A government inspector general on Wednesday raised concerns about issues with the now-defunct U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and highlighted that billions of dollars are funneled to non-government organizations in corruption-prone regions with minimal accountability.

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction said in a new report that “since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, the U.S. government has spent billions of U.S. taxpayer funds on projects intended to provide for Afghans’ basic needs.”

According to the Daily Wire, the report said the State Department and USAID have turned to Public International Organizations, its term for NGOs, “as the primary means of delivering this aid,” but “have been inconsistent in their efforts to formally require PIOs to agree to U.S. government oversight on how funding is spent and whether projects are delivering intended results” rather than being “diverted to the Taliban.”

On Wednesday, a For example, the USAID Mission to Afghanistan’s standard contract with NGOs did not require these organizations to allow visits by American officials to verify their on-the-ground activities.

Additionally, according to the inspector general’s report, USAID had contracted a third-party monitoring group to conduct site visits as an alternative means of oversight. However, it appears that the agency paid for these visits without the group actually performing them, according to the IG’s report.

USAID appeared to have confidence in the groups receiving funds, which were often partnerships with foreign governments. This approach did not always yield positive results, however.

For example, USAID funded the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for a “water, sanitation, and hygiene project in Afghanistan” in 2024. It never bothered to visit, however, the Daily Wire noted, citing the report.

The inspector general did, and “found numerous issues that UNICEF did not report to USAID. Had USAID conducted site visits, it could have identified these deficiencies and asked UNICEF to address them.”

Similarly, State Department units in sensitive areas—such as the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs/Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement—funded programs where the operators refused to permit oversight visits from their benefactors.

Only one out of five State Department bureaus reviewed by the inspector general included language in its standard contract saying “the recipient agrees to allow access for site visits by USAID and/or its agents as necessary.”

The State Department also does not require PIOs to report instances of “diversion,” which means “instances of waste, fraud, abuse, corruption, coercion, aid diversion, and interference” by groups like the Taliban, the Daily Wire added.

USAID is supposed to require its contractors to report such misconduct, but “USAID/AFG included an optional diversion reporting clause in only some of its project contributions.”

“Without diversion reporting, USAID and State will not know the true extent to which the Taliban is interfering with and benefiting from U.S. funded activities,” the inspector general said.