New Peace Corps Legislation to be Introduced in Congress



Read the Draft bill

Read a copy of the draft Legislation

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Interview with Congressman Sam Farr

Rep. Sam Farr discusses the Legislation with PCOL

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Returned Volunteers state their opinions

Ken Hill: An Assessment of Proposed Peace Corps Legislation

Joanne Roll: The New Peace Corps Legislation - High Risk/High Gain

Colin Gallagher: Promote or Achieve? - A Bill to amend the Peace Corps Act

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Background Information on the Bill

Sargent Shriver's 4th Goal for the Peace Corps

David Searles: The Case for Peace Corps Independence

RPCV Congressmen support Peace Corps Autonomy

The NPCA's New Mandate

Previous Press Releases about the legislation

In his review of the new Peace Corps legislation, Ken Hill mentions "the painful lessons learned from the expansion into Eastern Europe".
What painful lessons?
Hank Loeser
Czech Republic 93-96

By Admin1 (admin) on Tuesday, May 21, 2002 - 9:33 pm: Edit Post

Take a look at the Report on the Peace Corps in Eastern Europe written by the General Accounting Office (GAO) in December, 1994. There is a copy on the web at:

http://pages.prodigy.com/goto/fofm11ga.htm

Here's the synposis from the Report:

Results in Brief

The Peace Corps has comprehensive, sound written procedures for planning, introducing, and implementing new programs and preparing volunteers for entry into countries around the world. However, in its eagerness to meet the mission set out by the President and the Congress to help the former Eastern bloc countries, the Peace Corps truncated or overrode its normal procedures and launched programs prematurely. As a result, the Peace Corps faced serious difficulties that limited the programs' effectiveness in those countries. The four programs we examined (Poland, Bulgaria, Russia, and Uzbekistan) had very difficult beginnings. The programs were poorly designed, and volunteers did not receive the guidance, support, or well conceived assignments they were led to expect. The Peace Corps suffered a high rate of staff turnover and early returns of volunteers. As a result, the programs' developmental impact in these countries was impaired.

Peace Corps officials acknowledged the problems and have taken actions designed to overcome them; however, it is too soon to determine how effective these actions will be.

The Peace Corps programs in the former Eastern bloc were not undertaken at the expense of programs in other regions. Funding and staffing in other countries did not appear to be affected by the new programs.