Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Peace Corps' operations and activities.
GAO found that the Peace Corps: (1) was unable to make significant progress in attaining a congressional mandate of 10,000 volunteers; (2) did not fully implement mechanisms to attract volunteers with scarce skills, such as doctors, veterinarians, education specialists, and crop extension agents; (3) relied heavily on recruitment methods it used to attract generalists; (4) despite failing to provide career paths or adequate incentives to recruiters to seek scarce-skill volunteers, instructed its overseas staff not to request volunteers with scarce skills; (5) met nearly 100 percent of the requests for generalists, but filled only about 60 percent of requests for individuals with scarce skills; (6) did not consistently develop adequate assignments for volunteers; (7) needed to attract more minorities to serve as volunteers so that it would accurately reflect the diverse U.S. population; (8) until recently, had few minorities in upper-level management to serve as recruitment role models; and (9) did not devote consistent efforts or significant resources to give returned volunteers the opportunity to teach Americans about foreign cultures.
