How Do We Change the Way We Use Foreign Assistance to Help Prevent
Deadly Conflicts?

##### Ted Morse

**Executive Summary**

The topic of this paper is how do we change the way foreign assistance
works in an increasingly unstable world: it has been interpreted to mean
how do we change the way we use foreign assistance to help prevent
deadly conflicts.

Over the years, development professionals have said if they are given
enough time and money, they can develop countries that have too much at
stake to resort to violent conflicts. But they have repeatedly seen
their development work destroyed by bad governance and conflict.

State and USAID have tried several times recently to introduce conflict
prevention into their work: Preventative Diplomacy, Secretary's
Preventative Initiative (SPI), Greater Horn of Africa Initiative (GHAI)
and conflict prevention in the Mission Performance Plan have come to
very little, or failed. There are two major reasons for this:

a.  Foreign Service officers did not, and do not believe, violent
    conflicts can be foreseen, nor prevented, especially by U.S. foreign
    aid.

b.  Many complicated bureaucratic reasons blocked implementation of
    conflict prevention: these ranged from rivalry and turf to corporate
    culture to organization and funding problems.

Others in this workshop have been asked to address the first constraint
of believing foreign aid can help to prevent violent conflicts. The only
point to be added here is a clear, convincing conceptualization of
foreign aid and conflict prevention is needed to overcome this disbelief
by the foreign and civil service. A different framework on the
components of a conflict prevention program, and a suggestion for again
trying to introduce conflict prevention into the U.S.G is briefly
outlined.

How do we change the way we work to effectively address the bureaucratic
resistance that has blocked conflict prevention to date? This paper
suggests discussing two major thrusts:

a.  Recognize that both short-term, targeted, operational prevention and
    long-term, capacity building, structural prevention are needed,
    simultaneously. Make a clear division of responsibility between
    State and USAID for the lead and support---including funding for
    each. This change may sound simplistic, but it addresses several
    important internal U.S.G stumbling blocks to implementing conflict
    prevention in U.S. foreign policy and U.S. foreign aid.

b.  Secondly, the paper identifies for discussion (and hopefully
    decision and action) several other challenges to changing the way
    foreign aid could be used to help prevent deadly conflicts. These
    include:

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1.  Policy and legislative changes

2.  Organizational changes

3.  Changes to do vulnerability and early warning analysis

4.  Changes needed in the decision-making, resource allocation, and
    implementation processes.

The list is not exhaustive. Changing them is not simple. More analysis
and discussion is needed. But these challenges are highlighted because
this is where the introduction of conflict prevention has faltered in
the past.

After the killer droughts in Africa in 1984-1986, there was a change in
mind set in USAID and promoted elsewhere. It was recognized there would
be more droughts but they need not result in famine. The famine early
warning system (FEWS) grew out of that. When the next drought of equal
magnitude hit, tens of thousands died, not a million.

Let us now adopt another new mindset: there will be differences in the
world; people need not kill each other to solve their differences. Many
violent conflicts can be prevented if we change the way foreign policy
and foreign aid work. Millions of lives and billions of dollars are at
stake.

###### Introduction

Over the years development assistance has been asked to focus on many
different objectives: reconstruct war-torn countries; bolster people,
governments and nations against communism; help meet the basic human
needs of a population; assist the transitions from communism to
democracy, from state controlled to free-market economies; assist
helpless children survive disease, poor nutrition etc; respond to
natural and lately man-made disasters with humanitarian relief.
(Earmarking of funds for special interests has greatly hampered the
ability to keep these foci -- but it has been a concession necessary to
muster the votes to pass foreign aid bills).

For decades, development professionals have taken the position that if
they were given sufficient time and money; they could help develop
states that would have too much at stake to resort to violent conflict.
Most people believe this. But the reality is we repeatedly have seen
decades of development work destroyed by civil and cross border wars,
rebellion, corrupt authoritarian rule, and violent conflict.

Is it now time to change how development assistance works in this
increasingly unstable world - change to help prevent deadly conflicts
that destroy and divert from development progress? Many of us believe
the time is overdue.

It is the thesis of this paper that long term development assistance,
coupled with preventative diplomacy and operational prevention in the
short term, can help build states that are capable of settling most of
their differences without resort to violent conflict. The challenge is
how do we do this?

