being
experienced.
And let me add that the one area where the Volunteers felt
they weren't making as much a contribution as they did in
mutual understanding was in providing skilled manpower to help
developing nations meet their human needs. And that the older
Americans would be able, 1 year or less term, be able to come
in much larger numbers with the kind of experience that could
improve the impact of the Peace Corps in other countries.
Senator Menendez. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Senator Shaheen.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I am so pleased to be able to welcome back Senator Dodd
and Senator Wofford, former Senators. It is very nice to have
you both here.
And Senator Rubio, I know you don't remember this, but
Jimmy Carter, when he campaigned for President, talked about
his mother, Miss Lillian, who, as an older woman, went into the
Peace Corps. And I think that probably did as much as anything
to recruit older adults into the Peace Corps. So we need
somebody high profile to talk again about going into the Peace
Corps at an older age.
I would point out since, Harris, you are here, the
expansion of AmeriCorps does provide an opportunity for a lot
of older Americans to serve here at home. So I know we are here
to talk about the Peace Corps, but I thought it was worth
raising that.
Senator Dodd, I had the opportunity this summer to go to a
reunion of former Peace Corps Volunteers in Stoddard, NH, a
small town in the western part of our State. And there were
Volunteers there who had served from the very first days of the
Peace Corps to someone who had just come back, I think, about a
year ago.
And there were two things that struck me about talking to
them. One was everyone there talked about that experience as a
life-changing experience, something that they would keep with
them. It was transformational in what they have done with their
lives.
But the other thing was the issue that you raised, which is
now that they are back, now that they have had that experience,
they feel like they want to recapture and serve in some other
way. So I wondered, as you have been thinking about this issue,
if you had any--you talked about reactivating people to serve
in disasters like Katrina. But do you have any thoughts about
whether we should try and create an official structure to do
that, or are there any other ways in which we can encourage
those former Peace Corps Volunteers to continue to serve the
country?
Senator Dodd. Well, I mentioned the Paul Coverdell World
Wise group, and again, I say respectfully because I know Aaron
Williams and the staff trying to allocate resources are
difficult. I mean, the budget, what is it now, $375 million, I
think, is when you think of it, in comparison, I know this gets
often cited. Actually, the appropriations for the military
bands is about the same budget as that of the Peace Corps.
That is not to suggest it is not worthy of the
appropriation of military bands, but just to put it in
perspective of the 9,000 Volunteers and the staffs, to operate
all of that, roughly operate in the same kind of a budget.
And so, when I mentioned earlier the $1.8 million that has
been allocated to deal with the World Wise Program and
regretting that it is such a small percent of resources. But it
is a place where you could start to examine exactly how to
fulfill that third goal, the one of making Americans more aware
of the world in which we live. And I think that is very
valuable.
I think what Senator Rubio said a minute ago is worthwhile.
Obviously, you have got constraints, and you are going through
that difficult time up here to allocate resources. But it also
is a critical time, and with the opportunities today and the
tensions around the world that we are dealing with, not to
close the doors, not to take advantage of these returned
Volunteers as part of the educational process of a nation that
has depended upon its role in the world to succeed in so many
different ways.
So that is an area to me that ought to be examined further,
and how you could activate and utilize these Volunteers in
school systems to talk about their experiences. It is not
talking about providing an income for them, but merely the
opportunity to do it.
Senator Shaheen. Right.
Senator Dodd. I think you would find a very excited
organization. One of the Volunteers--we always said one of the
difficulties coming back, adjusting in the first instance, it
was obviously awkward. All of a sudden, I was literally dropped
off in those days in the Peace Corps.
I was driven in a van and dropped in this town with a bunk
bed and a trunk, and then they drove off. I had no idea where I
was. No one introduced me. Things have changed since the 1960s
on how they leave you in a place. But obviously, I survived.
But people have said to me, well, that must have been very
difficult----
Senator Menendez. Now I understand so much about you.
[Laughter.]
Senator Dodd. Thank you. I should have told you that years
ago, Bob.
But the more difficult adjustment in many ways was coming
back. I came back on Christmas Eve 1968, and 1968, you probably
could have left 20 years earlier. That year, obviously, with
the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, the
strife in our cities, was a very tough year. You had the Tet
Offensive in Vietnam. The war was raging. The opposition was
growing.
But readjustment in many ways was almost harder than
adjusting to this community in the Dominican Republic. And you
will hear that from Volunteers. And part of it is they want to
talk about this experience. They want to share the insights,
what they learned, where they lived.
And I think, again, it doesn't take much to provide those
opportunities and to connect in an educational setting,
particularly in the elementary, middle schools, and high
schools, with those returned Volunteers, the 200,000 of us
spread all across this country. To have people who could work
in that area alone, I think we would find a very willing
constituency, such as you ran into in New Hampshire last
summer.
I don't know, Harris, if you have got any thoughts on that
at all?
Senator Wofford. I am agreeing with you.
Senator Shaheen. Let me just--I don't have any other
questions, but I wanted to pick up on the resource concern that
you raise. And obviously, it is something that we are all
thinking a lot about.
But I think if we did a cost-benefit analysis on the
goodwill that is produced by Peace Corps Volunteers and
compared that against money that is spent in lots of other ways
on American foreign policy, that there is no doubt that money
invested in the Peace Corps has a significant return that is
well worth the investment that we are putting in.
Senator Dodd. No question about--just again, the world has
changed today. Here I was back in my village, and I picked up
my cell phone and I dialed my family. And in 1966, 1967, and
1968, I got letters from family. It was usually about a week, 2
weeks after they had sent them. But I had no ability to
communicate.
Senator Rubio pointed out today with the social networking
and media that is available, today it is remarkable how much
communication can occur with Volunteers and their opportunity
to be heard. So I, for one, would like to see us take advantage
of those resources and this technology that allows greater
communication to be able to do a better job. But we thank you
for your support.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you.
Senator Menendez. Well, with the thanks of the committee to
both of you for your incredible insights, we appreciate you
being here. We appreciate your service, and we look forward to
continuing to engage with you in the days ahead.
Senator Dodd. Well, thank you, Senator, very much. Thank
you again, and thank you for the work you are doing and the
committee is doing and your support of the Peace Corps.
And I know these are tough choices to have to make, but it
is heartening to know that there is still that spirit of
bipartisan support of this organization at a time when that
seems to be harder to find on matters, that this is still an
area.
You know, the directors over the years, one of the best
directors we ever had was Loret Ruppe, whose husband was a
Congressman from, what was it, Wisconsin? Michigan. Loret had
the job--
of course, she passed away a number of years ago. But President
Reagan nominated her, and she was remarkable.
I remember those years because a lot of our budget debates
in those years, it was the one area in every single year of the
Reagan administration, President Reagan supported an increase
in the budget of the Peace Corps. I think the only agency in
Government that had that unique distinction during the 8 years
of his Presidency, and a lot had to do with Loret being such a
great advocate at the time, but also to President Reagan's
great credit, saw the value of this organization in ways that
certainly enhanced I think not only the organization, but the
job that they were doing around the globe.
So we thank you.
Senator Menendez. Well, thank you both.
And with that, let me call up the present director of the
Peace Corps, Aaron S. Williams. He is the 18th director of the
Peace Corps. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer from 1967 to
1970, first in a training program for rural school teachers, as
has been said, in the Dominican Republic, and then as a
professor of teaching methods at the university.
He later went on to become the coordinator of minority
recruitment and project evaluation officer of the Peace Corps
in Chicago, attained the rank of career minister in the U.S.
Senior Foreign Service at the U.S. Agency for International
Development and was USAID's mission director in South Africa.
We look forward to your testimony. Mr. Director, we ask you
to limit your remarks to about 5 minutes. Your full statement
will be included for the record, and then we will have a
discussion with you after that.
STATEMENT OF HON. AARON WILLIAMS, DIRECTOR,
PEACE CORPS, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Williams. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Menendez, Ranking Member Rubio, members of the
subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
This is really an exciting time for the Peace Corps. As you
know, we marked our 50th anniversary this year, and we have put
in place sweeping reforms of policies, procedures, and
practices to make certain that this remarkable agency and our
outstanding Volunteers thrive for the next 50 years.
The Peace Corps was founded in 1961 to promote progress and
build bridges between Americans and peoples overseas. Fifty
years later, our mission is not only still relevant, it is even
more important in an increasingly complex world. From combating
HIV/AIDS to serving as America's most effective grassroots
ambassadors, Volunteers are doing essential work for our
country.
When I became director, I ordered my team to do a top-to-
bottom review of agency operations. The result is the
comprehensive agency assessment the Peace Corps submitted to
Congress last year. The assessment is our blueprint for reform.
It lays out a vision for the agency, a vision which states that
the Peace Corps
will be a leader in partnership with others in the global
effort to further human progress and foster understanding and
respect among people.
In order to achieve this vision, the assessment put forth a
six-part strategy that we are busy implementing. We have put in
place a new objective and an evidence-based approach to
deciding where we operate and how we allocate Volunteers. This
process, called the country portfolio review, represents a
significant step forward.
We are strengthening the technical assistance we provide
around the world by focusing on and scaling up a limited number
of highly effective projects. We are putting in place a
streamlined, state-of-the art process to recruit, select, and
place our Volunteers. And we intend to increase opportunities
for Americans who have highly specialized skills and
significant work experience, but who might not be able to make
a 2-year commitment.
We are expanding our efforts to advance what we at Peace
Corps call the third goal, bringing home the rich experience of
a Peace Corps Volunteer to help Americans to better understand
the nations of the world. And we are systematically
strengthening management operations through updated technology,
innovative approaches, and improved business processes.
Our most important reforms lie in the area of Volunteer
safety and support. Nothing is more important to me, as
director of the Peace Corps and also as a Returned Peace Corps
Volunteer, a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer who I might say had
his life transformed by my service in the Peace Corps. Nothing
is more important to me, Mr. Chairman, than the health, safety,
and security of every member of our Peace Corps extended
family.
Peace Corps Volunteers represent the best America has to
offer, and we owe them the very best that we can provide. Since
I became director 2 years ago, it has become apparent to me
that the Peace Corps has not always been sufficiently
responsive or sensitive to victims of crime and their families.
I sincerely regret that. This is not Peace Corps policy. This
is not the Peace Corps way.
Over the past 2 years, we have put in place new policies to
minimize the risks faced by Volunteers and to improve the way
we respond to victims of crime. While the Peace Corps cannot
eliminate every risk Volunteers may face during their service,
I am committed to making sure that we do everything we can to
protect Volunteers and provide effective, compassionate support
to them and their families when a tragedy does occur.
We hired a nationally recognized leader in victims' rights
to serve as the agency's first victim advocate. Her name is
Kellie Greene, and Kellie is here with me today. She works hard
every day to provide emotional, medical, legal, and other
support to Volunteers who are victims of crime.
We also issued Peace Corps' commitment to sexual assault
victims, which makes clear that all Volunteers must be treated
with dignity and respect, and we implemented new guidelines for
responding to rape and sexual assault that detail our victim-
centered approach to incidents.
We are already rolling out our new standardized and
comprehensive training for Volunteers on sexual assault risk
reduction and response. And we signed a very important
memorandum of understanding with the Rape, Abuse, and Incest
National Network, RAINN, the Nation's largest antisexual
violence organization, to collaborate and share resources on
sexual assault prevention and response.
RAINN also serves on our new Peace Corps Volunteer sexual
assault panel made up of outside experts, which includes, by
the way, I might add, Mr. Chairman, representatives from DOD,
the U.S. Army, the Department of Justice, and NGOs with
experience in this field. They are all helping to make sure
that our policies are based on the best practices.
I welcome efforts in Congress to codify the reforms we have
put in place, and I want to especially thank Senator Johnny
Isakson and Senator Barbara Boxer for working so hard to ensure
that all Volunteers, particularly victims of sexual assault,
receive the support and services they need. Your commitment to
the agency and to our Volunteers is truly inspiring, and your
legislation is a fitting tribute to Kate Puzey, an outstanding
young woman, a Volunteer who was killed tragically while
serving in 2009.
I am deeply grateful to Peace Corps Volunteers for their
dedication and service, and I am committed to doing all that I
can as director of the Peace Corps to protect and support them.
I know that the members of the subcommittee share this goal,
and I look forward to working with you and others to ensure the
continued success of this wonderful agency, our beloved agency,
the Peace Corps, and the remarkable Volunteers who serve around
the world.
And in closing, also, Mr. Chairman, let me also thank the
first speakers today, Senator Chris Dodd and Senator Harris
Wofford, who, of course, have a long, distinguished history of
service to the Peace Corps and to our Nation. I appreciate
their remarks.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Williams follows:]
Prepared Statement of Aaron S. Williams
Chairman Menendez, Ranking Member Rubio, members of the
subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. This is
an exciting time at the Peace Corps as we draw on 50 years of lessons
learned and put in place new measures to ensure the agency and our
outstanding Volunteers continue to thrive for decades to come. I am
pleased to have the opportunity to tell you about the work we are doing
to strengthen and reform all aspects of agency operations, and in
particular our efforts to better protect the health, safety, and
security of our Volunteers, who are the heart of Peace Corps.
the mission of the peace corps
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy launched an innovative program
to spearhead progress in developing countries and to promote friendship
between the American people and peoples overseas. From its start, the
Peace Corps had three goals: to help countries meet their need for
trained men and women; to promote a better understanding of Americans
overseas; and to promote a better understanding of foreign peoples and
cultures here at home. Fifty years later, the agency's mission and
goals are not only still relevant, they are more important than ever in
an increasingly complex world.
The Peace Corps achieves its goals by recruiting and training some
of the most talented and dedicated people our country has to offer.
They work in six different sectors--agriculture, business development,
education, environment, health and HIV/AIDS, and youth development--and
serve in 76 countries, from Central America to Africa, from the Middle
East to Asia, and from Eastern Europe to the islands of the Pacific.
Currently, more than 9,000 Americans, ranging in age from their
twenties to their eighties, and from all 50 States, are serving as
Peace Corps Volunteers. We deeply appreciate their willingness to leave
the comforts of home to serve our country in some of the least
developed and most challenging areas of the world. The work is often
demanding, and the pay is minimal, but these patriotic Americans do
incredible work, whether they are teaching English, training
entrepreneurs, or promoting sustainable farming practices. In the words
of President Reagan, ``Nowhere has the proud American tradition of
voluntarism been better illustrated than through the Peace Corps.''
There are other foreign aid agencies and programs in the Federal
Government, but the Peace Corps is unique. Volunteers spend 27 months
living and working in areas that other programs are often unable to
reach. During their service, Volunteers do not just work with the
community--they become part of it. They eat the same food, live in the
same kind of housing, speak the same language and use the same
transportation as other members of the community. By doing so, they
build mutual trust and respect, and they are able to advance the
development needs of the host country more effectively, while
demonstrating American values of hard work, compassion, and commitment.
Volunteers target some of the most debilitating diseases around the
world. For example, they play a key role in our country's global
response to HIV/AIDS, promoting behavior change and sustainable,
culturally appropriate solutions to the pandemic. By mobilizing
isolated communities and helping orphans and vulnerable children,
Volunteers turn hope into action. Volunteers are also taking on the
fight against malaria. Through education about malaria and the
distribution of mosquito nets, Volunteers are combating a leading cause
of death and disease in many developing countries. In all their work,
Volunteers represent our country's highest values and ideals.
Peace Corps Volunteers also serve as America's most effective
grassroots ambassadors. By building person-to-person connections, they
help to dispel misperceptions about the United States and to counter
anti-American sentiment in areas of the world that may have little
direct exposure to Americans. That is one reason why, throughout its
history, across different Congresses and administrations, the Peace
Corps has received strong bipartisan support for its important mission,
including from this subcommittee.
