Strengthen security and safety of workforce and physical assets  

Crime, terrorist attacks, civil disorder, health, and natural disasters threaten U.S. government personnel, their family members, and U.S. government facilities around the world. The Department of State and USAID aim to ensure its people and assets are safe by strengthening security programs, protective operations, and physical building infrastructure. 

The Department and USAID will secure U.S. foreign affairs activity in all operating environments by providing safe, secure, functional, and sustainable facilities. Department and USAID facilities must comply with stringent security, protective, health, safety, environmental, and building code requirements, while ensuring a level of openness and accessibility that enables diplomatic priorities. Diplomatic Security’s International Program (DS/ IP) and High Threat Program (DS/HTP) Directorates will help to achieve this objective through risk-based analysis and recommendations. The USAID Space Matters Program and the Department of State’s Impact Initiative and USAID’s ReDesign will also contribute to this objective. Strategies for Achieving the Objective The Department and USAID must proactively assess risks and strengthen the ability to respond. Achieving this requires strategies in priority areas, which includes fulfilling the Department’s key responsibilities of developing and ensuring compliance with security standards, being a leader in protective security operations, and ensuring operationally safe facilities that adhere to occupational health and safety standards. This will require yearly review of all high threat, high risk posts by senior Department leadership using the Post Security Program Review (PSPRs) process and Program Management Review (PMRs) process to ensure adherence to Overseas Security Policy Board (OSPB) policy and compliance with procedures. Each year, the Department will review and validate our continued, or new, presence at all high threat, high risk posts using the Senior Committee on Overseas Risk Evaluation (SCORE) process. The Department and USAID will establish and institutionalize an “Expeditionary Platform Working Group” in instances when foreign policy goals dictate a diplomatic or development presence in new or non-traditional operating environments. This Working Group would incorporate subject matter experts from appropriate Department of State bureaus. Relevant representation from USAID and the Department of Defense should also be included to reflect an approach that encompasses defense, diplomacy, and development. Staff plays a vital role in strengthening the security posture for both the Department and USAID. We will promote efforts to improve staff proficiency in mitigating organizational and individual staff security. We will emphasize a risk profile that balances risk and operational effectiveness and prepare people to operate wherever our work takes us, including in increasingly complex, unstable, and risky environments. The Department and USAID will centralize lessons learned with respect to both risk management and security concerns, thus making it easy to search and data mine security-related information to improve the institutionalization of corrective actions and create a true learning organization. We will also develop a mission analysis and policy planning process that is consistent, credible, and actionable, and that balances risk and resources. Finally, the Department and USAID will codify our cooperation with other agencies (for example, Department of Defense, allied forces, United Nations, NGOs, etc.) by establishing standing authorities, protocols, and global mechanisms to improve operational effectiveness overseas, especially in non-permissive environments. Cross Agency Collaboration We will collaborate with the Department of Defense (DoD), United States Marine Corps (USMC), Intelligence Community, Overseas Security Policy Board (OSPB) members, private sector (architecture and engineering firms, construction firms, etc.), Office of Management and Budget (OMB), General Services Administration (GSA), and Congress to achieve this objective. Risk The Department and USAID have increased diplomatic presence in dangerous places to accomplish U.S. foreign policy and development objectives. In those environments, it is harder to protect our people and to build and operate safe facilities. Political behavior that destabilizes existing governance structures or distribution of power complicates our ability to negotiate with government officials and obtain the support needed for our security programs and construction of facilities. Events in countries where we maintain presence, such as war, terrorism, and civil disturbance, have impacts that could range from temporarily disrupting operations to threatening the physical safety of our employees, especially local employed staff. Certain countries and property owners are unable or unwilling to provide full site transparency, which stifles fair pricing and access to preferential locations that provide a safer and more secure environment for our operations and staff. Such constraints are exacerbated by our need to assess and operate under a variety of complicated local construction conditions, environments, laws, and regulations.