Memorandum of Agreement Between the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Consular Affairs and the Council on Accreditation

The Department of State (the Department) is the lead Federal agency for implementation of the 1993 Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (the Convention), the Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000 (IAA), and the Intercountry Adoption Universal Accreditation Act of 2012 (UAA). Among other things, the IAA and UAA give the Secretary of State responsibility, by entering into agreements with one or more qualified entities and designating such entities as accrediting entities, for the accreditation of agencies and approval of persons to provide adoption services in intercountry adoptions. This notice is to inform the public that on July 11, 2016, the Department entered into an agreement with the Council on Accreditation (COA) designating COA as an accrediting entity (AE) for an additional five years. The Memorandum of Agreement between the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Consular Affairs and the Council on Accreditation (2016 MOA) remains largely consistent with the terms of the MOA signed on July 12, 2006 by Maura Harty, Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs, U.S. Department of State and signed on July 6, 2006 by Richard Klarberg, President and Chief Executive Officer, COA. However, the 2016 MOA has been updated to reflect enactment of the UAA and to remove obsolete references, while further refining the role and responsibilities of the accrediting entity and taking into account subsequent updates to the intercountry adoption accreditation regulations in 22 CFR part 96. The text of the 2016 MOA is included in its entirety at the end of this Notice.