And, in turn, our Volunteers receive tremendous support from their
host communities and countries. The Peace Corps only operates in
countries where we are invited and those countries are deeply grateful
for the work we do. In fact, the Peace Corps receives substantial
support annually in cash and in-kind contributions from the countries
in which we serve--some of the poorest countries in the world. These
contributions help to keep our costs down, allowing the agency to
operate globally on a shoestring budget--Peace Corps receives roughly 1
percent of the Federal Government's overall foreign assistance
spending.
Volunteers' service to our country continues long after they have
left the Peace Corps. As President Obama has said, ``Returned
Volunteers, enriched by their experiences overseas, bring a deeper
understanding of other cultures and traditions back to their home
communities in the United States.'' Many former Volunteers--or, as we
call them, Returned Volunteers--use their training and experience to
become leaders in society, in areas ranging from private industry to
development work, and from community service to Congress. The skills
they acquire while serving--whether fluency in a foreign language,
complex problemsolving, familiarity with a foreign culture or expertise
in agricultural practices--are invaluable to the United States, as is
the commitment to public service that the Peace Corps instills.
Ultimately, the investment that we make in our Volunteers is repaid
many times over, at home and abroad.
peace corps' comprehensive agency assessment: a blueprint for reform
The Peace Corps has had many successes, but there have been
setbacks, too. In order to build on our achievements, improve our
operations, and ensure we meet new challenges and opportunities head
on, the agency has embarked on a wide-ranging series of reforms.
As directed by Congress, the Peace Corps conducted a thorough self-
assessment and submitted a report to Congress last year that clearly
articulates the agency's strategic vision for, among other things,
Volunteer recruitment and placement, Volunteer and staff training,
Volunteer programming, and medical care of Volunteers. The
Comprehensive Agency Assessment is a blueprint for reform throughout
the agency. It lays out a clear strategic vision--the Peace Corps will
be a leader, in partnership with others, in the global effort to
further human progress and foster understanding and respect among
people. In order to achieve this vision, the Assessment puts forth a
six-part strategy and a number of specific recommendations. In just
over a year we have made significant progress in advancing the six
strategies of the Assessment, and we have implemented or are
implementing over three-fourths of the Assessment's recommendations,
putting us on track to meet our aggressive timeline for implementation.
Many of these recommendations, of course, require sustained and
comprehensive efforts that will take some time, and some of them depend
on action by Congress. I am grateful to the Foreign Relations Committee
for approving one proposal, included in Senator Isakson's bill, that
would address a serious management problem at our posts overseas. The
provision would help provide for greater efficiency and consistency in
how we hire and manage overseas staff, and I look forward to its
enactment.
The Assessment recommended that the agency take a deliberate,
evidence-based approach to the countries where we operate and to the
allocation of Volunteer and financial resources. This process, which we
call country portfolio review, represents a significant step forward.
The agency conducted the first ever portfolio review last year and work
is already underway on this year's portfolio review. The portfolio
review data was used to inform decisions about potential country
openings, country closures, and the allocation of Volunteers.
The Assessment also recommended that we strengthen the technical
assistance we provide around the world by focusing on and scaling up a
limited number of highly effective projects. As a result, our overseas
posts are focusing their efforts on activities and projects with the
greatest impact. At the headquarters level, the agency is in the
process of developing program guidance and training packages that can
be used all over the world to ensure greater consistency and quality.
Our first training package will be Teaching English as a Foreign
Language.
Peace Corps has taken an important first step toward implementing a
dynamic recruitment strategy. We are currently in the process of
automating our application system so that we can create a more
streamlined, customer-focused, competitive, state-of-the-art process
for recruitment, selection, and placement of Volunteers. And we are
working to launch a pilot program that will expand opportunities for
Americans who have highly specialized skills and significant work
experience, but who may not be able to make a 2-year commitment, to
serve for shorter periods of time.
The Assessment emphasized the need to elevate what we at Peace
Corps call the ``Third Goal''--helping to promote a better
understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans. The Third Goal
is a critical component of our mission. This year we commemorated our
50th anniversary and through activities and events, including Peace
Corps being featured at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, we have been
able to educate Americans about peoples around the world. We encourage
returned Volunteers to share their overseas experiences with Americans
by, for example, speaking to elementary, secondary, and postsecondary
classrooms in their communities through our Coverdell World Wise
Schools Speaker's Match program.
The most comprehensive strategy in the Assessment addresses the
need to strengthen management and operations through updated
technology, innovative approaches and improved business processes. It
covers many activities and every office within the Peace Corps. The
agency is working to turn these ideas into reality by emphasizing
evidence-based performance management, providing additional training to
staff, and conducting studies of operational activities and staffing
patterns of several staff offices to identify efficiencies and
streamline operations.
Improving the agency's management structure has been one of my
priorities since I was sworn in as director in 2009, which is why I
hired the agency's first Director of Innovation and created the Office
of Global Operations. Working closely with offices throughout Peace
Corps, the Office of Innovation is spearheading efforts to find new,
more efficient and effective ways to organize and operate across the
agency, as well as to address the recommendations that resulted from
the Assessment. The Office of Global Operations was created to provide
overarching strategic support and management to the agency's direct
Volunteer operations. This office is working to disseminate best
practices, provide an organized, cohesive voice to agency leadership,
and coordinate the activities of all overseas operations.
peace corps' commitment to volunteers
Our most important reforms lie in the area of Volunteer safety and
support. Nothing is more important to me, as Director of the Peace
Corps, and as a returned Volunteer, than the health, safety, and
security of every member of the extended Peace Corps family. Peace
Corps Volunteers represent the best America has to offer, and we owe
them our best in return.
We give our Volunteers extensive training and we work hard to make
sure that their service is rewarding, productive, and safe. But we
recognize that there is always room for improvement. Since I became
Director 2 years ago, it has become apparent to me that the Peace Corps
has not always been sufficiently responsive or sensitive to victims of
crime and their families. I sincerely regret that. None of us wants to
inflict any additional trauma upon the victims of crime. That is not
Peace Corps policy. That is not the Peace Corps way. All of us, past,
present, and future Volunteers, are valued members of the Peace Corps
community. A crime against one is a crime against all of us.
Since the Peace Corps was founded 50 years ago, more than 200,000
Americans have served as Volunteers in 139 countries, and we are all
enormously proud of their remarkable service to the United States. I
know that you share that pride. Volunteers embody compassion,
generosity, and an unbridled belief that together we can achieve more
than we ever could by working alone. It is these qualities that deepen
our pain when there is a loss. We care profoundly about the welfare of
our Volunteers. Every life lost and every act of violence against a
Volunteer is a tragedy. The names of Volunteers who have died while
serving are engraved on a memorial wall at our headquarters. They are
not forgotten.
The Peace Corps has met with a number of returned Volunteers who
have shared personal experiences of rape and sexual assault. I would
like to thank them publically for their courage in coming forward and
for helping us to make needed reforms. Their insights are invaluable
and have helped shape our commitment to make the survivor's perspective
a critical part of our reforms. I am sorry for what they suffered, and
I am committed to ensuring that their experiences are not repeated.
Over the past 2 years, we have put in place new policies to
minimize the risks faced by Volunteers and to improve the way we
respond to victims of crime. We have been working closely with our
Inspector General's office and have implemented or are implementing all
of the recommendations from the Inspector General's report last year on
our Volunteer safety and security program. While the Peace Corps cannot
eliminate every risk Volunteers may face during their service, I am
committed to making sure that we do everything we can to protect
Volunteers and provide effective, compassionate support to them and
their families when a tragedy does occur.
I welcome efforts in Congress to codify the reforms we have put in
place and I would like to recognize a member of the subcommittee,
Senator Johnny Isakson, for his remarkable commitment to the well-being
of Peace Corps Volunteers. I am very grateful to Senator Isakson for
his efforts to ensure justice for the murder of Kate Puzey, an
outstanding Volunteer who was killed in Benin in March 2009. Senator
Isakson and Senator Boxer, another member of the subcommittee, have
been working diligently to ensure all Volunteers--particularly victims
of sexual assault--receive the support and services they need. I thank
them for their willingness to work with all parties to ensure that
their legislation, which passed the Senate
in September, meets our mutual goal of enhancing the support and safety
of Volunteers.
enhancing the health, safety and security of volunteers
Under my leadership, the Peace Corps has implemented a number of
reforms to ensure we fulfill our commitment to Volunteers:
We issued ``Peace Corps' Commitment to Sexual Assault
Victims,'' a set of core principles to ensure we provide
timely, effective, and compassionate support to victims of
sexual assault. The Commitment makes clear that all Volunteers
must be treated with dignity and respect, and that no one
deserves to be a victim of a sexual assault.
We implemented new ``Guidelines for Responding to Rape and
Sexual Assault'' that detail our victim-centered approach and
the specific procedures staff must follow in order to respond
promptly to an incident and provide proper support to a victim.
We have also trained staff on the new ``Guidelines,'' which
include the ``Commitment to Sexual Assault Victims.''
I hired a nationally recognized leader in victims' rights to
serve as the agency's first Victim Advocate. Victims of crime
can now turn to a skilled, capable Peace Corps staff member who
will make certain they receive the emotional, medical, legal,
and other support they need during and after their service.
We prepared new standardized and comprehensive training for
Volunteers on sexual assault awareness, risk reduction
strategies, Peace Corps reporting and response protocols, and
bystander intervention. This replaces and improves upon the
sexual assault training currently provided to Volunteers. We
are in the process of training overseas staff at all of our
posts on the new sexual assault curriculum at regional
``training of trainer'' workshops, which will be complete by
the end of the year. The new curriculum was developed by the
agency's Sexual Assault Working Group, which includes returned
Peace Corps Volunteers and survivors of rape and sexual
assault, as well as staff with expertise in trauma response.
We signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Rape, Abuse
and Incest National Network (RAINN), the Nation's largest
antisexual violence organization, to collaborate and share
resources on sexual assault prevention and response. RAINN has
been an invaluable partner for Peace Corps, and we are very
grateful for the advice and expertise they have provided us.
I created the Peace Corps Volunteer Sexual Assault Panel,
made up of outside experts and returned Volunteers who were
victims of sexual assault. The individual members of this Panel
provide advice and input on the Peace Corps' sexual assault
risk reduction and response strategies. The panel includes
representatives of RAINN, the Department of Defense's Sexual
Assault Prevention and Response Office, and the Department of
Justice's Office on Violence Against Women and Office for
Victims of Crime, among others.
We trained overseas staff in how to respond appropriately
when Volunteers bring allegations of wrongdoing to their
attention. The agency's policy, which dates to early 2009,
requires any Peace Corps staff member who receives or has
knowledge of a Volunteer allegation to treat the allegation
with the utmost discretion and confidentiality, to take
appropriate measures to ensure the Volunteer's safety, and to
ensure the allegation is given serious consideration including
referral to Peace Corps' Office of Inspector General when
appropriate. We are also training Volunteers on policies and
procedures for bringing confidential concerns to the attention
of appropriate staff.
We issued guidance for overseas staff on the specific
procedures to follow when Volunteers express concerns about
their safety, or in any other situation that may threaten the
well-being of Volunteers.
We have taken steps to improve the medical care we provide
Volunteers by giving our medical professionals at headquarters
overall responsibility for hiring, credentialing, and managing
Peace Corps Medical Officers (PCMOs) at every post and by
providing enhanced guidance to those PCMOs on how to handle
serious medical issues. New Regional Medical Officers were
hired to assist in the health care of Volunteers and a Quality
Improvement Council was established to monitor and report on
ongoing health care issues.
These are just some of the many steps we have taken to better
protect and support Volunteers.
effective training and support for volunteers
Peace Corps' success depends on our Volunteers, and we provide them
with extensive information, training, and support to succeed. The
process of educating prospective Volunteers about service in the Peace
Corps begins long before they step off the plane in their country of
service. The Peace Corps is completely open about the extent of crimes
committed against Volunteers. We publish an annual ``Report of
Volunteer Safety'' that includes detailed data regarding crimes against
Volunteers, including rapes and sexual assaults, as well as trends for
the past 10 years. Reports from the last 5 years are posted on the
Peace Corps Web site.
When we invite applicants to serve, we provide them with country-
specific information on health, safety, and security, and crime data to
help them make an informed decision about whether Peace Corps service
is right for them. After they accept the invitation, we give Volunteers
an average of 10 weeks of in-country training before they begin their
service, plus additional training throughout their 27-month commitment.
This training covers technical, cross-cultural, health, and safety and
security issues, plus instruction in any of the many languages we
teach--over 120 in Africa alone. We also provide Volunteers with a
monthly living allowance and comprehensive medical coverage throughout
their service.
Every Peace Corps post has a Peace Corps office and staff managed
by a Country Director. The country staff includes the Safety and
Security Coordinator, one or more medical professionals, and program
managers and trainers. The country staff is responsible for, among
other things, evaluating and selecting Volunteers' work and housing
sites. In selecting sites for our Volunteers to live, we carefully
consider factors such as access to medical care, proximity to other
Volunteers, availability of communications and transportation, crime
rates, and the potential for obtaining and maintaining the support of
local authorities and the community at large.
All posts receive regional and global support in health and safety
operations. The Office of Safety and Security at headquarters oversees
all Peace Corps security programs, both domestically and overseas. The
office has more than two dozen staff, including 10 Peace Corps Safety
and Security Officers who are based regionally around the world and who
provide technical expertise, guidance, and training to Peace Corps
posts. This office is headed by a security professional who has 27
years of experience in security and law enforcement, both in the United
States and overseas.
In the event of an emergency, we immediately work with our
leadership team in country to assess the situation and implement an
effective solution; in the case of a medical emergency, the solution
may entail local hospitalization or a medical evacuation to a regional
site or back to the United States. Each post also has a country-
specific emergency action plan, tested on an annual basis, which
instructs Volunteers on how to respond to events such as natural
disasters or civil unrest.
support for victims of sexual assault
The Peace Corps, as an agency and as, a family, is committed to
providing the highest quality support and service to Volunteers who
have been the victims of sexual violence or other crimes. From the
moment a Volunteer first reports a rape or sexual assault we must be
ready, willing, and able to provide compassionate and effective support
and assistance. That is my commitment, and I believe that we have, as
an agency, taken enormous strides in the past few years toward making
it a reality, thanks to the productive conversations we have had with
the broader Peace Corps community and outside experts. That work is
still ongoing.
As part of the Peace Corps' victim-centered approach we have put in
place systems to allow victims to report sexual assaults and obtain
prompt, compassionate assistance without fear of being judged.
Dedicated specialists from the medical, mental health, security, and
legal fields are available from Peace Corps headquarters to help
Volunteers, as needed, with the response and recovery process.
The Peace Corps' Counseling and Outreach Unit at headquarters is
key to our victim-centered approach to responding to an emergency.
Mental health counselors are available to all Volunteers for any of
their needs, ranging from routine check-ins to coping with major
traumatic events. The Counseling and Outreach Unit is trained to deal
with emergencies and offers support to both victims and their families.
The unit trains Peace Corps medical staff at posts to provide initial
emotional support services to all Volunteers, including victims of
sexual assault. Should a Volunteer need specialized care that is beyond
the expertise of Peace Corps medical staff, the Peace Corps will
provide access to medical professionals who can effectively support the
Volunteer's needs. The Peace Corps Counseling and Outreach Unit also
maintains a 24-hour hotline for families to get more information about
natural disasters, like tsunamis and earthquakes, or other emergencies.
In addition to providing support to victims, the Peace Corps makes
every effort to protect Volunteers from sexual violence. Both staff and
Volunteers participate in regular training on safety and security. This
training covers a variety of topics related to sexual assault, and
other risks that Volunteers may face while serving. The Peace Corps has
a reporting system to track and analyze safety and security incidents
and the data collected is used to instruct our operations and improve
Volunteer and staff security.