In one sense, the challenge seems simple: just change the focus of
development assistance to conflict prevention. We all know what it takes
to do this: convince leadership to supply political will: promulgate
legislative mandates and policy direction; arrange appropriate funding
and procedures; train staff, and organize new working relationships; and
just do it!

Three recent high level attempts at organizing conflict prevention
assistance have failed; proving it is not that simple. A few years ago
the State Department issued a policy call for Preventative Diplomacy;
nothing came of it. A Secretary of State launched the Secretary's
Preventative Action Initiative, which also failed (possibly because its
tag unfortunately was SPI). President Clinton\'s Greater Horn of Africa
Initiative (GHAI) has a conflict prevention plank in it. Six years after
GHAI was started, it is withering and expected to die when this
Administration changes. Similar high level attempts by the European
Union and the UN S/G Kofi Annan have failed to institutionalize conflict
prevention in those organizations. The many lessons learned from theses
initiatives have not been professionally evaluated - and need to be. But
the overall conclusion is institutionalizing conflict prevention into
American foreign policy, and the foreign aid part of that foreign
policy, is far more difficult and complicated than its supporters had
thought.

It is the intent of this paper to stimulate discussion (and hopefully
decisions and actions) about the challenges in changing the way we work
to better apply foreign assistance to prevent conflict. The discussion
needs to recognize how complicated are these challenges. We need to
discuss what needs to change and what cannot change in trying to
institutionalize conflict prevention work in the U.S.G -- especially
USAID and closely related State Department work.

The paper is organized into three parts: some definition of terms is
offered in Annex A and B to facilitate communications. A simple conflict
prevention framework is offered to add context to the discussion. The
body of the paper is an overview of challenges, and changes in USAID and
State that might be necessary to facilitate a conflict prevention focus
to foreign assistance. The latter may be bureaucratic, but this is the
major area where earlier institutionalization attempts have failed.

This paper focuses on the prevention phase of pre-conflict and to some
extent on conflict resolution. This is in part because the role for
foreign and development assistance in post-conflict reconstruction is
well accepted. While there is great room for improvement in this
post-conflict phase, it is not in question, as is the pre-conflict
prevention work. Exclusion of post-conflict considerations from this
paper should not be taken as evidence that post-conflict policy and
operations have been fully institutionalized.

Lastly, this presentation takes off from Jane Hall Lute's thesis: a
foreign policy based on need for capable states, which are assisted to
reach that "capable" status by U.S. and other development assistance. It
is important that the audience know that thesis to know the basis for
this presentation.

We have an opportunity here to move USAID and State into a pro-active
conflict prevention mode. We cannot let the opportunity slip away as
earlier initiatives have. Millions of lives and billions of dollars are
at stake. A better way for the world to resolve differences is at stake.

After the killer Africa drought of 84-86, a new mind set was adopted in
USAID and promoted elsewhere. It recognized there would be more
droughts, but they need not result in mass famine. The Famine Early
Warning System (FEWS) grew out of that. In the next Africa drought of
equal magnitude, tens of thousands died not a million.

Let us now have a similar change of mind-set: "There will be differences
in the world. People do not need to kill each other to resolve those
differences." Many violent conflicts can be prevented if we change the
way we all work in foreign policy and foreign assistance.

**Conceptual Framework**

This purpose of this paper is not to elaborate on "what"
development/foreign assistance would do to prevent violent conflicts.
But it is useful to briefly outline a conceptual framework to draw the
distinction between "operational" and "structural" prevention. It is
also useful to give a few examples of the types of activities that might
be undertaken.

In its simplest framework, conflict prevention work would follow a
legislative mandate and executive branch policy pronouncement; each
U.S.G agency would use its existing organizational structure, processes,
funding and staff to identify root causes of potential violent
conflicts; and each would recommend and implement preventative
interventions. Based on previous U.S.G experience, that just will not
happen. Several dissertations could be written on the reasons why.

The most complex framework is to re-engineer the policies, processes and
organizations to overcome the constraints that have blocked the
introduction of conflict prevention work by USAID, State and others to
date. This is complex. It makes the changes very difficult, even if
required.

