Monday, July 27, 2009

The Interagency Working Group (IAWG) on U.S. Government-Sponsored International Exchanges and Training


During my recent research efforts on international education and public/citizen diplomacy efforts in the United States I came across a very interesting website for the Interagency Working Group (IAWG) on U.S. Government-Sponsored International Exchanges and Training.

The work of the IAWG is not new to me as I have found and perused a few of their annual reports and inventories of programs that I have randomly come across online in the past. However, while the IAWG website might not be new to some IHEC Blog readers it’s new to me and it is a discovery I’m very happy about as I imagine I will consult it frequently during the research for and writing of my dissertation (working title is Towards the Development of a Methodology to Measure Public Diplomacy Outcomes of International Education Programs).

Here is a very brief description of the IAWG copied from their website and a listing of what is currently available on their website:

“The Interagency Working Group (IAWG) on U.S. Government-Sponsored International Exchanges and Training was created in 1998 to make recommendations to the President for improving the coordination, efficiency, and effectiveness of United States Government-sponsored international exchanges and training.”

Available on the website:

- Annual Reports FY 1997 to 2008
- Country Field Studies for Georgia (May 2000), Morocco (May 2000), Thailand (May 2000), Poland (May 1999), South Africa (May 1999) and the Dominican Republic (April 1999)
- Inventories of Programs VY 1997 to 2007
- Regional Reports
- Special Reports
- Public-Private Partnerships which includes several case studies as well as extensive listing of non-governmental partner organizations with external links.

You can access the IAWG website
here.