When an assault occurs, we work with our partners in host countries
to bring perpetrators to justice. Seventy percent of the rapes,
attempted rapes, and major sexual assaults of Peace Corps Volunteers
that took place in 2009 and 2010 and were reported to local authorities
resulted in arrests. Forty-six percent have resulted in convictions,
and a number of other cases are scheduled for trial or still under
investigation.
In closing, I would like to express my gratitude to the Volunteers,
past and present, who have served their country so selflessly. I am
deeply grateful to them for their dedication and service, and I am
committed to doing all I can as Director of the Peace Corps to protect
and support them. I know that the members of the subcommittee share
this goal and I look forward to working with you and others to ensure
the continued success of this agency and its Volunteers.
Senator Menendez. Thank you, Director, for your testimony.
I appreciate the Peace Corps' support of Kate Puzey
Volunteer Protection Act. I am happy to hear that Volunteer
sexual assault survivors and leading organizations in the
antisexual assault violence field were consulted as the Peace
Corps reformed its assault prevention and response training
procedures. I am encouraged to learn of the reforms that the
Peace Corps is enacting to ensure that there is an enhanced,
consistent quality and coordination across the agency.
As I said to you privately, I wanted to say that to you
publicly. I do want to just pursue additional questions with
you since the committee has jurisdiction here, and we care very
much about the Peace Corps and its future.
It concerns me that it seems to have taken negative media
attention for the Peace Corps to take a hard look at its
operations and enact reforms. And you heard me ask our
distinguished former colleagues earlier about the culture at
the Peace Corps, and I am not talking about the Volunteers. I
am talking about those who lead, not just yourself as the
director, but everyone who leads underneath, that requires the
media or Congress to step in and pursue reforms when they are
necessary for the safety of Volunteers.
I have heard from several Volunteers that in the past,
management has abided by a culture of ``don't bother me'' with
safety concerns or ``buckle up.'' I don't believe that that is
the appropriate culture.
So, I am wondering what you have done within the context of
these reforms to ensure those underneath you--regional
directors, country directors--understand that the input of
Volunteers is not only to be heard, listened to, and responded
to and, where appropriate, incorporated in the changes that
will only strengthen the Peace Corps and its mission in the
days ahead.
Mr. Williams. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Very, very important question, and I can understand your
point of view. And thank you for our private conversation the
other day when we talked about that issue.
I want to say that we are doing everything that we can to
make sure that the Peace Corps continues to have a
compassionate, responsive culture to protect our Volunteers.
And the way to do that, I believe, is, No. 1, you have to have
the right policies in place. You then have to have the right
procedures and practices in place that adhere to those
policies, and then you need to train everybody at all levels to
understand the role that they play in this organization.
Because we want the Peace Corps to be the most responsive,
forward-leaning human development agency in the 21st century.
And so, the reforms that we have put in place have been aimed
at doing that.
We have trained our staff in terms of the guidelines for
responding to rape and sexual assault. We have trained them on
how to handle anyone who wants to come forward with
confidential information that might be a whistleblower. We have
trained them on the best way to respond to victims of sexual
assault, whether it is a doctor or our country directors or our
regional directors.
We have worked at every level in the Peace Corps, from me,
the deputy director, chief of staff, our regional directors,
our country directors, and the staff that works with them in
the 76 countries where we serve, to put in place very
significant, comprehensive, standardized, broad-based training
and to make sure that it is uniform worldwide, no matter where
we might have people deployed.
So I think we are doing everything that we can, and I am
happy to walk through that in detail with you or your staff or
any other member of the committee if you wish because I think
you would be very pleased with the comprehensive nature, the
standardized nature, and the intensity of the training.
Senator Menendez. Now in that process, whistleblowers at a
Volunteer level will be protected. What about whistleblowers at
the agency? They don't necessarily have the same protection.
What is your view of that?
Mr. Williams. Well, as Federal employees, they, of course,
enjoy the same rights and privileges of a whistleblower under
Federal law. That certainly is the case. And I think, more
importantly, we like to encourage openness and transparency to
ensure that people will speak truth to authority, if you will.
I want to know if there are issues that affect operations
of the Peace Corps and also, more importantly, if they have
anything to do with the safety and security of our Volunteers.
So they certainly enjoy those rights and privileges.
Senator Menendez. The 5-year rule, I have heard it referred
to here earlier, and I know that it was a concept of
reinvigorating the Peace Corps and a consistent transfusion of
blood, so to speak. However, major organizations need expertise
and institutional knowledge, so is there something to be said
for revisiting the 5-year limitation to exempt certain
positions in the leadership of the Peace Corps in order to
ensure a certain degree of continuity, while the transformation
and the lifeblood that the 5-year limit presents can remain a
reality for nonessential staff?
Mr. Williams. Senator, I think, first of all, in terms of
the 5-year rule, we have benefited greatly over the 50 years of
the Peace Corps because it has allowed fresh blood to come in,
new Volunteers. And roughly 60 percent of my current staff are
returned Peace Corps Volunteers. Most of them are young
Volunteers who have served probably in the last 5 to 6, 7
years.
But at the same time, I think, as a modern organization, as
you have pointed out, it can be a great constraint to not have
the continuity of management if you have a 5-year rule. So I
would welcome a review of the 5-year rule. I would love to join
with you in that discussion and to take a look at what might be
done. I think the time has come to look at that again.
Senator Menendez. And last, Senator Udall has had proposals
for some time of a buddy system, and I understand the potential
opposing views to that. By the same token, there may be times,
Senator Dodd referred to it, where the nature of the project,
the difficulty of it, the location, may, in fact, call for
clustering. Is the agency open to those views?
Mr. Williams. Mr. Chairman, anything that contributes to
the safety and security of the Volunteers we are totally open
to discussing. And we do, at this point in time, often try to
put Volunteers in clusters, either because of the technical
sector they might be working in, from a programmatic
standpoint, or because of the region.
But at the same time, I am open to looking at any possible
way of trying to provide a more safe and secure environment for
the Volunteers. And if the buddy system is something that you
think we should take a look at, we stand ready to look at that.
Senator Menendez. I appreciate your openness, and our goal
here is, is to have an even more robust, more productive 50
years ahead. So we appreciate your willingness to be open-
minded about engaging with the committee and former Volunteers
and others who have the same mission in mind.
Senator Rubio.
Senator Rubio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for your service. Thanks for being here today.
Mr. Williams. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Rubio. I just want to put a brief comment on the
record about something that we will talk about more in the
future as we talk about reform to the Peace Corps. Obviously,
we are all very concerned about the reports of violence
committed against Peace Corps Volunteers, about recurring
security problems.
I am reminded of a case in Florida. It is actually a fellow
University of Florida alumni from Fort Pierce, FL. His name was
Tom Maresco, and he was serving as a science teacher. He was
gunned down almost a year ago in September, and his family has
raised some important concerns about the way that matter was
handled and the aftermath and some concerns about the
recruiting process as well.
And I certainly wanted to bring that out in the hearing
and, hopefully, have an opportunity to talk to you and your
folks about how to deal with some of those issues moving
forward.
So I wanted to ask you basically the same questions that I
asked the previous panel. And one is about what we are doing to
try to channel the idealism and the collaborative spirit of
this generation of young Americans?
Two is what can we do, and I think some other things have
been talked about already. You have even referred to them in
your opening statement. But what we can do to really help some
Americans who are nearing retirement but have a lot of talents?
And three, how we can prioritize. Again, I think former
Senator Dodd pointed it out that we really shouldn't be using
it as a tool of short-term foreign policy. On the other hand, I
do think there are places in the world that perhaps we have
overlooked in the past or perhaps have overlooked us, where we
now have an opportunity to engage along the lines of the Peace
Corps, I think it serves a long-term foreign policy gain, but
at the same time, I think it is true to the mission statement
of the Peace Corps.
So your general thoughts on a pretty broad topic?
Mr. Williams. Thank you, Senator. And also thank you for
the nice shout-out regarding University of Florida and the fact
that the Gators are a big part of Peace Corps.
And we would be very happy to talk to you and your staff
privately about the Maresco case. It was a terrible blow to the
Peace Corps family. Tom Maresco was an outstanding Volunteer,
and we are doing everything we can to pursue that case, working
with the State Department and the authorities in Lesotho. So we
would be happy to talk to you and brief you fully on that.
On the older Volunteers, I think we are about to see a
growth of older Volunteers serving in the Peace Corps for a
couple of reasons. First of all, I see more and more, as I
travel around the United States, the parents of Peace Corps
Volunteers wanting to have the same experience that they see
that their children are enjoying when they visit them in the
countries where we serve.
Second, for those who have served in the Peace Corps
previously, the baby boomers who are now about to retire again,
we have this wonderful office called Peace Corps Response--it
used to be the Crisis Corps, Senator Dodd referred to it--where
we allow former Volunteers to serve on a short-term basis of 3
to 12 months in a country where they have the language and the
expertise. And now, of course, they have had a full career.
And so, we are actively pursuing that. In a time of tight
budget constraints, I believe that we are going to be able to
grow because we can use Peace Corps Response as a way to
attract older Americans who have that experience and can still
make a difference.
The other thing is that not a month goes by, Senator, when
I don't receive an ambassador from a country or one of our
American ambassadors serving overseas, and they ask me one of
three questions. They ask me, ``When can you return to my
country? How can you expand in the country? Or can you come for
the first time?''
We have a long list of countries that have invited us to
come. No matter what budget level we have, we would never
fulfill that demand, but there is ample opportunity to do that.
And I know there are many hundreds of thousands of young
Americans who want to serve.
And so, if you look at the young Americans and their
interest in serving, as you so aptly described in your opening
statement, and if you look at the baby boomers and the older
Americans who are prepared to serve, we have a tremendous
cadre, a great pool of Americans who are prepared to make a
difference.
Senator Menendez. Thank you, Director, for your testimony.
We look forward to continuing to work with you in the days
ahead, and we appreciate your service.
Mr. Williams. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity
to talk to you and to Ranking Member Rubio. I appreciate this
committee's longstanding support of the Peace Corps, and we
will work with you on any matters you deem important.
Senator Menendez. Thank you.
Mr. Williams. Thank you.
Senator Menendez. Let me call up our final panel. Kathy
Buller is the inspector general of the Peace Corps. She began
her civil service career with USAID, where she held several
positions before becoming deputy legal counsel and assistant
inspector general.
She has also served as chief counsel to the inspector
general for the Social Security Administration, cochair of the
Inspections and Evaluation Committee of the Council of
Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, was appointed
by the Government Accountability Office Advisory Council on
Government Auditing Standards. We welcome her testimony here
today.
Kevin F.F. Quigley was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand
from 1976 to 1979, is currently the president of the National
Peace Corps Association, the Nation's leading nonprofit
organization supporting Returned Peace Corps Volunteers and the
Peace Corps community. He has held senior positions in civil
society and Government as well as various research
institutions, including as vice chairman of USAID's Advisory
Committee on Voluntary Foreign Assistance and legislative
director to former Senator John Heinz.
Thank you for joining us.
And Senator Rubio has floor obligations. So we appreciate
him being with us up to this point.
Liz Odongo was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Guyana from 2001
to 2002. Her experience as a victim of sexual assault while
serving led her to cofound a nonprofit that works to end
violence against women. And she is currently the director of
training and outreach at the D.C. Coalition Against Domestic
Violence.
Thank you for sharing your story and your experience.
With that, please deliver your testimony in the order I
introduced you. At this point, I would like to request that the
testimony of Karestan Koenen be entered in the record. Without
objection, so ordered.
[Editor's note.--The statement mentioned above was not
available at the time this hearing went to press.]
Senator Menendez. She was scheduled to testify on the
panel, but due to personal circumstances, she was unable to
join us.
We are going to include your full statements in the record.
We urge you to synthesize your statement in about 5 minutes.
And with that, Ms. Buller, we call upon you first.
STATEMENT OF KATHY A. BULLER, PEACE CORPS INSPECTOR GENERAL,
OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL, WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Buller. Chairman Menendez and Ranking Member Rubio,
distinguished members of the committee, I thank you for
inviting me to appear before you today and allowing me to
summarize my prepared statement.
As the inspector general for the Peace Corps, I am charged
with providing independent oversight of the agency. My tenure
began in 2008, and since then, my office has performed audits
and evaluations aimed at identifying key challenges the Peace
Corps faces in improving its efficiency and effectiveness
throughout the world.
The Peace Corps is a highly decentralized agency, operating
in 70 countries. Headquarters staff primarily rely on country
directors and their staff to run programs in the field with
limited guidance and oversight.
The decentralized nature of the agency necessitates
effective business processes, including clear lines of
communication, well-established policies and procedures,
adequate oversight, and modern systems to inform and support
them. Our work demonstrates that one or more of these elements
are not always present and that the agency is challenged in
providing consistent Volunteer support and strong management
oversight.
For example, our 2010 audit of Volunteer safety and
security found that although the Office of Safety and Security
was intended to provide management of all agency security and
safety functions, it served as a consultative office, not an
oversight office and relied on overseas posts to request its
assistance and implement its suggestions.
Without a clear management structure, no office accepted
complete ownership of the safety and security program, and the
program lacked most of the elements that I just described. The
agency has taken corrective action on 25 of the 28
recommendations that we made as a result of that audit.
In the area of Volunteer health, a 2010 OIG assessment of
Volunteer medical care in Morocco found that, similar to the
agency's safety and security program, the medical program
lacked adequate oversight. The report found limited
participation of headquarters medical staff in the hiring and
supervision of medical officers. Instead, those functions were
performed by the country directors.
We identified agencywide shortcomings in the oversight of
medical units, quality assurance, and the scope of practice.
The agency concurred with all of our recommendations and took
immediate action to remediate them. However, the agency has
delayed some planned initiatives for increased oversight and
clinical reviews of Volunteer medical charts because of
resource issues.
My office is currently conducting a review of the agency's
guidelines for responding to rape and major sexual assault,
prompted by the concerns raised by Volunteer survivors of
sexual assault. Our work indicates that before the agency
issued the February 2011 guidelines and protocols on responding
to sexual assault, the efficacy of the agency's response to
incidents largely depended on the action of country directors.
I expect to be able to fully address this issue with you
after we issue our preliminary report next month.
In 2010, we conducted a followup evaluation of the
Volunteer Delivery System, known as VDS, the agency's most
important business process for meeting its recruitment and
placement needs. The report concluded that the agency failed to
implement most of the OIG recommendations from a 2003 report
and that many of the same weaknesses in VDS remained.
Among the most critical problems were inefficient business
processes and inadequate information technology. Many systems
are paper based, and the system cannot easily match applicants'
skills with host country needs. Our report also found that the
agency does not have a formalized definition of Volunteer
quality and does not systematically track Volunteer quality
levels. The agency is currently implementing a new Volunteer
lifecycle management system that they anticipate will address
many of our recommendations. We continue to encounter problems
obtaining accurate and reliable data for important business
processes. For example, access to reliable data on employee
retention and turnover, cost, and cumulative impact of
Volunteer medical accommodations, and the acceptance rates for
Volunteer applicants has been challenging.
Moreover, until FY 2010, the agency lacked a central
database to capture unfunded resource requests submitted by its
component offices to management for review and approval. Access
to reliable data informs and guides program budgeting,
strategic planning, program development, and management.
My office is currently engaged in an evaluation of the
impact of the 5-year employment cap and an audit of the agency
budget formulation process. Both reviews are ongoing, and
preliminary reports have not yet been issued. But the issues
they raise will likely pose challenges and opportunities for
agency reform efforts.
In concluding, Mr. Chairman, the Peace Corps faces a range
of management and performance challenges. The agency is making
progress in confronting those challenges and is working to
streamline operations and improve business processes critical
to Volunteer support. However, the agency must continue to work
to ensure that its business processes reflect today's Peace
Corps, not the agency that was started 50 years ago.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Buller follows:]
Prepared Statement of Kathy A. Buller
Chairman Menendez, Ranking Member Rubio, and distinguished members
of the committee, I thank you for inviting me to appear before you
today. My testimony will outline the management challenges facing the
Peace Corps as it celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, including
findings and recommendations that my office has made to support Peace
Corps reform efforts, the agency's recent progress, and my perspectives
on the challenges ahead. I hope my testimony will support your efforts
to ensure the Peace Corps remains a relevant, vibrant, and effective
agency.
