The Foreign Service Journal, March 2011

34 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A R C H 2 0 1 1 ANNUAL REPORT American Foreign Service Association 2010 AFSA by the Numbers in 2010 19 percent of unique visitors regularly reading the digital Foreign Service Journal 69 people following AFSA on Twitter 75 percent of overseas posts with an AFSA representative 97 students receiving AFSA scholarship aid 105 members participating in AFSA’s newest benefit program, Zipcar 174 countries where people accessed the digital Journal 530 FS community members who are lifetime members of AFSA 2,114 fans of AFSA on Facebook 3,344 average number of visits per month to the digital Foreign Service Journal 6,365 regular online readers of the Journal 9,479 subscribers regularly receiving news updates from the AFSANET listserv 15,438 individual AFSA members 33,692 unique visitors to the online Foreign Service Journal 33,715 visitors to the Inside a U.S. Embassy Web page $103,703 December FSJ ad sales, a new monthly record $180,700 awards and scholarships bestowed to Foreign Service students for college $5,114,619 AFSA Scholarship Fund’s endowment value as of Sept. 30 T he past year was not an easy one for USAID and its employees. But it began well: After a year of uncertainty, Administrator Rajiv Shah was finally confirmed on Dec. 24, 2009. Yet many important actions, such as the publication of the Quadrennial Diplomacy and De- velopment Review, kept being postponed. And, as we came to the end of 2010, several key positions, such as those for assistant administrator for the various bureaus, were still vacant. Nevertheless, the USAID AFSA office continued to look after your interests both globally and, in many instances, individually. In March 2010, after receiving complaints from the field, AFSA carried out a worldwide employee survey on the State Department’s move to consolidate USAID ad- ministrative platforms into embassy operations. The sur- vey results documented employees’ concerns over increased administrative costs, inefficiencies, poorer serv- ices, waste and inequalities for USAID. AFSA’s other lobbying efforts focused on preserving past successes, including the Overseas Comparability Pay phase- in and keeping mid-level hiring to reasonable levels. Less well known are the hundreds of personal inter- ventions we made on behalf of our members. For in- stance, we helped one overseas family move out of a neighborhood potentially contaminated by lead pollution. We supported medically compromised employees seeking extended sick leave donations once their own keave had been exhausted. We routinely intervened with the Bureau of Human Resources to process late travel orders, reimbursements and annual leave issues. We also resolved payroll and billing problems, such as lease penalty payments, for de- parting officers. There are too many other issues to mention individually here, but we have worked to address all of them fully. While most cases can be negotiated with HR, some in- volved the more complicated grievance process. Our suc- cess rate for those is high, as well. To avoid litigation, we participated closely in the For- eign Service assignment system, as well as the annual eval- uation and tenure processes, to ensure fairness and conformance with the rules. We encourage you to contact us about your needs. USAID: Preserving Past Gains ■ B Y F RANCISCO Z AMORA , AFSA USAID VP