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The Department of Defense (DoD), which includes the military services, selects mid- to upper-career-level military officers to participate in fellowship and training-with-industry programs conducted at non-DoD organizations such as universities, think tanks, private corporations, federal agencies, and Congress. For some fellowships, the military departments pay a fee or tuition to the host organization. GAO was directed to review DoD's use of these programs. GAO's objectives were to determine the following: (1) the statutory provisions that authorize DoD's fellowship and training-with-industry programs for military officers, (2) the extent of the Office of the Secretary of Defense's (OSD) visibility over these programs, and (3) the extent to which the services are able to determine that they derive benefits from these programs. GAO analyzed relevant laws and DoD policies, collected data, and interviewed OSD and military service officials on their oversight and management roles and responsibilities for these programs. GAO is making 11 recommendations to DoD for improving oversight and management of DoD's fellowship and training-with-industry programs -- for example, submitting DoD-required annual reports and performing service-required program reviews -- that would enhance OSD's visibility over the programs and better position DoD to determine the extent to which it derives benefits from them. In response to a draft of this report, DoD concurred with the 11 recommendations and stated its action plan to implement the recommendations., Report to Congressional Committees.

The United States has advocated reforms of United Nations (UN) management for many years. In October 2006, GAO reported that UN management reforms were progressing slowly and that many were still awaiting review by the General Assembly. For this review, GAO was asked to do the following: (1) determine the progress of UN management reform initiatives in five key areas -- ethics, oversight, procurement, management operations of the Secretariat, and review of programs and activities (known as mandates) -- and (2) identify factors that have slowed the pace of reform efforts. To address these objectives, GAO reviewed documents relating to UN management reform and interviewed U.S. and UN officials. To encourage UN member states to continue to pursue the reform agenda of the 2005 World Summit, GAO recommends that, as management reforms are implemented over time, the Secretary of State and the U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN include in State's annual "U.S. Participation in the United Nations" report an assessment of the effectiveness of the reforms. State agreed with GAO's recommendation and generally endorsed GAO's findings and conclusions., Report to the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, U.S. Senate.

The science and technology (S&T) program supported by the Department of Defense (DoD) is a large undertaking (approximately $11 billion in 2004) aimed at ensuring continued technological superiority of the U.S. military. Exercising stewardship over this program is of great importance. In this regard the program is subjected to numerous reviews dealing with its relevance, viability, and productivity. At various levels of detail, every element of the program is reviewed. However, the sum of all the reviews does not constitute an assessment of the entire DoD S&T enterprise. This study examines why this is the case and examines the prospects for rectifying this situation. An effective enterprise-wide assessment (EWA) would contribute to the ability of the Director of Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E) to provide oversight to enhance the content of the S&T portfolio through metrics of program quality, performance, and relevance. It would increase collaboration between projects with aligned objectives and provide a knowledge base of the S&T program sufficient to justify the investment to the services and Congress. An effective EWA also would support the services in that it would focus their internal topical reviews to problem areas identified in the EWA. It also would provide them a broader insight into the entire S&T program and their place within it. This would result in greater program coordination and reliance on other service programs. Also, an EWA could form the basis of an interrelated community of experts across the entire S&T spectrum., The original document contains color images.