The Peace Corps Office of Inspector General (OIG) was established
in 1989 after Congress amended the Inspector General Act of 1978 to
include smaller agencies. I became the Inspector General (IG) on May
25, 2008, and in my role as the IG, I direct a small office of 21
employees comprised of auditors, evaluators, criminal investigators,
legal counsel and support staff. I am fortunate to work with
individuals who have a broad range of skills and experience, including
seven returned Peace Corps Volunteers, and three former Government
Accountability Office (GAO) employees. All of them have extensive
private and/or public sector experience. Last year, our criminal
investigators were granted full statutory law enforcement powers by the
Attorney General including the authority to seek and execute search and
arrest warrants, seize evidence, make arrests without a warrant while
engaged in official duties, and carry firearms.
Our mission is to prevent and detect fraud, waste, abuse, and other
wrongdoing in agency operations and programs as well as promote
economy, efficiency, and effectiveness. My office serves as an
independent oversight entity and my duty is to keep the Congress and
the Director fully and currently informed about problems within the
Peace Corps, the need for corrective action, and the progress being
made to address our recommendations.
the peace corps at its best
In its 2010 ``Comprehensive Agency Assessment,'' a report to the
Committee on Appropriations, the agency identified four critical
elements that define the success of its programs over the past 50
years, which correlate closely to our audit and evaluation findings.
These four elements are discussed below:
The Peace Corps' niche is that our Volunteers live and work
for extended periods in communities where other service
organizations tend not to go and stay. Volunteers learn the
local language and culture, and form respectful relationships
with their hosts. In our 2010 evaluation of Peace Corps/
Cambodia for example, we reported that as a newly opened post,
program staff had successfully identified a niche--teaching
English at the secondary school level in rural communities,
which other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) or service
organizations were not addressing. In PC/Ethiopia, our program
evaluation found that Volunteers support HIV/AIDS programs in
communities where few other NGOs operate.
The Peace Corps thrives when it partners with and
compliments the efforts of others. In the field, Volunteers
support locally identified development priorities and
coordinate their work with host government agencies, local,
national or international organizations, and the host
community. In a 2007 OIG study of effective country programs we
documented best practices at nine high-performing posts:
Volunteer work assignments were clear, host country
counterparts were identified, and the host communities and
organizations understood their roles and the role of the
Volunteer.
The agency is successful when it is able to provide the
Volunteer meaningful work. This has been well understood in
principle since the earliest days of Peace Corps, and we
continue to focus our evaluations on how effectively our
overseas programs ensure that Volunteers have meaningful work
to do at their sites. In our 2011 evaluations of PC/Swaziland
and PC/Romania we found well-developed project plans and solid
processes for identifying and preparing Volunteer work sites.
Fundamental to Peace Corps' success is the commitment to
service displayed by Volunteers who are willing to serve, often
under very challenging conditions. The agency has a new
training approach to support Volunteers called, ``Focus In/
Train Up'' intended to zero in on programming and training in
areas where the Peace Corps can have maximum impact.
In addition to these elements our audits and program evaluations
have found that these high performing posts have systematized
processes, clear policies, and procedures. In our 2011 audit of PC/
Ukraine, currently the agency's largest program, we found solid
administrative systems in place and a clear organizational structure.
The post's size allowed for economies of scale and specialized support
for financial and administrative programs, such as vehicle management,
contracting, and grants programs. Unfortunately consistent application
of policies and procedures remains a challenge for the Peace Corps.
the peace corps' management challenges
The Peace Corps, like other international organizations, faces a
range of challenges--everything from safety and security incidents to
currency fluctuations that impact posts' operating funds. Volunteers
serve in 76 countries and operate at the grassroots level, usually in
rural communities, often in remote areas far from the capital city and
the Peace Corps office. Volunteers live and work with people of diverse
cultural backgrounds and languages, and their projects and assignments
are carried out with host partner agencies, without direct supervision
by Peace Corps program managers. In short, the model of voluntarism
that makes the Peace Corps such a unique and compelling experience can
at the same time makes the agency's efforts to support and ensure the
safety of Volunteers a challenge.
The Peace Corps operates 70 overseas posts, spread throughout five
continents. Each post is managed by a country director (CD). The Peace
Corps is a highly decentralized agency with headquarters staff
primarily relying on the CDs and their staff to run the programs in the
field. This model is only successful when there are clear lines of
communication, well-established policies and procedures, and adequate
oversight functions. Our audit, evaluations, and investigations
demonstrate that one or more of these key elements are not always
present in agency programs and operations.
We have found that the agency is challenged in providing strong
management oversight and accountability to ensure the agency's mission
is carried out consistently throughout the world. The agency is
constrained by limited resources, inadequate planning, and shifting
priorities. President Obama, like his predecessor, committed to
increasing the number of Volunteers in the field and at the end of this
fiscal year, the number of Volunteers serving surpassed 9,100, the most
since 1971, a 40-year high. Regardless of prospects for growth,
currently serving Volunteers must be effectively supported.
During my tenure, OIG's oversight work has been focused on two
broad issues: critical Volunteer support and agency business processes.
Critical Volunteer support systems such as safety and security and
health care form the pillars of the Volunteer program. Without
efficient and effective support services Volunteers may be put in
jeopardy and precious resources could be misdirected. Peace Corps
business processes, broadly defined, are the tools and systems the
agency utilizes to accomplish its mission. Some of the key management
challenges my office has identified follow.
A. Critical Volunteer Support
Volunteer service is central to the mission of the Peace Corps. The
success of the Volunteer depends in part on how effectively the Peace
Corps supports Volunteer health, safety, and security needs. In recent
years, my office has conducted two major reviews of the Volunteer
safety and security program and several reviews of Volunteer health and
safety.\1\ Every time we conduct a post audit or evaluation we focus on
these Volunteer support areas. This year we also began a review of how
the agency responds to incidents of Volunteer rape and sexual assaults.
The testimony of these survivors during the Peace Corps hearing before
the House Foreign Affairs Committee in May and our own work suggest
that responding to incidents of rape and sexual assaults requires a
well-conceived and comprehensive Volunteer safety and security program,
as well as providing necessary compassionate care and support to
Volunteer survivors of these crimes.
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\1\ The OIG's 2008 evaluation focused on the agency's
implementation of five key tenets of its safety and security program--
responding to crimes and reporting and analyzing crime statistics;
monitoring, assessing, and disseminating information on the security
environment; providing safety and security training to Volunteers;
developing, monitoring, and inspecting Volunteer sites; and planning
for emergencies. The 2010 OIG audit of safety and security focused on
the organization and implementation of the agency's safety and security
function.
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1. Volunteer Safety and Security
The Peace Corps Office of Safety and Security was created in
response to a 2002 GAO report that identified weaknesses in the
agency's safety and security program. Our 2010 audit of Volunteer
safety and security found that, although the Peace Corps established
the Office of Safety and Security to provide oversight and management
of all agency safety and security, the office has acted in a
consultative fashion, not as an oversight office. It has relied on
Peace Corps' overseas posts to request its assistance and implement its
suggestions. Our review found that without a clear management
structure, no office accepted complete ownership of the safety and
security program, and the agency's security program lacked essential
elements. As a result, Volunteers were placed at greater risk because
the agency did not ensure posts fully implemented required safety and
security policies.
In a review of data available since 2004, OIG has found that 44
percent of posts we audited were not in compliance with the requirement
to obtain a background check of post staff. After the policy was
revised in September 2009 to include short-term contractors, OIG found
that 73 percent of posts audited were not compliant. Our 2008
evaluation of Volunteer safety and security revealed that 40 percent of
Volunteers' houses did not meet the posts' own criteria for safe
housing. Also, 37 percent of the Volunteer Site Locator Forms did not
contain sufficient information to locate Volunteers' sites in emergency
situations.
Our 2010 audit also found deficiencies in the qualifications and
training of overseas safety and security personnel. Peace Corps
overseas safety and security staff were not consistently qualified to
support Volunteers. The agency had not defined the skills and
experience needed for security positions, nor provided consistent
training or development opportunities to match the position
responsibilities. Our audit reported the agency had not tracked and
ensured corrective action on safety and security recommendations made
to overseas posts.
Further, dealing with serious safety and security incidents against
Volunteers--such as murder, rape, sexual assault, kidnapping,
terrorism, or finding missing Volunteers--requires strong coordination
between the Peace Corps and the Department of State. In our 2010 audit
we recommended that the Peace Corps establish a memorandum of
understanding with the Department of State that would define each
agency's roles and responsibilities for Volunteer safety and security
as a critical step in improving the agency's capacity to effectively
respond to security incidents. This recommendation remains open pending
the MOU being finalized.
To date the agency has provided sufficient information to close 25
of 28 recommendations from our 2010 safety and security audit and 18 of
20 recommendations from our 2008 safety and security evaluation. We
continue to collaborate closely with agency management by providing
needed clarifications and comments to its proposed actions as well as
general advice with the aim of closing all remaining open safety and
security recommendations. Taking the necessary corrective action to
response to our recommendations is an important step to improving its
Volunteer safety and security program but the agency will need to
continuously monitor the program to ensure the changes take hold and
new issues that surface receive timely and effective resolution. I
maintain that the successful implementation of these recommendations
depends in large part on whether the Office of Safety and Security
functions as the management and oversight office it was intended to be,
rather than as a consultative office for overseas posts that responds
to requests for assistance and offers suggestions. In late FY12, we
plan to conduct a followup audit on the program's effectiveness and the
implementation of OIG recommendations.
2. Medical Care of Volunteers
The provision of high quality medical care is a critical Volunteer
support area
and essential agency function. Our post audits and evaluations review
and assess whether Volunteer health care needs are being met.
Additionally, our office also responds to agency special requests for
advice and assistance in this area. Following the death of a Volunteer
in Morocco, the Peace Corps Director requested that OIG conduct an
assessment of the provision of health services to Volunteers in
Morocco. The report, issued in 2010, determined that the way in which
PC/Morocco organized its medical services and provided health care to
Volunteers had an impact on the deceased Volunteer's medical care.
The report had agencywide implications because it identified
weaknesses in core agencywide medical operations such as the hiring of
Peace Corps Medical Officers (PCMOs) and their scope of practice,
oversight of health units, and quality assurance.\2\ It determined that
there was minimal clinical oversight of the Morocco PCMOs by the
agency, which is responsible for developing and managing the Volunteer
health care program. The report also concluded that the way the agency
measured and monitored the quality of health care services provided to
Morocco Volunteers was insufficient. The Peace Corps Director concurred
with all the recommendations and made a firm commitment to implement
them not only in PC/Morocco, but throughout all of Peace Corps' posts
as appropriate.
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\2\ PCMOs are staffed at each Peace Corps post to support
Volunteers' health needs.
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In response to our report, the agency stated that is was going to
take substantial measures to increase its oversight of medical care
provided to PC/Morocco and Volunteers throughout the world. The agency
took the following actions:
Realigned the PCMOs' reporting chain to ensure qualified
medical staff, not only the CD, oversee the medical support
provided to Volunteers.
Adopted a ``Quality Improvement Plan'' for enhancing
clinical oversight and medical care of all Volunteers.
Drafted a policy to ensure effective transfer of patient
information between PC/Morocco medical unit personnel.
Issued a series of technical guidelines for PCMOs intended
to raise the standards of care for Volunteers.
Implemented a more rigorous process for hiring and
credentialing of overseas medical staff.
Reformed the agency's scope of practice policies defining
the levels of work to be performed by PCMOs, based on their
credentials and experience.
Defined situations when the agency must be notified of a
significant illness of a Volunteer. An initiative to develop a
process for the immediate investigation of medical events is
underway.
Nonetheless, certain planned initiatives have been delayed or not
implemented due to resource constraints. For instance:
The agency did not fully increase the number of medical
staff required at headquarters to perform oversight and quality
assurance functions in FY11.
The agency failed to procure systems that could provide more
effective medical screening or better track pharmaceutical
supply inventory.
A medical chart review process intended to increase clinical
oversight was made more rigorous. However, only a small
fraction of charts are being submitted by the posts and
reviewed by clinical staff at headquarters.
Implementation of an electronic health record system, which
would facilitate clinical oversight and case management by
headquarters clinical staff and provide data to inform
management decisions and policies, has not occurred due to
resource constraints. However, the agency is looking for
feasible options.
3. Sexual Assaults
In response to a 20/20 broadcast earlier this year and a previous
congressional hearing, OIG has initiated a review of the agency's
guidelines for responding to rape and major sexual assault, which is
ongoing. For the purpose of this review, sexual assaults include
incidents in three categories: rape (including attempted rape), major
sexual assault, and other sexual assault. Our review is assessing:
Agency guidelines and protocols for responding to a
Volunteer sexual assault, including the support provided to
Volunteer survivors.
Staff training, roles, and responsibilities for responding
to Volunteer sexual assault.
Best practices in responding to sexual assaults that would
improve the way Peace Corps responds to Volunteer sexual
assaults and supports victims.
The agency has initiated the following:
Hired a victim's advocate, who serves as the central point
of contact to coordinate support of Volunteer survivors. The
victim's advocate functions as a liaison between the Volunteer,
the post, and other offices within the Peace Corps responsible
for Volunteer sexual assault incident management.
Issued new staff guidelines for responding to rape and
sexual assault in February 2011. The guidelines define and
clarify staff roles and responsibilities and the required steps
to respond to an incident to ensure that a coordinated,
compassionate response is provided to every Volunteer survivor.
Provided standardized training on new guidelines for Peace
Corps staff involved in supporting sexual assault victims in
February of 2011.
Provided response training on rape and sexual assault to
current PCMOs in continuing education sessions.
We have conducted field work and interviewed staff responsible for
the response and care of rape and sexual assault victims worldwide,
including at eight Peace Corps posts. We will complete field work in
three additional posts as part of this review and hope to issue a
preliminary report at the end of next month.
And in this context Mr. Chairman, I would be remiss if I did not
mention the Kate Puzey Peace Corps Volunteer Protection Act of 2011,
which the Senate adopted by unanimous consent. The legislation
institutionalizes comprehensive sexual assault risk reduction training
within the Peace Corps, and supports our office's ongoing efforts to
reach out to Volunteers early in their service so they understand how
to report instances of wrongdoing or misconduct. We support a strong
confidentiality policy, including authorizing penalties in cases of
inappropriate disclosure--for example disciplinary action and
ineligibility for reemployment with the agency.
We also appreciate your efforts to strengthen the independence of
the Peace Corps Office of Inspector General. Our credibility is
enhanced when OIG is free from any perception of partiality.
B. The Need for Enhanced Business Processes and Modernization
As part of the comprehensive assessment process the agency
identified strengthening ``. . . the Peace Corps' management and
operations by using modern technology, innovative approaches, and
improved business processes . . .'' as one of its six key strategies
for guiding the agency in the coming decade. In our statement on the
Peace Corps' Management and Performance Challenges published in the
agency's 2010 ``Performance and Accountability Report'' (PAR) we
identified the need to improve the agency's business processes in order
to accommodate growth and expansion. While Volunteer growth has not
matched expectations, there is still a need for the agency to modernize
and enhance its business tools and processes.
Throughout our audit, evaluation, and investigative work we have
noted an absence of updated, clear policies and procedures and a lack
of consistency in how the agency functions. Frequent turnover of the
workforce, a result of the ``Five-year Rule'' (FYR) that limits staff
appointments to 5 years, in most cases, contributes to a lack of
institutional knowledge and exacerbates other management challenges,
such as putting in place more modern administrative processes. In
addition to the challenges already outlined, below are some of the more
significant areas that OIG has identified.
