Helping States at War Transition to Peace
Roughly sixty percent of countries receiving U.S. foreign aid are impacted by violent conflict. While the United States is relatively effective at meeting emergency humanitarian needs, U.S. foreign assistance is less effective at helping countries break cycles of conflict and build durable peace. Increasingly, development assistance is also being used as a weapon of war to “win hearts and minds” of people living in countries where the U.S military is active. Militarized aid negates the positive long-term effects of development and puts civilians – both local people and international aid workers - more at risk of becoming targets in war.
A better approach is to make development aid “conflict-sensitive”, designing programs so that they do not fuel social tensions and, ideally, to support peace and help prevent deadly conflict from erupting in the first place. Two offices within the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) currently work to apply development assistance in ways that can encourage peace.
USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI):
OTI, one of USAID’s most effective programs, helps states at war transition to a stable peace by providing quick and timely assistance for projects that promote reconciliation, jumpstart local economies, strengthen independent media, and help train legislators in nascent democracies. Its programs support the implementation of fragile peace processes, strengthen civil society’s role in advancing peace, and address underlying social and economic causes of conflict. OTI also works in countries at risk of falling into war to help mitigate potential violence and encourage nonviolent management of conflicts. OTI has developed a 15-year track record in this work.
Conflict Management and Mitigation Office (CMM):
In 2003, USAID launched its CMM office to address an emerging understanding that many underlying causes of instability, extremism, and violence are related to social and economic conditions, and that USAID as a whole needed to become more “conflict-sensitive” in the way it provides assistance. CMM recognizes that development goals like reviving struggling economies, strengthening governance, and peacefully settling competing claims on natural resources affect the stability of a country. It is charged with helping USAID mainstream tools and practices to better prevent and mitigate conflict throughout its development programming.
Congress’s Role:
Congress is actively working to advance comprehensive reform of the foreign aid system. As it does so, policymakers should take lessons from the work of both OTI and CMM. Development should be elevated as a core part of U.S. foreign policy and should be designed to be more conflict-sensitive (see FCNL’s 7 Peacebuilding Principles for Foreign Aid Reform). In 2009, Congress took one important step to provide more flexible funding to USAID to prevent and respond to crises by creating a new $50 million Complex Crises Fund, included in H.R 3288, a consolidated appropriations bill. The fund will be administered by USAID in consultation with the Department of State and can be used for projects like those undertaken by OTI, CMM, and the Civilian Response Corps. FCNL lobbied hard for creation of this fund and will work to increase it in the years ahead.
