The Foreign Service Journal, March 2011

verall, 2010 has been a year of new initiatives and serious chal- lenges for the Foreign Service and for AFSA. The Governing Board and AFSA’s professional staff have focused on four broad goals: protecting resources for our agencies, including overseas comparability pay for the For- eign Service; increasing cooperation with management; im- proving the image and outreach of AFSA and the Foreign Service; and modernizing and professionalizing AFSA’s in- ternal operations, especially in the area of communications. To move forward on this agenda we engaged on five main fronts: man- agement, Congress, the media and other organizations, our members, and strengthening internal AFSA capacity and operations. Management Management across all our member agencies was challenged and stretched as the Obama admin- istration launched an ambitious agenda: implementation of Diplo- macy 3.0 and hiring surges for State and USAID, a large budget request increase at FCS for the National Export Initiative, and holding the line against further erosion elsewhere. Our goal was increased engagement but, despite initial hopes stemming fromPresident Barack Obama’s executive order calling for better labor management coopera- tion and more consultation, it was an uphill march. We had little to no input on implementation of Diplomacy 3.0, but we did succeed in engaging constructively and frankly with the two co-chairs of the Quadrennial Diplomacy and De- velopment Review regarding human resources issues of direct interest and concern to AFSA. Our feedback on an early pro- posal for a mid-level lateral entry program from the outside led to it being dropped and replaced by alternative approaches. Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke positively about AFSA’s contribution to these issues. Professional Education and Training Another priority on which we have begun to engage with management is professional education and training for diplo- macy and development. AFSA has worked closely with the American Academy of Diplomacy and participated in the ad- visory group chaired by Ambassa- dor Thomas Pickering, which has worked with Director General Nancy Powell and FSI Director Ruth Whiteside. We look forward to continued engagement in this area. The Policy Planning Staff and the Bureau of Human Resources welcomed AFSA’s initiative to re- vive the Open Forum, which we believe will encourage informed discussion and sharing of different perspectives on key foreign policy issues. We hope the Open Forum or a successor program will soon be restored. Throughout 2010 we actively engaged on a broad range of individual issues and they are detailed by each agency vice pres- ident elsewhere in this report. AFSA is working to strengthen our advocacy and legislative affairs capacity in a variety of ways. These include creating new senior staff positions for policy and labor management; devel- M A R C H 2 0 1 1 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 23 Josh Dorman AFSA ANNUAL REPORT American Foreign Service Association 2010 B Y S USAN R. J OHNSON , P RESIDENT Working for a Stronger AFSA O