1. The Volunteer Delivery System
The Volunteer Delivery System (VDS) is the agency's most important
process for meeting its Volunteer recruitment and placement needs. The
VDS is the continuous cycle of activities intended to enable the Peace
Corps to attain its goals by delivering qualified and suitable
Volunteers to interested countries. The VDS cycle begins when overseas
Peace Corps staff, together with host country partners, decides on the
number and qualifications of Volunteers that are needed to fulfill
project goals. This information forms the basis of the agency's annual
Volunteer trainee input goals, including the total number of Volunteers
needed, the specific technical and language skills needed, and when
Volunteers are expected to begin service. After the trainee requests
are received, assessed, and approved, the agency aligns its recruitment
and applicant process to recruit and screen applicants, and invite them
to Volunteer service. Without significant modernization and
improvements to the VDS, the agency will risk not meeting its
performance and strategic goals.
In 2010 our office evaluated the VDS. The evaluation served as a
followup to a 2003 OIG program evaluation report that identified
several weaknesses in the VDS, including the areas of leadership and
organizational change; information flow; information technology;
medical screening; customer service; and staffing and staff training.
The 2003 evaluation report determined that VDS lacked effective
business processes and was poorly supported by technology. Many systems
were paper-based or done manually, and the system could not easily
match applicants' skills with host country needs. It was also difficult
to process applicants with complex medical histories. The 2003 report
included 24 recommendations and our followup report, issued in December
2010, found that most of the corrective actions agreed to by the agency
in response to the 2003 report were either not initiated or were not
fully carried out, and many of the same issues remained. As a result
the 2010 evaluation report made 13 recommendations in an attempt to
address these longstanding concerns.
In addition to following up on the progress the Peace Corps has
made since the 2003 report, the evaluation also assessed whether the
agency was positioned to support growth and expansion of Volunteers
serving without decreasing Volunteer quality. We were unable to
conclusively determine whether the agency is maintaining Volunteer
quality while increasing the number of Volunteers in the field.
Notably, the agency does not have a formalized definition of Volunteer
quality and does not systematically track Volunteer quality levels. We
also found that the agency does not accurately track and measure its
ability to recruit and place Volunteers whose skills meet host country
needs and, because of difficulty in recruiting applicants with
technical experience, posts were encouraged to request lower-skilled
trainees.
The agency is currently implementing a new Volunteer lifecycle
management system under the name Database of Volunteer Experience or
``DOVE.'' The agency anticipates that this new information technology
system will drive the Volunteer delivery process and help the agency
better match posts' program needs with Volunteer applicant profiles,
resulting in better Volunteer placement. The new system will also
provide the agency with enhanced reporting capabilities that will
provide important information to managers and agency leadership. The
new system has the capability to accommodate evolving agency needs and
priorities. Through the implementation of DOVE, the agency will be able
to eliminate some of the inefficient paper processes and address some
of the long-standing recommendations made by CHG. The agency's
commitment to implementing DOVE, modernizing the VDS, and implementing
other long-term projects that require resources will determine whether
it can achieve its goals. Also critical is the agency's commitment to
maintaining Volunteer quality and putting in place processes and data
measurement systems to ensure Peace Corps is selecting and placing
Volunteers who can help the people of interested countries in meeting
their need for trained men and women.
2. Accessibility of Data Related to Peace Corps Operations
In conducting audits, evaluations, and investigations, OIG
continues to encounter problems obtaining significant data related to
Peace Corps' key business processes. For example OIG has had difficulty
accessing summary data related to employee retention and turnover, cost
and cumulative impact of Volunteer medical accommodations, acceptance
rate for Volunteer applicants and the number of Volunteer applicants
who do not fully match the skills requested by host countries. Access
to timely and accurate data related to headquarters and international
operations is essential to establishing efficient agency business
processes and systems. This data should inform management's strategic
and performance planning; program development and management strategy;
and budget formulation and execution. Further the availability of
accurate and complete data allows Peace Corps management to assess
program effectiveness, efficiency, and ways to eliminate waste.
We found that some of the databases and IT systems used by the
agency do not effectively capture and distribute useful data to
decisionmakers. Gathering data often requires access to numerous
systems and databases and staff must manually assemble it to develop
needed reports and information. For example, up until late FY 2010, the
Peace Corps did not have a central database to capture formal unfunded
resource requests submitted by its component offices to management for
review and approval. In addition, prior year data was not readily
available for review and analysis, and as a result any data assembled
may be potentially incomplete or inaccurate, which could impact
important business decisions.
In addition, document management systems and certain key functions,
including travel authorizations, vouchering, contract management, and
leave requests, remain largely paper-based. Streamlining and
integrating these functions through an IT solution would reduce data
entry error, improve efficiency, reduce paper dependency, and provide
greater storage and retrieval capabilities. These reforms would improve
the agency's efficiency and effectiveness and support allow managers to
make more informed choices.
3. The Protection of Personally Identifiable Information
The Peace Corps routinely receives, processes, and maintains
significant amounts of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) \3\,
and OIG continues to identify problems with the agency's ability to
protect this information. Since FY 2009 we identified the protection of
PII as a management challenge that requires enhanced management and
internal controls. In June 2009, this matter came to the forefront, as
OIG investigated and issued two reports related to the breach of more
than 495 medical files that included applicant names, Social Security
numbers, addresses, birthdates, dental records, lab reports, and
medical questionnaires. In October 2010 the agency has identified nine
breaches that compromised over 180 individuals' information.
Unfortunately, the trend in human errors that are usually attributed to
the cause of these breaches continues to persist
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ PII includes information that can be used to distinguish or
trace an individual's identity, such as name, Social Security number,
or biometric records. Such information can be used to link to other
data such as bank accounts and other financial or personal information
that can assist perpetrators in committing crimes associated with
identity theft.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The agency has stated that the implementation of DOVE and an
electronic health records system are measures that would significantly
reduce the risk of PII security breaches. However, until these proposed
system improvements are made protection of PII will continue to be a
management challenge. As previously mentioned, the agency's plan to
implement an electronic health record system has not occurred due to
resource constraints.
C. Ongoing Related Reviews
Currently, we are engaged in two important reviews which impact
Peace Corps management challenges and support reform and enhancement of
key agency business processes and tools.
1. Five-Year Rule
In February of 2011 we began an evaluation, which is ongoing, of
the impact of the FYR on Peace Corps operations. The FYR became law in
1965\4\ when an amendment to the Peace Corps Act brought all employees,
foreign and domestic, under the same personnel system and limited all
direct hire appointments to a maximum of 5 years. In passing the FYR
the Congress intended to ``permit a constant inflow of new blood and
ideas.\5\'' Congress amended the FYR in 1985 to allow for a third tour
of 2\1/2\ years and again in 2003 to exempt certain safety and security
personnel from the rule. Because the FYR has an impact on Peace Corps
management challenges I would like to share some preliminary
observations:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ To Amend Further the Peace Corps Act, Public Law 89-134,
section 2054, 75 Stat. 612 (Aug. 24, 1965).
\5\ Congressional Record, 89th Cong., 2d. sess., 1965. 111, pt.
2768
Over 50 percent of the agency's American staff from 2000 to
2010 were Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, including almost 80
percent of overseas staff. However, the average time between
Volunteer service and staff membership is 8 years.
Short staff tenures at the Peace Corps (2.5 years in 2010)
are more than 3 times shorter than the rest of the Federal
Government (7.9 years) and even shorter than the median tenure
of private sector employees (4 years).
The agency's annual turnover rate has exceeded 20 percent
historically and is more than three times the governmentwide
average (5.9 percent).
Our final report will include data on staff tenure and attrition
rates for each Peace Corps office covering the past decade. We intend
to issue a preliminary report by the end of next month.
Agency Budget Formulation
We are currently conducting an audit of the agency's budget
process. We expect to issue a preliminary report in the coming weeks.
Our findings will focus on the following areas:
Government Performance Reporting Act (GPRA): GPRA requires
that federal agencies link performance reporting and the
budget. Such linkage is essential to using performance
reporting data as an effective tool for justifying and
prioritizing budget decisions, allocating resources, and
formulating future budget estimates.
Unfunded Resource Requests: The processes for these requests
and budget reduction decisions need to be sufficiently
transparent and a clear line of communication regarding
budgeting decisions needs to be in place so that the highest
priorities are adequately funded and that scarce agency
resources are put to the best use.
Documenting the Internal Control Structure over the Budget
Process: Without an adequately documented internal control
structure over the budget process it is not possible to confirm
the level of risk assessed by management, or to determine if
proper internal controls are established and operating
effectively.
conclusion
The Peace Corps faces a range of management and performance
challenges as it looks forward to another 50 years. Today, the Peace
Corps remains unique in its mission, but unlike 1961 there are other
private and public sector entities working internationally. Peace
Corps' niche is still relevant, but in this difficult budget
environment its future success will depend on its ability to concretely
demonstrate its value and manage operations more effectively and
efficiently.
The agency is making progress in confronting some of its challenges
and has worked to streamline operations and improve the technology that
supports key business processes and critical Volunteers support areas.
The agency is taking important steps to modernize and become more
efficient. The implementation of DOVE promises to substantially improve
the ability of the agency to match posts' program needs with Volunteer
applicant profiles, resulting in better Volunteer placement. Increased
management oversight over Volunteer safety and security and Volunteer
medical care will support greater consistency of quality over these
critical support services. The agency must continue to evolve and
ensure its business processes reflect the activities of today's Peace
Corps, not the agency that was founded 50 years ago.
Senator Menendez. Thank you very much.
Dr. Quigley.
STATEMENT OF KEVIN F.F. QUIGLEY, PH.D., PRESIDENT, NATIONAL
PEACE CORPS ASSOCIATION, WASHINGTON, DC
Dr. Quigley. Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Menendez, I am honored to have this opportunity to
testify before the committee regarding the Peace Corps and its
next 50 years. As we come to the end of this remarkable 50-year
celebration, this is a timely and important hearing.
During these 50th anniversary events that Senator Wofford
alluded to earlier, we have succeeded in unprecedented ways. We
have had 1.3 million people participate in these events in all
50 States and some 80 countries. But these anniversary
celebrations weren't just about looking back at the past, but
they were really designed with a key principle in mind, and
that is the anniversary should be an opportunity to advance the
work of the Peace Corps in striving toward a more peaceful and
prosperous world.
One of the most remarkable activities of this anniversary
celebration was a little more than 2 weeks ago. Five hundred
community members had an opportunity to come up on Capitol Hill
and share with Members of Congress and their staff their views
on the Peace Corps and the impact it had on their lives. And
with your permission, I would like to submit some of those
letters into the hearing records.
Senator Menendez. Without objection.
[Editor's note.--The letters referred to were too numerous
to print in this hearing. They will be maintained in the
permanent record of the committee.]
Dr. Quigley. Thank you.
Much like today's hearing, the anniversary was about
generating ideas and resources to prepare the Peace Corps for
an even more successful and impactful next 50 years. And
Chairman Menendez, as you said in your opening remarks, you
have to understand the past to prepare for the future.
As Senator Wofford mentioned, the National Peace Corps
Association, with Civic Enterprises, conducted an unprecedented
independent survey and report involving more than 11,000
Returned Peace Corps Volunteers to assess their motivations for
service, their views on their service, and the impact it had on
their lives. And I ask that this report and the survey results
be included in the hearing records.
Senator Menendez. Without objection.
[Editor's note.--The report mentioned was too voluminous to
include in the printed hearing but will be maintained in
permanent record of the committee.]
Dr. Quigley. Thank you.
And let me just briefly summarize three of the major
findings and categories. Fundamentally, these 11,000
respondents suggest that Peace Corps service was most effective
in promoting the goals related to understanding (Peace Corps
Goals #2 and #3) and was effective, but somewhat less so, in
terms of the meeting needs for trained manpower in other
countries (Goal #1), the development goal of the Peace Corps.
As Senator Shaheen said earlier today during her
conversation with constituents this past summer in New
Hampshire, Peace Corps is a transformative experience. In one
of the most stunning findings from our survey 98 percent of the
respondents would recommend Peace Corps to their child,
grandchild, or close family member. And I don't think there is
any other organization in our society--church, family,
university--where 98 percent would recommend to a close family
member that they should participate in that organization.
The survey results also make it clear that there is an
unfinished agenda, a lot of work to be done. And so, let me
just briefly offer a group of observations about the Peace
Corps and four specific recommendations regarding steps to
strengthen the Peace Corps.
One, there is an overwhelming consensus in the community
that Peace Corps should do much better to document the good
work it does. Two, that the model of 27 months of service, 3
months of training follow 2 years of service, is really the
gold standard of internationsl service, and it should not be
changed.
Three, that model, however, should be supplemented by
short-term service opportunities that allow senior and more
skilled Volunteers to participate sometimes in conjunction with
Peace Corps, but not necessarily through a Peace Corps
administered program. And that these programs could potentially
be delivered by universities, by corporations, or by
nongovernmental organizations.
Here are four recommendations to strengthen the Peace
Corps. One, I believe very strongly, as Sargent Shriver did,
that bringing the world home is the most important goal of
Peace Corps. And as Senator Dodd alluded to earlier today, this
is an area that has received scant resources, less than 1
percent through its history. To succeed at this goal will
require a modestly higher percentage of the Peace Corps'
overall budget.
Two, as Senator Rubio suggested, a lot more, I think, can
be done to align Peace Corps with our long-term national
interests: significantly expanding our program in China is a
great example. Getting back into some of the new global powers,
such as India, Nigeria, and Brazil, would be an important step
that the Peace Corps could take, although these programs would
need to involve innovative approaches. I think that the annual
portfolio review that Peace Corps has started to see how its
country programs align with our long-term national interest is
an extremely helpful step in this regard.
Three, revitalize the National Advisory Council. And Mr.
Chairman, earlier in the hearing you were asking about the
culture of Peace Corps, and I think best practice is to have
multiple mechanisms to ensure that any organization is living
up to its goals and principles. These include having
congressional oversight, an engaged concerned community, media
attention, as well as having an advisory council of experts who
can provide strategic advice and feedback to the Peace Corps.
And my fourth recommendation is to routinely share
information with organizations that promote Peace Corps goals
and mission.
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before
you today, and I would be glad to respond to any questions or
comments you have.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Quigley follows:]
Prepared Statement of Kevin F.F. Quigley
Chairman Menendez and Ranking Member Rubio, I am honored to testify
before this committee regarding the Peace Corps and its next 50 years.
My name is Kevin F. F. Quigley, and I am President of the National
Peace Corps Association (NPCA). Founded in 1979 and headquartered in
Washington, DC, NPCA is the Nation's leading 501(c)(3) nonprofit
organization supporting Returned Peace Corps Volunteers and the Peace
Corps community through networking and mentoring to help guide former
Volunteers through their continued service back home. It is also the
longest standing advocate on behalf of the Peace Corps and its values
of service and understanding.
I was privileged to serve my country as a Peace Corps Volunteer in
Thailand for 3 years between 1976 and 1979, teaching English in a
secondary school and later at a teachers' training college in the Isaan
or Northeast region of that country.
As we come to the end of a remarkable year-long celebration of the
50th anniversary of the Peace Corps, this is a timely and important
hearing. This year-long celebration was designed with two book ends
echoing the remarkable inception of the Peace Corps: (1) the spark lit
at the University of Michigan by then-Senator John F. Kennedy on
October 14, 1960, leading to the establishment of the Peace Corps by
Executive order on March 1, 1961, and (2) the passage of the Peace
Corps Act less than a year later on September 22, 1961.
These 50th anniversary events were designed so that anyone,
anywhere, who valued the Peace Corps could have a chance to
participate. We succeeded in unprecedented ways: more than 1.3 million
individuals participated in anniversary events in more than 80
countries and all 50 States. Besides commemorating 50 years of service
and friendships and encouraging the next generation of Volunteers, this
golden anniversary year was built on a key principle: it should not
simply be about celebrating the accomplishments of the past, but rather
this anniversary year should advance the work of the Peace Corps in
striving toward a more prosperous world in peace.
