Economic Questions:
How will funding work in practice? What mechanisms are in place to ensure that funding will be incremental and not fund projects already planned?
How will they measure the effects of the spending rather than just whether projects happened?
Has any cost-benefit analysis been conducted?
The Act allocates no incremental funding. Does Congress believe USAID should be doing less of any particular activity to make resources available?
Will the relevant agencies work to build evaluation into the programs? Countries around the world have universal service programs to help bridge the digital divide, but almost none of those programs have been rigorously evaluated. Without such evaluations, how is USAID or any other agency to know what efforts are likely to be successful? The Act says agencies should include target metrics, but those are not sufficient: evaluations must be designed to determine whether specific initiatives are responsible for any increases, not simply whether a target was met.
Summary:
Introduced by Reps. White (R-TX), McCaul (R-TX), Lieu (D-CA), and Bera (D-CA). The GAP Act restructures funding for USAID to promote broadband development in underserved countries. It includes provisions for a “build once” policy (ensures that infrastructure is built to last generations), and for more transparency in projects to encourage private investment.
Supporters are on both sides of the aisle. They argue that improved internet access would help address global health crises by better documenting of spread of diseases, potentially saving lives; improve the lives of people currently living without internet access in innumerable ways; and makes US funding/investment more efficient and transparent.