The Foreign Service Journal, March 2021

40 MARCH 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL (including at State) did (except for 2014, when all awards were frozen). The PRAs were awarded to the Senior Foreign Service in 2018 and 2019, but not in 2020. The PRA can be received only once in three years. The Biden administration is committed to diplomacy. Getting the PRAs back on track reinforces that commitment. Bill Haugh is a retired State FSO in Fairfax, Virginia. Address Systemic Racial Disparities at State TheThursday Luncheon Group proposes the following reforms to enable employees of color to successfully thrive and rise through the ranks of the Department of State. FS Promotions. Add “diversity and inclusion effectiveness” as a fourth employee evaluation review tenet, and make the Foreign Service Institute’s “Mitigating Unconscious and Conscious Bias” training a prerequisite for promotion to the FS-3, FS-2 and FS-1 levels. Link senior performance pay to the promotion of diversity, inclusion and equity, and use anonymous 360-degree surveys as part of the SPP review process. FS Selection Board Process. Mandate the inclusion of an affin- ity group representative on all selection boards, prioritizing the selection of TLG or Pickering and Rangel Fellowship Association members. A newly established senior adviser for diversity and inclusion should participate in the screening, vetting and selec- tion of all board members. Institutionalize the use of Virtual Selection Boards to expand the pool of available officers from affinity groups. Reestablish multifunctionality selection boards for officers competing at the FS-2 to FS-1 and FS-1 to FE-OC levels. This will promote greater transparency and fairness for officers serving in out-of-cone assignments. Exclude any Foreign Service or Civil Service officer facing an equal employment opportunity complaint of merit from serving on any selection board for two to five years. FS Mentoring and Counseling Programs. Institutionalize a robust mentoring program and counseling services, administered by the Bureau of Global Talent Management and the Office of Medical Services, to support employees of color at every stage of their careers. Formalize a leadership program for FS-3 employees of color, to be administered by FSI, to provide career guidance and hone their managerial and supervisory skills. This will create a stronger pipeline of officers prepared for future deputy chief of mission and chief of mission positions. Develop a leadership program for FS-1 employees of color to coach and train them for executive leadership positions and pair themwith senior mentors. Further, the Office of the Deputy Secre- tary should encourage senior-level colleagues to develop a spon- sorship program to support employees of color as they attempt to cross over into the senior ranks of the department. FSO Irvin Hicks Jr., currently serving in the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, is president of The Thursday Luncheon Group. Respect Expertise and Direct Experience Push down decision-making power by allowing more autonomy of action at lower levels in Washington agencies and at embassies. Under the Trump administration, too many issues were pushed up to the seventh floor for decisions. Rely more, as has been done in the past, on information flow- ing upward that provides analysis and indicates initial courses of action to be taken. Be as inclusive as possible in allowing action officers to take part in deliberations and policy discussions to demonstrate respect for expertise and direct experience. Andrew Hyde is a retired State FSO in Bethesda, Maryland. Break Down Barriers to Interagency Effectiveness The Biden administration has an immense opportunity to break down institutional barriers between government programs and agencies that will usher in a new era of policy effective- ness. While our government has relative mastery of interagency coordination processes, achieving meaningful results is frequently hobbled by corporate cultures, bureaucratic protectionism, sys- tems incompatibility and perverse incentive structures. The limitations of doing business as usual are increasingly apparent in international affairs and global competition in which government is relatively less influential than in the past. Both adversaries, such as China, and allies, such as the Netherlands, are comparatively more capable of mobilizing the capacities and capabilities of disparate government departments to support policy implementation and the needs of the increasingly influen- tial private sector around the world. The Biden administration must begin an overdue, ambi-