On September 22, 2011, we organized one of the principal
anniversary activities, 50 years to the day after the signing of the
Peace Corps Act. On that day, we invited Returned Peace Corps
Volunteers (RPCVs) to meet with Members of Congress and their staff to
share stories and discuss why the Peace Corps still matters. More than
500 community members participated. As part of that effort, we
collected letters from the participants. Here, I'd like to provide a
few brief excerpts that discuss what the Peace Corps has accomplished.
______
Peter and Linda Dahm, River Falls, WI, Micronesia (1973-1975)
``We strongly feel that volunteers make a difference. As
volunteers, we started an export company for an agricultural product
and that company lasted almost twenty (20) years . . . Our experience
has led us to a lifetime of commitment to our communities and our
country. Currently, for example, Peter serves as the volunteer Chair of
our City Housing Authority. Linda remains active nationally and
internationally with the Girl Scouts among other activities.''
Susannah Hopkins Leisher, Millburn, NJ, Nepal (1985-1987)
``Peace Corps made a fundamental difference to my life's path. It
was the first step in what has turned out to be, so far, a 20-year
career working to alleviate global poverty. I brought the Peace Corps-
founded knowledge of the realities of poverty to ten years living and
working in Vietnam, later carrying these lessons with me to West Africa
and Central America during my recent five-year stint with Trickle Up, A
New York City-based non-profit dedicated to reducing extreme poverty.
The lessons of Peace Corps have enriched my service with many poverty-
fighting organizations in many countries. The American taxpayers'
modest and long-ago investment in my training and years of service has,
I do believe, paid off many-fold.''
Nick and Bay Bancroft, Medfield, MA 02052, India (1966-1968)
``We are two constituent who served two years in the Peace Corps in
India from 1966-1968: Nick in small industry development (working in
cast iron foundries and machine shops making irrigation equipment, as
India modernized its sugarcane processing), and Bay in Nutrition and
maternal/child health programs in the schools and villages of our town
. . . We returned to the U.S. with a visceral understanding of how life
and people are the same wherever you go, although their circumstances,
for better and worse, are different from ours in different ways . . .
For a miniscule cost (compared with the cost of other U.S. agencies
involved in U.S. foreign relations), Peace Corps volunteers fulfill
their hard assignments, become fluent in the hard language, make strong
connections with ``real'' people from the world's developing nations,
and return to the United States inspired and seasoned by their
experience.''
Sharon Keld, Southhampton, New York, Morocco (2006-2008), Philippines
(2009-2010), Armenia (2011)
``I found that, to a person, every Muslim Moroccan who I met was
pro-American and liked Americans--and on September 11, 2011, I reminded
friend and family back home that that was the case.''
Wayne L. Haag, Saginaw, MI, Guatemala (1962-1964)
``As the U.S. must continue to adapt to an ever changing world,
full of many challenges, the Peace Corps has left us better prepared to
identify and/or create win-win situations, thus reducing conflict. I
have been pleased over the years to see a growing number of U.S.
Government and international staff positions occupied by people with
Peace Corps backgrounds. America's voluntary efforts, including the
Peace Corps, set examples for the rest of the world to emulate,
encouraging growth in international voluntary efforts. At home, RPCVs
often use their experiences gained abroad, to strengthen domestic
voluntary efforts.''
______
So, much like this hearing today, a key goal of this anniversary
year was generating ideas and resources to prepare the Peace Corps for
an even more successful and impactful next 50 years. This included the
NPCA working together with the University of Michigan and the Brookings
Institution to organize a national symposium on the future of
international service in Ann Arbor, MI, in October 2010. Last month, on
September 21, we released the results of the largest independent
nationally representative survey of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers
(RPCVs). I now ask that the survey results and an accompanying report,
``A Call to Peace,'' be entered into the hearing record.
remarkable results from our ``a call to peace survey''
This unprecedented independent survey with 11,138 respondents
sought to explore why individuals volunteered, how they assess their
experiences, and what impact it had on their lives and careers. This
survey provides remarkable confirmation that Peace Corps volunteer
service does lead to a lifetime of service, with RPCVS volunteering at
twice the national average, improving communities at home and abroad.
Let me briefly summarize three general findings from our just-
released survey:
1. Waging Peace as the Overriding Purpose of the Peace Corps: The
Peace Corps experience has a profound effect on fostering peace and
understanding among Americans and people around the globe (Peace Corps'
Goals #2 and #3), with significant but somewhat less effect in meeting
the need for trained workers in those countries (Goal #1). More than 80
percent said their service was effective in promoting a better
understanding of Americans in the communities where they served and an
almost equal number said their service helped promote a better
understanding of others at home. Fifty-nine percent said their service
was effective in helping other countries meet their need for trained
workers.
2. A Transformative Experience: The Peace Corps experience is
transformational for Volunteers--an experience they would strongly
recommend to their families; often changed the rest of their lives; and
made them better citizens back home. Ninety percent of RPCVs rated
their Peace Corps experience as excellent or very good, and a stunning
98 percent would recommend the Peace Corps to their child, grandchild,
or other close family member.
3. Unfinished Business: President Kennedy said that the Peace Corps
would be serious when 100,000 Americans served abroad every year. Since
today there are only 8,600 learning new languages, understanding other
cultures and leading to a more informed U.S. foreign policy that means
we have a long way to go to realize the vision of its founders. To
fulfill Kennedy and Shriver's dream, the ServiceWorld coalition was
formed. This coalition, with more than 300 colleges, employers, and
nonprofit organizationss, has rallied around an agenda to send 100,000
Americans abroad annually through three channels: the Peace Corps,
which the RPCVs surveyed want to see doubled; Volunteers for
Prosperity, which currently sends 43,000 highly skilled Volunteers each
year to work on urgent issues such as HIV/AIDS and malaria in Africa;
and new Global Service Fellowships that would tap up to 10,000
Americans for up to 1 year of service, with Members of Congress
nominating outstanding individuals from their districts and states,
much like they do for the military academies.
strengthening the peace corps for its next 50 years
Fifty years into its history, the world is dramatically different
than when the Peace Corps was first established. The world is more
urbanized, globalized, and connected through technology, although there
is a growing number living in poverty without access to health care,
education, or the means to have a life of dignity. There are many
countries that would like a Peace Corps program and many Americans who
are willing to serve, but we simply do not have the resources to meet
this demand.
Since the Peace Corps was created, there has been a proliferation
of international service programs. This includes approximately 20
countries that have Peace Corps-type government international volunteer
programs. A number of regional organizations like the European Union
(EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are
developing their own volunteer programs modeled on the Peace Corps.
Increasingly universities and corporations are developing international
volunteer programs as central to their educative and business missions.
There are literally thousands of different options to volunteer
internationally, varying in length of time, location, and application
requirements. Given these myriad options, the Peace Corps faces intense
competition for volunteers--a competition that is only likely to
increase in the decades ahead.
Our recent survey also explored various ideas about how the Peace
Corps could improve during its next half century. Generally, there was
a strong sense that there were unprecedented new opportunities for the
Peace Corps to cooperate with other programs and organizations. Some of
these ideas to strengthen the Peace Corps include:
There was an overwhelming consensus that the Peace Corps
should do more to document the impact of its work.
There was also a strong consensus that the Peace Corps
should not change its 27-month model, which includes 3 months
of training followed by 2 years of service. RPCVs understand
better than anyone that integration within the host community
and the lengthy tenure of Peace Corps volunteer service is
qualitatively different from other international volunteer
programs.
This overwhelming support for the 27-month program model was
not, however, to suggest that the Peace Corps should not
change. Rather, to meet changing circumstances in a dynamic and
unpredictable world, the survey respondents suggested that the
Peace Corps should develop a broader network of highly
substantive partnerships with other volunteer sending programs
including nongovernmental organizations, universities,
corporations and/or other federal agencies. In this way, the
Peace Corps could better meet the need for more highly trained
but shorter termed volunteers. In recent years, the Peace Corps
has made progress in developing these partnerships, especially
through PEPFAR (The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS
Relief).
Many of these ideas to strengthen the Peace Corps harken
back to the ideas of the Peace Corps' visionary founders,
Sargent Shriver and Harris Wofford. They envisioned that there
would be multiple channels for delivering high quality
volunteer programs and that a self-administered government
program was just one of those program delivery channels. The
survey respondents endorse using multiple channels to deliver
international service efforts.
maintaining support of the american people
Since its inception, the Peace Corps has had an overarching mission
of promoting friendship and peace with three specific interrelated
goals, one relating to advancing human development through meeting the
needs for trained manpower and two related to promoting understanding
of other peoples and cultures. This mission and these three goals are
as relevant today as they were when the Peace Corps was created. I also
think that they are likely to be relevant for the next 50 years. I
believe, as apparently Sargent Shriver did, that ultimately the so-
called Third Goal of bringing the volunteer experience back home may be
the most important goal of all of these.
In response to a congressional request, the Peace Corps completed
an internal assessment and a strategic plan in June 2010. There are
numerous good ideas contained in that plan. Like the Congress, the
Peace Corps community is keenly interested in learning more about
progress made in executing that plan, especially on an ongoing basis.
For the committee's consideration, I suggest four ideas to
strengthen the Peace Corps in its next half-century:
1. Provide more support for Bringing the World Home. Unfortunately,
the Bringing the World Back Home Goal has received the least resources,
averaging less than 1 percent of the agency's annual budget these past
50 years. While it is understandable that the Peace Corps has focused
its resources on recruiting, training, and supporting Volunteers in as
many countries requesting the Peace Corps as possible, this
underresourcing of this essential goal deprives the American people
from benefiting as they might from the Volunteers' international
service experience. Without knowing more about the understandings
garnered from Volunteers' service and the results that Volunteers
achieve at home and abroad, it may be increasingly difficult to secure
the needed financial support in these especially challenging financial
times.
2. Align Country Selection More Closely with Long-term National
Interests. Developing programs with countries that are more clearly
related to our long-term national interests is critical to securing
ongoing support. The Peace Corps' recent annual portfolio review is an
important step in the right direction. However, this portfolio review
needs to weigh more heavily strategic countries important to our long-
term interest and for them, in particular, develop innovative
partnership approaches. These long-term interests pertain to U.S.
economic, political, security and cultural interests around which there
is bipartisan support. For example, these interests would include
deepening the Peace Corps presence in predominantly Muslim countries
and ``rising global powers.'' For a variety of reasons, the Peace Corps
has not had programs in countries of growing stature internationally,
such as Brazil, India, and Nigeria for decades--perhaps in part because
the Peace Corps succeeded there. The Peace Corps currently has only
modest programs with two of the world's most populous countries, China
and Indonesia. Developing programs with these rising global powers,
which may involve working jointly in third countries or perhaps having
bilateral programs where Americans volunteered there and citizens of
these countries volunteered here, could be extremely important to
advancing our long-term national interests. Peace Corps-type programs
in and with these rising countries, or with other countries that have
``graduated'' from Peace Corps programs, such as Korea, might also
create innovative cofinancing possibilities.
3. Revitalize the National Advisory Council. Established by the
Peace Corps Act, the Peace Corps National Advisory Council is an
advisory committee appointed by the President with the advice and
consent of the Senate. In recent years, this Council has been moribund.
In his FY 2012 budget request, President Obama indicated that he
intended to revitalize this Council. He said that, ``The council is
also charged with making recommendations for the purpose of guiding the
future direction of the Peace Corps and of helping to ensure that the
purposes and programs of the Peace Corps are carried out in ways that
are economical, efficient, and responsive to changing needs of, and
relationships with, the countries and peoples being served.''
Revitalizing this Council could help fulfill the purpose of this
hearing. I urge that this committee and the Senate push for a
revitalization of the National Advisory Council.
4. Routinely Share Information with Organizations Promoting the
Peace Corps' Mission. As long as the Peace Corps continues to focus the
preponderance of its resources on recruiting, training, and supporting
Volunteers (goals #1 and #2) leaving scant resources for bringing the
world home efforts (goal #3), the best way for the Peace Corps to
address this Third Goal is through extensive and substantive
partnerships with RPCVs organizations. In addition to the NPCA and its
network of 146 formally organized member groups, there are numerous
other RPCV organizations that are working to help measure the impact of
Volunteer service and assist with bringing these Volunteer experiences
home in ways that strengthen communities at home and abroad. The
government agency now interprets that the Peace Corps Act precludes
sharing information with outside organization without the express
consent of the Appropriation Committees. That presumption should
change. I urge this committee's assistance in ensuring that
organizations that promote the Peace Corps mission and values have
regular and routine access to the information necessary to accomplish
this.
Chairman Menendez, these are just a few ideas and recommendations
on how the Peace Corps could be strengthened in ways that enhance its
capability to make significant progress in advancing its timeless goal
of a prosperous world at peace over its next 50 years.
I would be glad to address any questions or comments that you or
other committee members have.
Senator Menendez. Thank you very much.
Ms. Odongo.
STATEMENT OF ELIZABETH ODONGO, TRAINING AND OUTREACH DIRECTOR,
D.C. COALITION AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Odongo. Good afternoon. My name is Liz Odongo. I am the
training director at the D.C. Coalition Against Domestic
Violence, and I am proud to be a Returned Peace Corps
Volunteer.
I am here today hoping to make the Peace Corps better,
safer, and stronger for its next 50 years. Part of shaping the
future requires an honest look at the past.
When I was 23 years old, I served as a Peace Corps
Volunteer in Guyana, where I was stalked and terrorized by the
same person who had assaulted the Volunteer who served in my
site before me. The Peace Corps knew about this, but they had
never warned me.
When it happened, I was young, scared, and alone, and I
turned to the Peace Corps--my employer, my protector, my
government. I asked the Peace Corps to listen and help me.
Instead, it blamed and later disowned me. Unfortunately,
thousands of Volunteers have had experiences like mine, and
this year, they asked Congress to listen and to help.
You demonstrated your willingness to do both. So, today, I
am here to thank the Senate for working hard to find a solution
to this longstanding and systemic problem and for passing the
Katie Puzey Peace Corps Volunteer Protection Act, which, if
ultimately enacted, will protect future Volunteers from the
terror and isolation that I and so many others have
experienced.
I also want to thank Director Williams for working with
Congress diligently and enthusiastically during this difficult
process. Thank you.
In the last 10 years alone, over 1,000 women and men, young
and old, who chose to serve their country as Peace Corps
Volunteers reported that they were victims of horrific sexual
assaults during their service. It is estimated that in those
same 10 years, at least another 1,000 were assaulted but chose
not to report it.
You have heard many of the stories. A woman alone, walking
down a street in Bangladesh, is taken, gang raped, tortured,
and left for dead. A teacher thousands of miles from home is
held captive and brutally raped for hours until she stops
begging to live and starts praying to die.
But part of their stories that are too often overlooked is
what happened afterward when they asked the Peace Corps for
help. Historically, Peace Corps Volunteers and staff were often
given no training on how to protect themselves or others from
dangerous situations. Volunteers who were attacked often had no
idea where to go for help.
Those who report their attacks to the Peace Corps staff
were often dismissed, belittled, or blamed. In recent months,
congressional investigation and media reports have revealed
that Peace Corps' inadequate response to victims of sexual
assault is systemic and longstanding. But the Katie Puzey Peace
Corps Volunteer Protection Act would change that.
First, this bill, championed by Senators Boxer and Isakson,
requires the Peace Corps to provide vital training on important
and common sense techniques, such as the buddy system and
bystander intervention, and to institute best practices in
safety and survivor response. No more Volunteers will be
dismissed when reporting danger or assaults. They will be taken
to a safe place, seen by a doctor, provided appropriate mental
health care, and given the opportunity to prosecute their
attacker.
