Chapter Four
Policy Actions And Recommendations That Could Improve
Interagency Coordination
Current government-wide policy covering negotiating and
signing international agreements allows considerable latitude
on the part of the agencies to determine when to establish
formal cooperative relationships with other countries. The
current mix of formal and informal coordination works well,
according to agency officials. Nevertheless, the lack of a
clear policy on when to enter into an agreement and at what
level of formality to establish relations results in
inconsistency across the agencies about how, when, and why to
agree to cooperate. Moreover, lack of a central location for
collecting agreements and providing information about them
leads to some duplication of effort among the government
agencies. One government official suggested that the current
process of informal coordination has grown up largely because
of the cumbersome nature of the formal interagency process,
which takes months to complete and often holds up important
international cooperative activities.
Three possible policy actions emerge from this research that,
if implemented, could improve coordination when entering into
agreements:
- rationalize the names of and purposes for different types
of agreements
- create a central clearinghouse on the World Wide Web for
ISTAs
- streamline the formal interagency coordination
process.
Different agencies use different agreement vehicles and
different negotiating strategies to enter into an
international agreement. Rationalizing the terms of and
descriptions for international agreements across agencies
would enable comparison of the activities across the various
agencies. Each agency uses its own names for agreements of
different kinds, making it difficult to compare the formality
of agreements across agencies. A formal definition of an
MOU, for example, and when to enter into such an agreement
like this could help make U.S. government activities more
transparent.
Creating a central clearinghouse for information about ISTAs,
perhaps using the World Wide Web as the place to store and
obtain information on government agreements, could help
government, industry, and academic researchers to find out
more about supports in place to aid international
cooperation. Although some of the international agreements
are available at the Web sites of the Department of Commerce
and the Department of State, these lists only scratch the
surface of the number of agreements these agencies have
already entered into. Such a data set could provide useful
information when an agency begins to discuss cooperation with
its foreign counterparts.
Finally, streamlining the formal Circular 175 process could
increase the frequency with which it is used. For example,
such new information tools as electronic information transfer
could be used to alert interested agencies when an agreement
is being negotiated and, simultaneously, to solicit comments
from these agencies. Increased use of the Circular 175
process would enable the Department of State to become aware
of more of the international cooperation the agencies are
initiating, as well as enable the agencies to track the
activities of their counterparts in other agencies.
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