The Foreign Service Journal, April 2011

10 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / A P R I L 2 0 1 1 partment has awarded $20 million in grants to fund Internet freedom in var- ious countries. In a Feb. 15 speech at George Washington University, Secre- tary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to Internet freedom and announced that State plans to spend more than $25 million to support it this year. We will continue to report on this lively debate, both in upcoming edi- tions of Cybernotes and elsewhere in the Journal . —Danielle Derbes, Editorial Intern Controlling an Army of Contractors On Feb. 24 the Commission on Wartime Contracting (www.wartime contracting.gov) issued its second re- port to Congress detailing 32 ways to eliminate billions of dollars in waste as- sociated with the federal government’s unprecedented use of contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. Titled “At What Risk? Correcting Over-Reliance on Contractors in Con- tingency Operations,” the report esti- mates that Uncle Sam has spent $177 billion since 2002 on contractors oper- ating in the two countries. Currently, about 200,000 of them work there, a force roughly equal to the combined number of U.S. civilian and military forces currently assigned to those war zones. Yet even as the use of hired hands has become a “default option” for the Defense Department, State Department and U.S. Agency for In- ternational Development, vigorous oversight and management are too often an administrative after-thought. The commission says that contrac- tors have generally performed well in Afghanistan and Iraq. But bribes, kick- backs and money laundering have tar- nished their image. “War by its nature entails waste,” the report says. “But the scale of the problems in Iraq and Afghanistan also reflects the toxic in- terplay of huge sums of money pump- ed into relatively small economies.” Commission Co-Chair Michael Thibault, a former deputy director of the Defense Contract Audit Agency, comments: “When it comes to over- sight of contingency contracting, we’ve been driving beyond the reach of our headlights. Reforms are badly need- ed.” After explaining the budgetary and policy reasons for America’s over-re- liance on contractors, the study pro- poses an array of legislative, regulatory and budgetary measures. Key recom- mendations include: • Growing the federal government’s organic capability to perform critical functions and developing a deployable contingency-acquisition cadre; • Restricting reliance on contrac- tors for security functions; • Strengthening enforcement tools that hold contractors and government officials accountable for performance; • Establishing high-level positions at Defense, State and USAID, and a new “dual-hatted” policy position in the exective branch with responsibili- C Y B E R N O T E S Sites of the Month: www.girleffect.org and www.girlup.org To change the world, invest in girls: This is the simple but powerful concept being promoted and spread online in two major campaigns, The Girl Effect and GirlUp . • When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children. • An extra year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual wages by 10 to 20 per- cent. An extra year of secondary school: 15 to 25 percent. • When a girl gets a chance, she will reinvest her income and knowledge back into the community and can break the cycle of intergenerational poverty. These notes from www.girleffect.org are part of a global campaign to help girls in the developing world help themselves and their communities. The idea is that when a girl reaches adolescence, she is at a crossroads. The Girl Effect campaign — “the unique potential of 600 adolescent girls to end poverty for themselves and the world” — seeks to raise awareness and support for girls in the developing world. The message is spreading primarily through social media via a short, inspiring video that illustrates the way things go for many girls in the developing world after age 12, depending on the opportunities they have. The Web site offers toolkits for raising awareness, starting clubs and fundraising. These can be used to raise money for the Girl Effect Fund or for any other organization that seeks to assist girls in the developing world. A related campaign— GirlUp — launched by the United Nations Foundation is de- signed to engage and connect American teens to efforts to improve the lives of girls in the developing world. Specifically, the aim is to mobilize 100,000 American girls to raise money and awareness to fight poverty, sexual violence and child marriage in the developing world. And in the process, they gain leadership and advocacy skills. The GirlUp site, www.girlup.org , is friendly, and pink, and includes material to in- spire American teens to get outside their own personal worlds and get involved. GirlUp uses Facebook, Twitter and other social media, blogs and teen representa- tives to get the message out. — Shawn Dorman, Associate Editor