Second, the bill creates confidentiality protocols to
ensure Volunteers are not put in harm's way for exposing danger
or wrongdoing. No more Volunteers will be murdered in their
sleep when their perpetrators find out what they reported. They
will be protected.
Finally, the bill creates accountability and oversight to
ensure these policies are followed. No more staff members who
ignore or mistreat survivors will be rehired or left in
positions of authority. Instead, actions will be taken to
ensure Volunteers can trust those they must report to.
You have asked me today to provide you with my professional
assessment of this legislation, not just as a former Volunteer
and rape victim, but as a leading expert in the field of
violence against women. I can tell you with confidence, as an
expert, that I believe this bill is critical. It will save
thousands more from the devastation that has already been
suffered by too many.
In closing, I thank you for listening to me and commend you
for your leadership and thoughtfulness in drafting and passing
this bill to create a stronger, safer Peace Corps for the next
50 years.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Odongo follows:]
Prepared Statement of Elizabeth Odongo
My name is Liz Odongo. I am the Training and Outreach Director at
the D.C. Coalition Against Domestic Violence and I am proud to be a
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. I am here today hoping to make the
Peace Corps better, safer and stronger for its next 50 years. Part of
shaping the future requires an honest look at the past.
When I was 23 years old, I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in
Guyana, where I was stalked and terrorized by the same person who had
assaulted the Volunteer who served in my site before me. The Peace
Corps knew, but never warned me. When it happened, I was young, scared
and alone and I turned to the Peace Corps--my employer, my protector,
my government. I asked the Peace Corps to listen and to help me.
Instead it blamed and, later, disowned me. Unfortunately, thousands of
Volunteers have had experiences like mine. And, this year, they asked
Congress to listen and to help. You demonstrated your willingness to do
both. So today, I am here to thank the Senate for working hard to find
a solution to this longstanding and systemic problem, and for passing
the Kate Puzey Peace Corps Volunteer Protection Act which, if
ultimately enacted, will protect future Volunteers from the terror and
isolation that I, and so many others, have experienced. I also thank
Director Williams for working with Congress, diligently and
enthusiastically, in this difficult process. Thank you.
In the last 10 years alone, over 1,000 women and men, young and
old, who chose to serve their country as Peace Corps Volunteers,
reported they were victims of horrific sexual assaults during their
service. It's estimated that, in those same 10 years, at least another
thousand were assaulted but chose not to report it. You've heard many
of the stories: A woman alone, walking down a street in Bangladesh, is
taken, gang raped, tortured and left for dead. A teacher, thousands of
miles from home is held captive and brutally raped for hours, until she
stops begging to live and starts praying to die. But the part of their
stories that are too often overlooked is what happened afterward, when
they asked the Peace Corps for help.
Historically, Peace Corps Volunteers and staff were often given no
training on how to protect themselves or others from dangerous
situations. Volunteers who are attacked often had no idea where to go
for help. Those who report their attacks to the Peace Corps' staff were
often dismissed, belittled or blamed. In recent months, congressional
investigation and media reports have revealed that Peace Corps'
inadequate response to victims of sexual assault is systemic and
longstanding. But the Kate Puzey Peace Corps Volunteer Protection Act
would change that.
First, this bill, championed by Senators Boxer and Isakson,
requires the Peace Corps to provide training in important and common
sense techniques, like the buddy system and bystander response, and to
institute best practices in safety and survivor response. No more
Volunteers will be dismissed when reporting danger or assault. They
will be taken to a safe place, seen by a doctor, provided appropriate
mental health care and given the opportunity to prosecute their
attacker.
Second, the bill creates confidentiality protocols, to ensure
Volunteers are not put in harm's way for exposing danger or wrongdoing.
No more Volunteers will be murdered in their sleep when their
perpetrators find out what they've reported. They will be protected.
Finally, the bill creates accountability and oversight, to ensure
these policies are followed. No more staff members who ignore or
mistreat survivors will be rehired or left in positions of authority.
Instead, actions will be taken to ensure Volunteers can trust those
they must report to.
You have asked me today to provide you with my professional
assessment of this legislation, not just as a former volunteer and rape
victim, but as a leading expert in the field of violence against women.
I can tell you with confidence, as an expert, that I believe this bill
is critical. It will save thousands more from the devastation that has
already been suffered by too many.
In closing, I thank you for listening to me and commend you for
your leadership and thoughtfulness in drafting and passing this bill to
create a stronger, safer Peace Corps for the next 50 years. Thank you.
Senator Menendez. Thank you very much.
Thank you all for your testimony.
I appreciate your sharing your story, Ms. Odongo. And I
want to ask you--this was part of my question to the director,
and the earlier panel--you describe a set of circumstances in
which what I describe as a culture was not responsive to you as
a Volunteer who suffered a sexual assault. And you describe
that that may very well have been the case with others.
What was it, what took place that was fundamentally wrong?
What was the response when you went to your country director
and told them what had transpired? What response did you get?
Ms. Odongo. I first contacted and I first went to the Peace
Corps office. I was very remote, no phones or anything. So I
traveled to Georgetown, the capital, and first went to the
Peace Corps nurse, who was very sympathetic and supportive. She
connected me with the doctor, and the Peace Corps security
officer was also very receptive.
They accompanied me back into the village to try to arrest
the assailant. But it is the bush, and he disappeared the three
times that they tried to arrest him. But that being said, after
those initial response, when they couldn't do anything, it was
as if they decided they couldn't admit that this happened and
started to blame me and point out things that I had done wrong.
They put bars on my windows so that it felt as if I was
living in prison and in jail and told me I couldn't leave my
house other than the work hours. So it shifted from
understanding and compassion to quickly blaming and distancing
themselves from their role or their obligation to support me.
Senator Menendez. And did you ever get to speak to the
country director about your circumstances?
Ms. Odongo. I did. There were a series of four incidents,
and each time I was asked to write an incident report. And I
think at least two of those times I met with the country
director, and again, their response was more on what I should
be doing and what I need to do in the future to protect myself,
not what would be helpful, not what I needed. And so, it just
sort of--through the process, I sort of became complacent in
that this was my fault and that I was the one in control of
someone else harming me.
Senator Menendez. Ms. Buller, this experience that Ms.
Odongo talks about, is it an experience that your department,
as the inspector general, has reviewed, and is it both
quantifiable as well as been responded to?
Ms. Buller. We are currently involved in a review of the
agency response to sexual assaults, and we will have a report
out within the next month or so. We have conducted that review
and contacted numerous survivors of assault and have
incorporated their experiences into our report.
So there will be a report, and hopefully, we will be able
to quantify some of that, yes.
Senator Menendez. Well, I am looking forward to that.
So I see that you in your testimony talked about also
undergoing an evaluation of the impact of the 5-year rule.
Ms. Buller. Yes.
Senator Menendez. What prompted that study, and have there
been any past evaluations worthy of recognizing about the 5-
year rule?
Ms. Buller. General recognition, I think, about the lack of
institutional knowledge in the agency was one of the drivers of
our reviewing the 5-year rule. There have been studies
conducted in the past, but we haven't had anything that
actually would show the impact of that rule on agency
operations, and that is what my office is undertaking.
We don't plan to make recommendations about the 5-year
rule, but what we would like to do is to have a document that
the agency and other decisionmakers can look at to see what the
impact of that rule is on the agency's operations.
Senator Menendez. So you are not going to make a
recommendation about the 5-year rule, but you are going to make
observations about it?
Ms. Buller. We are going to provide data. We are going to
be able to provide you with, for example, the average number of
years a Peace Corps staff member stays on. But we will be able
to also break that down by office, in particular core agency
function offices.
Senator Menendez. The last thing is you conclude your
formal testimony by saying the agency must evolve and ensure
its business processes reflect the activity of today's Peace
Corps, not the agency that was founded 50 years ago.
Can you expound upon that? What exactly do you mean?
Ms. Buller. The agency, given the fact that it is so
decentralized, has so many business processes that directly
impact support given to Volunteers. From what we have found
through our work, not just in the safety and security audit or
the medical unit, but also just regular post evaluations and
audits, is that there aren't clear procedures in place for
country directors and staff to follow.
For example, it is a site development issue in whether or
not somebody should have known that somebody had already been
harassed at site. That should have been included in a site
history folder and accessible by staff. There is no policy in
place that sets out what should be included in folders, how
they should be maintained, and how they should be used. Things
of that nature.
Peace Corps needs to put the processes and procedures in
place that are necessary for country directors and their staff
to do their work adequately.
Senator Menendez. I appreciate that.
Dr. Quigley, I glanced through ``A Call To Peace,'' and I
am looking forward to reading it in full. To what extent are
recently Returned Volunteers encouraged to participate in the
shaping of the organization after their service?
Dr. Quigley. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Not as much as we would like. Let me expand upon that a
little bit. I think the question you are asking about the
culture and the receptivity to Volunteer input is really a
critical one. Any organization, any individual that is half a
century old, sometimes gets a little set in its ways. That is
completely natural and understandable.
The Peace Corps is a big, complex organization, which
operates in a lot of countries. And I think every one of the 18
directors, if they came before this committee, could credibly
say they can't succeed without the Volunteers. But there are
often impediments to significant Volunteer input on a range of
issues. Sometimes it is about structure. Sometimes it is about
technology. Sometimes it is about personality.
There are a variety of factors that prevent essential
Volunteer input preventing what we would all like to see
happen, as much as we think it should happen. I think Peace
Corps has done exceptionally well at engaging returned
Volunteers in the recruitment process and in the training
process. The Peace Corps has been less successful in engaging
Volunteers/Returned Volunteers in the placement program review
and staff assessment processes. As reflected in the scant
resources provided to one of three fundamental Peace Corps
goals that directly relates to Volunteers, the Bringing the
World Back Home or so-called Third Goal, there are missing a
significant opportunity to engage Volunteers/Returned
Volunteers.
And I think you heard from all the witnesses today that the
Peace Corps' three goals are timeless. Unfortunately, the
Returned Volunteer community is not as strong a partner as it
should be in implementing a key aspect of Peace Corps' Third
Goal.
Senator Menendez. I heard you mention a Volunteer advisory
of returned Peace Corps Volunteers in your oral testimony, has
that gotten any receptivity by the present leadership?
Dr. Quigley. We understand it was included in the
President's FY 2012 budget request. The President indicated
that he intended to revitalize this National Advisory Council
that exists in the Peace Corps Act, which has been moribund for
the last couple of decades. We think that revitalizing this
National Advisory Council would be a great step forward despite
the resources required to do so.
The composition of this National Advisory Council, Mr.
Chairman, wouldn't just be exclusively Returned Peace Corps
Volunteers. A majority of the members would be Returned Peace
Corps Volunteers, but there would be significant representation
from non-RPCVs, allowing for the input and expert advice of
others engaged in international service programs and
international development. These individuals could provide
highly relevant expertise advice and a kind of strategic
guidance and feedback that I think any best-of-class
organization should welcome.
Senator Menendez. Well, this has been incredibly helpful. I
want to thank all of you for your testimony and for your
responses.
I certainly hope that the opinions of Volunteers and former
Peace Corps Volunteers and Peace Corps staff continue to factor
into the decisionmaking, that headquarters will serve as a
resource, a facilitator, and a source of clear and consistent
information and support for Volunteers and country staff, and
that we develop a culture in the Peace Corps in which we
understand that the very essence of the agency is its
Volunteers, its human capital. How we best preserve, enhance,
and promote that human capital at the end of the day will make
for, hopefully, a fabulous next 50 years.
With that, the record will remain open until the close of
business tomorrow. And with the thanks of the committee for
your testimony, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:53 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
----------
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Responses of Peace Corps Director Aaron S. Williams to Questions
Submitted for the Record by Senator Robert Menendez
Question #1. Ensuring Continuity.--While I appreciate that under
your leadership, the Peace Corps is on track to enacting meaningful
reforms, how will you ensure that those reforms that are not legislated
continue to exist and be prioritized after you leave the Peace Corps?
Answer. As I noted in my testimony, I welcome efforts in Congress
to codify certain of the reforms that the Peace Corps has put in place
since 2009, in order to ensure that Peace Corps Volunteers receive the
support and protection they deserve now and in the future. While I
obviously cannot speak to any decisions that my successors at the
agency may make, I have tried during my tenure as Director of the Peace
Corps to ensure that agency culture, practices, and procedures reflect
a fundamental commitment to ensuring the well-being of all Volunteers.
By hiring a nationally recognized leader in victims' rights to
serve as the agency's first Victim Advocate, by signing a formal
memorandum of understanding with the Rape, Abuse and Incest National
Network (RAINN), and by establishing the Peace Corps Volunteer Sexual
Assault Panel, composed of returned Peace Corps Volunteers and experts
in sexual assault risk reduction and response, I have sought to ensure
that our policies in this area are carefully vetted and based on best
practices. I believe that we have established a strong foundation and
key partnerships that will help make these reforms a lasting part of
the Peace Corps.
In addition, where appropriate, changes have been made to the
agency's formal internal policies and procedures to ensure that all
current and future staff are aware of and abide by these reforms. For
example, the agency created a new section of the Peace Corps Manual--
which constitutes the authoritative policies governing the operations
of the Peace Corps in the United States and overseas--to ensure that
allegations and concerns expressed by Volunteers are given serious
consideration, and that appropriate measures to ensure the safety of
Volunteers raising such concerns. Staff have received training on this
policy, which is contained in Peace Corps Manual Section 271. The
agency also revised Peace Corps Manual Section 270, which addresses
Volunteer safety and security, in December 2010, and provided detailed
guidance to overseas staff on implementation of aspects of Manual
Section 270.
The agency also recently revised its written medical guidelines for
the clinical management of sexual assault to comply with the National
Protocol for Sexual Assault Medical Forensic Examinations. And the
Peace Corps has distributed formal guidance to overseas staff on
responding to rapes and sexual assaults, and on the specific procedures
to follow when Volunteers express concerns about their safety, or in
any other situations that may threaten Volunteer well-being. All of
these documents are available on the Peace Corps' Intranet.
I also oversaw the creation of the agency's Senior Policy
Committee, a formal internal body charged with developing and
promulgating official agency policies in a comprehensive, consistent
way with all stakeholders providing relevant input. Through its work,
the Senior Policy Committee helps to ensure that agency policies are
disseminated to and followed by all staff at headquarters and overseas.
In addition, as we implement the 2010 Comprehensive Agency
Assessment--our blueprint for strengthening agency operations and
performance--we are making a number of improvements to agency
operations that are designed to be systemic and lasting. Through this
effort we have developed and are now institutionalizing the country
portfolio review, the Peace Corps' first-ever formalized process for
allocating resources across our countries of operations; we are
focusing our grassroots development efforts overseas on technical areas
where our Volunteers demonstrate the greatest ability to be effective;
and we are developing standardized core training to prepare our
Volunteers to better complete their technical assignments, bringing
greater consistency and quality to our Volunteer community and local
partners around the globe. These efforts are supported by policy
development, business model restructuring, and staff reorganization to
ensure that they are sustainable in the future.
Question #2. Reoccurring Safety and Security Problems.--The April
2010 IG report noted that, between FY 2004 and FY 2009, it had
identified ``numerous'' reoccurring evaluation findings, such as posts
not thoroughly completing housing/site inspections, Volunteers engaged
in unsafe behaviors, various cities where Volunteers were in locations
considered unsafe, and inadequate emergency action plans. What steps
are you taking to ensure that problems identified in one country do not
reoccur in that country and do not reoccur in other posts? Given the
repeated evidence in recent years of Peace Corps insensitivity and
incapacity to address victims concerns, do you have confidence that the
agency has finally taken appropriate lasting action to meet safety
needs?
Answer. The Peace Corps takes the recommendations of its Office of
Inspector General (OIG) very seriously and the agency's Chief
Compliance Officer is charged with making sure that OIG recommendations
are implemented in an appropriate and timely manner.
