By: U.S. GAO

The Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) work routinely generates recommendations for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of government programs, resulting in measurable savings and improvements. Since fiscal year (FY) 2002, GAO’s work has resulted in about $1.38 trillion in financial benefits and over 28,000 program and operational benefits that have helped change laws, improve public safety and other services, and promote better management throughout government. In FY 2023 alone, GAO’s work yielded $70.4 billion in financial benefits—a return of about $84 for every dollar invested in GAO. GAO also identified 1,220 other benefits—those that cannot be measured in dollars but led to program and operational improvements across the government.  Examples of recent accomplishments include:

The rapidly evolving pace of AI makes it necessary to establish a framework to independently verify AI systems (even as the technology continues to advance). The global accountability community needs a toolkit to evaluate this ever-changing technology, and, more importantly, organizations that build, purchase, and deploy AI need a framework to understand how AI systems will be evaluated. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), recognizing the urgent need for AI governance…

On May 25, 2021, Mr. Gene Dodaro, Comptroller General of the United States, led a virtual discussion group on lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 30 organizations—including INTOSAI organizations and 21 Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs), donor and civil society organizations, and United Nations organizations and observers—contributed to the dialogue. The group stems from…

On April 7, 2021, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) held the first in a series of free international webinars to promote knowledge sharing and address emerging issues the INTOSAI community is facing during the pandemic. More information about the webinar series can be found here. The topic of the first webinar was the challenges and lessons learned in conducting real-time audits of COVID-19 activities. The webinar featured…

Combating fraudsters has long been a persistent challenge for governmental entities. While there are no precise figures, fraudulent activities drain billions of taxpayer dollars each year from vital programs. In today’s digitally-connected, information-driven world…

The COVID-19 Pandemic has posed significant challenges to public health, the global economy, our governments, Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs), and the citizens we serve. As an independent, non-partisan, objective agency, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) provides oversight of the federal response to the COVID-19 Pandemic. GAO has…