Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation
The Development Challenge: Widespread, deadly violence affects approximately 60% of the countries in which USAID operates, and in many places the costs and consequences of violent conflict have become unacceptably high. By the year 2000, internal conflict and repression had generated 14.5 million refugees and asylum seekers worldwide; nearly 25 million persons were displaced within their own countries. In today's wars, civilians are nine times more likely to be killed than combatants. Child soldiers, gender-specific atrocities (the raping of women, the killing of men) and the killing, injuring and kidnapping of aid workers are all part of "new war" scenarios.
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In these lawless settings, a new breed of "conflict entrepreneur" has found sanctuary, and the line between criminal violence and political violence has blurred. Transnational criminal organizations, terrorist networks and local warlords have exploited instability to amass enormous power and wealth and to directly target U.S. interests and citizens.
Violent conflict has also dramatically disrupted traditional development. It discourages investment, destroys human and physical capital, redirects natural resources to non-productive uses, and causes a dramatic deterioration in the quality of life. In the past 40 years, the United States has spent billions of dollars on development programs, many of which have not come to fruition due to conflict.
In reviewing its priorities, USAID is acutely aware of the fact that stability no longer characterizes its operating environment and that development assistance needs to adapt to that change. In recognition of this fact, the Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation (CMM) was established to strengthen the contribution that development assistance can make to addressing the critical challenge of violent conflict in the developing world.
The USAID Program: In FY 2004 and FY 2005, the Agency has requested a total of $22.2 million in Development Assistance for the activities of the Conflict Management and Mitigation Office. The mandate of the office is to help USAID missions, development officers and partners gain the expertise they need to work more effectively in high-risk environments. The office is pursuing this goal through a series of inter-related efforts.
Together with the State Department, CMM is supporting the development of an early warning system that can help focus USAID and U.S. Government attention and resources on countries that are at greatest risk for violence. CMM also works with USAID missions to conduct in-depth conflict assessments, to prepare reports that map out destabilizing patterns and trends, and make recommendations about how development programs can be structured to better address these trends. CMM has conducted assessments in about 20 countries to date and, building on these assessments, is working closely with USAID missions to integrate a sensitivity to conflict into all of their development programs.
CMM is also developing packages of technical assistance in a number of critical focus areas including youth, land, local governance, water, natural resources, livelihoods, human rights and gender. These "toolkits" will provide USAID missions with access to concrete, practical program options, lessons learned, partners, mechanisms and monitoring and evaluation tools for implementing more effective conflict programs.
For example, many parts of the developing world are facing a critical youth problem. A large pool of young people does not need to be destabilizing; however, if young people, particularly young men, are uprooted, jobless, and with few opportunities for positive engagement, they represent a ready pool of recruits for ethnic, religious, and political extremists seeking to mobilize violence. Despite the importance of engaging young people, few USAID missions have adjusted their strategies to reflect this priority, in part, because they do not have the programmatic tools necessary to do so. CMM is therefore working with USAID missions to help them better understand the relationship between young people and violence, identify those most at risk for participation in militant activity, and find ways to engage this cohort in constructive economic, political and social activities.
Local governance is another important area of emphasis for CMM. Instability and conflict bring a difficult set of issues to the fore, such as competition over access to land, ethnic and religious tension, high levels of personal insecurity, or deep mistrust between government authorities and local communities. Many of these issues are best addressed at the local level, yet often local governments lack the necessary resources and skills to do so. Many USAID missions are placing an emphasis on local governance and decentralization as a solution to the problem of violence, and together with USAID's Office of Democracy and Governance, CMM is exploring how to modify existing decentralization and local governance programs so that they are more effective in high-risk contexts.
In addition to technical assistance, CMM has provided direct support for innovative conflict management programs in a number of countries. These programs are meant to serve as models for how development assistance can be more effectively targeted to the causes of violence. These include support for youth and local governance activities in conflict-related areas of Nigeria, efforts to engage the private sector in conflict management in Colombia and Nigeria, land-reform programs in Namibia, and peace-building through religious institutions in Burundi.
CMM is also focusing on outreach and training. A key part of CMM's mandate is to act as a change agent for USAID, to help develop a new cohort of development officers who are comfortable responding to conflict, who are willing to take risks, who can think in new ways about old problems, and who are willing to question whether the Agency is using its assistance as strategically as possible. Training in conflict analysis and conflict-sensitive programming for both development officers and PVO and NGO partners is therefore an important part of CMM's portfolio.
With Economic Support Funds and Development Assistance, CMM has funded, and will continue its ongoing relationships with, important institutions engaged in conflict mitigation activities, including the Woodrow Wilson Center, the War Torn Societies Project, the United States Institute of Peace, the International Crisis Group, CONTACT, LaRoche College, Seeds of Peace, Interns for Peace, the Arava Institute and the Jerusalem International YMCA.
Other Program Elements: In addition to CMM's activities, USAID's regional bureaus are also supporting conflict management and mitigation programs in USAID missions. In FY 2004, a total of $17.3 million in conflict funds will be programmed by the Africa Bureau ($8.1 million), the Asia and Near East Bureau ($2.4 million) and the Latin American and Caribbean Bureau ($6.8 million). The Agency has requested an additional $14.6 million in FY 2005 for regional bureau programs($8.1 million for Africa, $3.2 million for Asia and the Near East, and $3.3 million for Latin America and the Caribbean), plus $1.2 million for the Office of Private and Voluntary Cooperation and $200,000 for the Policy and Program Coordination Bureau for donor coordination activities.
Other Donors: CMM has maintained a healthy consultation with other donors active in the area of conflict through participation in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Development Assistance Committee Network on Conflict Prevention and Development Cooperation. CMM has also built strong ties to the conflict and peacebuilding units at the aid agencies of the United Kingdom and Japan.
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