In its April 2010 ``Final Audit Report: Peace Corps Volunteer
Safety and Security Program,'' the OIG made four recommendations
specifically addressing the need to ensure posts comply fully with
safety and security requirements. The OIG recommended that the agency:
establish a process to identify and address reoccur-
ring safety and security issues; establish a process to track post
compliance with agency policies regarding staff background
investigations; require that posts take steps to review and assess
compliance with Peace Corps Manual Section 270, which addresses
supervision of Volunteers, work assignments and site selection; and
empower the Office of Safety and Security to review and provide
guidance on actions taken by posts with respect to the safety and
security of Volunteers. The Peace Corps has implemented all of these
recommendations, and they have now been closed by the OIG.
The Peace Corps' Office of Safety and Security is charged with
overseeing security procedures at posts and providing posts with the
technical expertise, guidance, and training necessary to protect and
support Volunteers. Safety and Security staff at headquarters and
overseas help to ensure that posts are following appropriate
procedures. The office includes 10 regionally based Safety and Security
Officers, who visit each post at least annually and conduct a
compliance review and risk assessment for each post at least every 3
years.
Over the past 2 years, the agency has undertaken comprehensive and
systemic reforms to meet the safety needs of our Volunteers. This work
is still ongoing, but, as noted in my response to question (1) above, I
believe that we have already taken significant steps to better protect
and support Volunteers and to make these improvements a lasting part of
the agency's policies and practices.
Question #3. Crime Reporting.--The Peace Corps has a system to
report crimes but for a variety of reasons, some Volunteers may be
underreporting both crime and general security concerns. What measures
are you taking to improve data collection and encourage Volunteers to
fully report security problems?
Answer. The Peace Corps tracks incidents against Volunteers through
the Consolidated Incident Reporting System (CIRS). CIRS is designed to
ensure that the agency responds appropriately to victims of crime and
to allow the agency to improve training and modify programming to
enhance the safety of all Volunteers. The Peace Corps upgraded CIRS
this year to improve reporting, tracking, and analysis of safety and
security incidents. The upgraded system includes vehicular accidents
and incidents affecting both Volunteers and staff. It also includes a
new case management function to help ensure consistent, ongoing support
to Volunteers who are victims of crime.
Peace Corps Volunteers are instructed to report crimes to staff at
post in order to ensure that they receive the support and care they
need and that the agency is able to provide for their safety and that
of other Volunteers. Through steps such as the issuance of Peace Corps'
``Commitment to Sexual Assault Victims'' and ``Guidelines for
Responding to Rape and Sexual Assault,'' the Peace Corps has attempted
to encourage victims of sexual assault to report these crimes. The
``Commitment to Sexual Assault Victims'' includes the Peace Corps'
pledge to treat such victims with dignity and respect, take appropriate
steps to provide for their ongoing safety, help them understand the
relevant legal processes and legal options, and protect their privacy.
The commitment is included in the latest version of the ``Peace Corps
Volunteer Handbook,'' which all Volunteers receive.
Peace Corps also issued new guidance to staff on the specific
procedures to follow when Volunteers express concerns about their
safety, or in any other situations that may threaten Volunteer well-
being. By helping to ensure that staff take appropriate steps to
provide for the safety of Volunteers, the guidance should encourage
Volunteers to report any security concerns they may have.
The Peace Corps publishes an ``Annual Report of Volunteer Safety''
which provides detailed data and analysis regarding crimes against
Volunteers. The report is based on data collected through CIRS and it
includes a discussion of underreporting of various crimes. See, e.g.,
pp.16, 29, 48 of the 2009 report, available at http://
multimedia.peacecorps.gov/multimedia/pdf/policies/volsafety2009.pdf.
Question #4. Buddy System and Volunteer Clustering.--The Peace
Corps has emphasized the importance of integrating Volunteers into the
host community though some have proposed an alternate system that would
allow Volunteers the option of pairing up for overseas assignments.
What would be the implications of the proposed alternate system on both
the safety and security of Volunteers and the way in which they serve
overseas? How are decisions made about when to cluster Volunteers and
the proximity of Volunteers in a cluster? Is clustering used routinely
in sites where problems have been identified by past Volunteers?
Answer. The Peace Corps' ``Strategy for Volunteer Safety and
Security'' emphasizes the importance of integrating Volunteers into
their host country community. As the strategy states: ``Peace Corps
Volunteers are safest when they are in their respective communities and
when they have established relationships with community members, host
families and others to create an effective support network. Peace Corps
staff plays a key role in helping Volunteers integrate into their
community through training and site preparation. Much of what takes
place during Pre-Service Training (PST) is designed to help Volunteers
integrate, especially through language, cross-cultural and technical
training.''
While the Peace Corps is open to discussing proposals to allow
Peace Corps Volunteers to ``pair up,'' it is important to ensure that
such proposals are consistent with the ``Strategy for Volunteer Safety
and Security'' and do not hinder Volunteers' integration into their
community. It is also important to specify what is meant by pairing.
For example, requiring that paired Volunteers live together could make
it more difficult for the agency to place such Volunteers overseas,
particularly in rural areas where there may not be multiple work
assignments appropriate for Peace Corps. Requiring instead that paired
Volunteers live in proximity to one another would help to address this
concern.
Another concern could arise if Volunteers were charged with serving
as first responders for incidents involving their paired Volunteer.
Taking such responsibilities away from trained Peace Corps staff could
jeopardize the health and safety of Volunteers, and unnecessarily
burden Volunteers. Currently, designated Peace Corps staff serve as
duty officers at every post and are available 24/7 to respond to
emergencies. Every post has a Safety and Security Coordinator and one
or more Peace Corps Medical Officers to assist Volunteers. Moreover,
under S. 1280, the Kate Puzey Peace Corps Volunteer Protection Act of
2011, the agency would also be required to designate a Sexual Assault
Response Liaison at every post to assist in the response to a sexual
assault.
Where appropriate, the Peace Corps uses a strategy of
``clustering'' Volunteers, or placing a number of Volunteers in
neighboring communities in relatively close proximity to one another.
Peace Corps considers clustering of Volunteers an effective strategy to
improve Volunteer support and programmatic effectiveness. Clustering
helps:
Increase Volunteer collaboration and support.
Place highly skilled Volunteers near generalist Volunteers
to improve technical support.
Encourage communication between partners from different
communities, enabling them to learn from each other.
Facilitate management of Volunteers and the site development
process.
Improve peer support and responsiveness to safety and
security concerns.
Peace Corps encourages clustering of Volunteers at posts. The
decision to cluster assignments is made by each post based on
geographic, programmatic, and Volunteer support needs. Roughly half of
Volunteers report that are no more than 30 minutes away from the
closest Volunteer.
Clustering is not a substitute for other steps the Peace Corps
takes to address specific concerns at Volunteer sites. Peace Corps
staff rely on site inspections and visits and site history
documentation to ensure that sites are appropriate and meet all Peace
Corps and post-established criteria. The Peace Corps closely monitors
and regularly reevaluates the placement of Volunteers based on safety
and security considerations, among other factors. The Peace Corps also
institutes measures, as needed, to enhance the safety and security of
Volunteers serving at particular posts, such as restricting the times
when Volunteers may travel, the mode of transportation used, and the
areas that Volunteers may visit.
Question #5. Peace Corps Expansion.--Currently, there are roughly
8,655 Volunteers in the Peace Corps. The Bush administration's 2002
expansion initiative would have doubled the agency's size from its
January FY 2002 level of 7,000 to 14,000 by FY 2007. The Obama
administration has proposed budgets with a stated objective of reaching
an 11,000 Volunteer force by 2016. Why should the Peace Corps expand?
What size Peace Corps would you view as optimal? Is there, in your
view, an optimal number of countries in which the Peace Corps should
operate?
Answer. The work of Peace Corps Volunteers to promote development
at the grassroots level, and promote a better understanding of
Americans overseas, is more important than ever in an increasingly
complex world. Volunteers spend 27 months living and working in areas
that other programs are often unable to reach. Their work, which ranges
from targeting some of the most debilitating diseases around the world
to promoting sustainable farming practices, is crucial.
The Peace Corps operates globally on a shoestring budget--Peace
Corps receives less than 1 percent of the Federal Government's overall
foreign spending. Moreover, the investment we make in our Volunteers
continues to be repaid long after they have returned home. As President
Obama has said, ``Returned Volunteers, enriched by their experiences
overseas, bring a deeper understanding of other cultures and traditions
back to their home communities in the United States.'' The skills,
knowledge, and commitment to public service that Volunteers acquire
through their service are invaluable to our country.
Expanding the Peace Corps would allow the agency to better meet the
demand for its services--requests for Volunteers still far exceed the
Peace Corps' capacity to place them--and to fulfill its important
mission. There are currently over 9,000 Volunteers serving in 76
countries and there is no doubt that the agency could effectively
deploy more Volunteers and operate in more countries if it had
sufficient resources.
Question #6. Staff Support.--A factor in enabling Volunteer
effectiveness is strong staff support, including good programming,
training, and administration. Is the current number of staff and the
ratio of staff to volunteers sufficient to meet Peace Corps needs at
this time?
Answer. A healthy, safe, and productive experience is our goal for
every Volunteer. The Peace Corps is committed to maintaining high-
quality programming, training, and administration at each of its posts.
Staffing numbers and ratios are based on geographic, programmatic,
and security considerations, and staff on the ground work closely with
headquarters to determine appropriate staffing levels at each post.
Through such steps as establishing regional offices and clustering
Volunteers in proximity to one another, posts are able to enhance staff
support for and interaction with Volunteers. As Peace Corps continues
to adjust to the new fiscal environment, the agency will keep working
to ensure that staff ratios are optimized to ensure strong support for
our Volunteers.
Question #7. Volunteer Diversity.--In FY 2010, 19 percent of Peace
Corps Volunteers were ethnic minorities--3 percent African American; 5
percent Asian American; and 6 percent were of Hispanic/Latino origin.
More than half of current volunteers--60 percent--were female. Seven
percent of Volunteers were over 50. Are you satisfied with the current
diversity of Peace Corps Volunteers? If not, what measures would you
propose to increase diversity?
Answer. I am committed to ensuring that Peace Corps Volunteers
reflect the full diversity of the United States. Peace Corps' Office of
Diversity & National Outreach (ODNO) has undertaken a number of
initiatives to increase awareness and outreach with respect to diverse
communities:
ODNO conducted diversity recruitment trainings for all of
Peace Corps' nine regional recruitment offices. Included in
each session was a detailed overview of national and regional
diversity recruitment trends and implementable diversity
recruitment tactics/strategies.
ODNO is working with minority Greek letter organizations to
organize general information meetings for these academically
competitive and service-oriented undergraduate and alumni
members. Our goal is to recruit them for Volunteer service.
We have collaborated with the Hispanic Association of
Colleges and Universities (HACU), Hispanic Scholarship Fund
(HSF), and Hispanic College Fund (HCF) to increase our outreach
to the Latino/Hispanic community. Peace Corps has done
presentations at their national conferences and we are
organizing informational recruitment sessions for their
undergraduate populations.
Regarding Native American/American Indian outreach, our
Regional Recruitment Offices are currently evaluating strategic
PowWow events to attend. These events are generally
multigenerational and thus present an opportunity for Peace
Corps recruiters to engage the entire family.
We are piloting a program in Washington, DC, called ``Meet
the World'' which brings ethnically diverse RPCVs together with
prospective Peace Corps applicants. This program has been
running for the last 4 months, and the response from the
general population and RPCV groups has been tremendous.
We have begun a number of strategic partnerships with key
minority higher education organizations (i.e., UNCF, American
Indian Higher Education Consortium, Asian Pacific Islander
American Scholarship Fund, and HACU).
For the past 3 years, we have recruited highly experienced
individuals for Volunteer service at AARP's national
conference.
______
Responses by Peace Corps Director Aaron S. Williams to Questions
Submitted for the Record by Senator Jeanne Shaheen
Question #1. Field staff often spend a significant amount of time
fielding demands from headquarters. Some complain that they have little
time and authority to do the job they need to be doing at their posts.
What is your own assessment of this concern, and what steps if any are
you taking to address it?
Answer. Staff at headquarters are responsible for ensuring that the
Peace Corps' operations in 76 countries around the world consistently
meet agency standards in all programmatic and operational areas. For
example:
The Office of Safety and Security oversees all Peace Corps
security programs, both domestically and overseas. The office
has more than two dozen staff, including 10 Peace Corps Safety
and Security Officers who are based regionally around the world
and who provide technical expertise, guidance, and training to
Peace Corps posts.
The Office of Medical Services works to ensure that all
Volunteers receive high-quality medical care by, among other
things, selecting and managing overseas Peace Corps Medical
Officers.
The Office of Global Operations works to disseminate best
practices, provide an organized, cohesive voice to agency
leadership, and coordinate the activities of all overseas
operations.
In addition, Peace Corps' Office of Inspector General (OIG)
regularly audits posts overseas.
The oversight and expertise provided by headquarters staff are not
intended to take away from the ability of staff at posts to perform
their important work. Rather, they are intended to ensure that all
Volunteers are receiving the support they need, and that their work is
safe, productive, and rewarding. Particularly when it comes to
Volunteer safety and security and medical support, it is essential that
agency policies are implemented uniformly across all our posts.
The agency has taken an important step to enhance the authority of
staff overseas by pursuing legislation that would permit Peace Corps
personal services contractors to perform certain functions they are
currently barred from performing, such as serving as cashiers,
disbursing money, and contracting for goods and services. This
legislative fix is included in the version of S. 1280, the Kate Puzey
Peace Corps Volunteer Protection Act of 2011, that the Senate recently
approved, and it will provide for greater efficiency and consistency in
overseas operations.
Question #2. How do you balance the need for oversight from
Washington with the important task of allowing Peace Corps country
directors the leeway and flexibility to respond appropriately to
country- and region-specific issues?
Answer. Country Directors play a vital role at Peace Corps, and the
agency goes to great lengths to hire highly qualified, talented
Americans to serve in this capacity. Country Directors are entrusted
with significant responsibility, including overall responsibility for
the day-to-day management and execution of safety and security programs
at post. By performing oversight, staff at headquarters ensure that
Country Directors are meeting their responsibilities and adhering to
all agency policies and procedures.
The performance of Country Directors is assessed annually, based on
performance plans with standardized criteria. The agency uses a number
of data points to assess Country Director performance, including the
results of annual, anonymous Volunteer surveys, operations plan
submissions, and compliance with OIG audit and evaluation findings.
Regional Directors at headquarters hold regular calls with their
Country Directors to review key performance areas.
S. 1280 includes a requirement that the OIG conduct ``an assessment
of the implementation of the performance plans'' for Country Directors.
The agency looks forward to reviewing the results of this assessment.
Question #3. Are you confident that the Peace Corps bureaucracy--as
it is currently set up--is flexible and responsive enough to respond to
needs around the world in a timely and appropriate manner?
Answer. Improving the agency's management structure has been one of
my priorities since I was sworn in as director in 2009, which is why I
hired the agency's first Director of Innovation and created the Office
of Global Operations. Working closely with offices throughout Peace
Corps, the Office of Innovation is spearheading efforts to find new,
more efficient and effective ways to organize and operate across the
agency, as well as to address the recommendations that resulted from
the Comprehensive Agency Assessment that Peace Corps submitted to
Congress in June 2010. The Office of Global Operations was created to
provide overarching strategic support and management to the agency's
direct Volunteer operations.
The agency's successful evacuation of approximately 100 Volunteers
from Niger in a matter of days testifies to the ability of Peace Corps
management to respond in a timely and appropriate manner to events
around the globe. After two French citizens were kidnapped in the
capital of Niger in January 2011, the agency determined, in
consultation with the Department of State and the U.S. Embassy, that
the risk to Volunteers in-country was too high. The agency took swift
and effective action to safely evacuate all Volunteers in Niger to
Morocco between January 13 and January 17.
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