We need to discuss a middle ground, by identifying what
[has]{.underline} to change, what [could]{.underline} change, and what
probably [will not]{.underline} change among the following:

1.  A new [culture]{.underline} of prevention is needed in the U.S.
    foreign affairs community;

2.  A combined [vision]{.underline} encompassing both short-term
    operational prevention, and long-term structural prevention needs to
    be shared;

3.  Legislative mandates would need to be enacted. Executive branch
    policy pronouncements would need to be repeated and enforced.

4.  A convincing conceptual and training syllabus would be prepared by a
    highly credible group, possibly representing the two U.S.G agencies,
    Congressional Research Service, a private policy analysis group, and
    an operational contractor. It would be used not only with policy
    makers, but also with the unconvinced foreign affairs staff. The
    objective would be to put forth the convincing argument of why
    conflict prevention must, and can, be a new focus of U.S. foreign
    policy; it would be used to train foreign affairs staff in
    vulnerability analysis and early identification of root causes of
    violent conflicts; and it would include a "tool box" of illustrative
    interventions available to help prevent violent conflicts;

5.  Vulnerability analysis would again be REQUIRED in the annual U.S.
    Mission (Country Team), Mission Performance Plan (MPP) and USAID
    Integrated Strategic Plan (ISP). In addition, field recommendations
    for appropriate short-term operational prevention interventions, and
    appropriate long-term structural prevention capacity building
    measures would be required.

6.  To assure inter-agency cooperation and multi-discipline integration,
    it is suggested that NSC regional advisors hold quarterly reviews of
    vulnerabilities and conflict prevention in their regions. It is
    recommended senior staff of Congressional oversight committees
    participate in these reviews.

7.  Office Director level Inter-agency (State, AID, DOD, CIA, and other
    U.S.G agencies appropriate to a specific country's vulnerability
    analyses, i.e., Justice, Treasury, Agriculture, etc.) groups would
    review country MPPs and ISPs, decide on supportive action and
    allocations of resources. A division of responsibility would guide
    the group, possibly as follows:

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a)  If the preventative intervention is targeted, short term, and has
    operational significance to preventative diplomacy in which State is
    engaged, ESF finds would be allocated and implemented under State
    lead, with USAID technical support. In Operational Prevention,
    [existing]{.underline} local, regional or international capacity
    would be used.

b)  If the preventative intervention is capacity building, longer term
    and has significance to building the structures needed ultimately by
    a capable state, development assistance funds (incl. DA, CSD, SEED
    etc.) would be allocated and implemented under USAID lead, with
    political/security guidance by State.

Making the distinction between short-term Operational Prevention and
long-term Structural Prevention and agreeing on the lead and support
responsibilities is the single most important thing that could change
the way U.S. foreign assistance could support conflict prevention.

Assign the lead responsibility for Operational Prevention to the
Department of State, with a political, preventative -- diplomacy
objective. Require USAID to support Operational Prevention strategies,
using ESF, to provide technical reinforcement to political solutions.
Either reaches workable coordination arrangements for this between State
& USAID.

Assign the lead for long-term Structural Prevention to USAID with an
institution building objective. Require State to support Structural
Prevention strategies to provide the political-security context for this
work. Either reach workable coordination arrangements for this between
USAID and State, or second political/ military officers to USAID to
provide this context to Structural Prevention.

The following are illustrative of operational prevention activities that
could be supported:

-   Assist border discussions and demarcation where borders are in
    serious dispute.

-   Fund exploration of options for land reform where current tenure is
    volatile.

-   Arrange inter-faith action teams to reduce religious conflict in a
    given setting.

-   Sponsor open forums to expose corruption and power abuses.

-   Encourage review of curriculum values inflammatory to integration,
    pluralism, intolerance of different "national-identities" within a
    political state.

-   Fund objective analysis of inequity grievances, to show where they
    could lead to violence and how to redress them.

Under Structural Prevention, local and regional capacity would be built
or strengthened for continuous contributions to a capable state.
Illustrative activities could include the following, if such
institutions were weak or non-existent. Applications of their specialty
could be supported in a specific prevention or resolution situation, as
a "learning by doing" part of their capacity development.

-   Develop anti-corruption units within and outside government

-   Develop good-governance centers in and out of government

-   Develop the multitude of civil society bodies needed for free and
    democratic representative government

-   Strengthen independent judiciary and legislative bodies.

-   Develop centers for independent budget analysis, policy analysis,
    media analysis, etc.

