Week Five

I originally thought this past week was going to be as slow as the week prior, but I was happily surprised!

June 26th is the organization-wide deadline for submitting final reports to the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement. This means the IPD team here has a lot of work to do before then. As have most of the things I have written about, this deadline is connected to the State Department's stop work order under the new administration back in January. When a large grant-funded project or initiative is canceled, there is a lot of things to do to wrap the project up and tie up any loose ends. An organization like NCSC cannot simply drop everything and leave once a program wraps. A bit under half of NCSC's programs were canceled, so since January the team has been working diligently to close all operations in those countries. This is all cumulating in the submission of the final project report. This past week I was able to contribute to writing the report and discovered how much data goes into grant initiatives. I created charts aimed at showcasing outcomes and achievements through data such as the number of men and women that attended training workshops on anti-corruption efforts in local courts. I've also been taught the importance of data analysis with respect to government initiatives, as the State Department will look to this methodology to judge the success of the project. Analyzing results is a lot more quantitative than I expected for a government contractor! This is all a part of bureaucracy and the scrutiny of federal funds.

This week was also a bit more hectic than usual because a delegation from the Kenyan judiciary will be visiting next week. One of NCSC's projects includes an international delegation program, which sponsors groups from around the world to come to DC and study our justice system. I'm excited to meet them and hear their perspective on the problems they face in Kenya, as well as what they think of the American judicial system.