-   Develop structures to deliver essential services on an equitable
    basis

-   Develop education, religious and traditional authority organizations
    to imbue society with values of pluralism, diversity, tolerance, and
    compromise.

To some, the above framework will not be startling. It is not far from
what is done now. But what is still missing is the violent conflict
prevention context for this work. Democracy, governance, elections, free
media, support, etc. goes on now. So does building local capacity for
national planning, financing, delivery of essential public services.
Yet, we have seen time and again wasteful set backs caused by conflicts
and bad governance.

The challenge is can we change the way we work in an unstable world by
using foreign assistance differently to prevent deadly conflicts. It is
the thesis of this paper that foreign assistance can help prevent some
deadly conflicts -- but it will take resolution of many internal U.S.G
challenges to do it. Key among these has been the suspicion and lack of
critical operations between USAID and State on prevention.

**Challenges & Changes**

### 

**[Lead In]{.underline}**

As stated above, making the distinction between operational and
structural prevention and assigning clear lead and support
responsibilities, is the most important change that would promote
conflict prevention with U.S. foreign assistance. After that, there are
numerous bureaucratic challenges that would need to be faced. Some of
these challenges are listed below for immediate discussion.

Implied are changes that could be discussed to overcome those
challenges. Space and time do not permit the required elaboration of
each challenge -- change. Hopefully, discussion will add that
elaboration. Also, the list is not exhaustive. It does not reflect the
challenges that face a comprehensive inter-agency, inter-discipline
restructured focus on conflict prevention in U.S. foreign policy. That
is a task worthy of Congressional and National Security Council analysis
and authorization.

Some of these challenges are so obstructive that they would need to
change in order for the proposed use of Foreign Assistance for a
prevention thrust to be effective. Other challenges would probably only
need to be mitigated. Still others cannot be changed, and will need to
be accepted or avoided. Tomorrow's discussion will be most useful if it
can distinguish between the three types of challenges.

**[Policy and Legislative Challenges]{.underline}**

Changing the focus of U.S. foreign assistance to conflict prevention
would be a major challenge in Congress, the foreign affairs community,
and with the American public. A convincing concept, coupled with
evidence of the life and cost saving potential of prevention, would be
needed to build policy change support.

Policy makers will rightly challenge where is the criteria for deciding
when the U.S. gets involved and when it disengages in either short-term
operational prevention, or long-term structural prevention. That
criterion is now fuzzy at best and would need far greater clarity if we
are to achieve a policy and legislative change.

The policy decision of what preventative work for the U.S. to undertake
bilaterally, versus support multilaterally, undertake through IO, IFI or
other country aid, would seem simple. No longer would it be decided on
the basis of where the U.S. has a vital interest, or even Jane's "need"
criteria. But the criteria could be whatever institution has the
practical comparative advantage of success. The implications of this are
far reaching, and will need additional analysis.

In a macro context, it would not seem like a hard sell to Congress for
USAID staff to see the management of U.S. development assistance as
creating capable states that would eschew violent conflict. This is what
Jane calls "Structural Prevention." It should be very appealing to try
to prevent conflicts, and save hundreds of thousands of lives, hundreds
of millions of dollars, and reduce the likelihood of U.S. troop
deployment. It also fits comfortably within USAID corporate culture and
staff skills.

But several important changes would be necessary for Congress and the
public to adopt this Structural Prevention focus for U.S. development
assistance. The basic foreign aid act is very much in a child survival
and humanitarian mode at present. Can this shift in Congress and with
the American public to a structural prevention focus? If so, at what
loss and gain of votes and support? Much of the USAID process is now
geared to "Results" packages; can USAID and Congress shift to measuring
aid success with institution building indicators, instead of more
understandable birth, death, disease, health, election, etc. indicators?

Timeframe and expectations are additional Congressional challenges.
Structural prevention is long term (10-25 years) of institution building
even when not interrupted by conflict, natural disasters, policy
reversals, and bad governance. Congress, the public, and current
administrations want to see immediate impact. The expectations of U.S.
development assistance are as numerous as the 2000 pages in the foreign
assistance legislation documentation. Can these expectations be changed
in support of building capable states? Technically, the process of
building capable states can be disaggregated into work and sectors
requiring the help of many of the existing special interest groups. But
that may lose their support in the process. A corollary to expectations
is a tendency to report results as if they are attributed solely to U.S.
efforts. Can Congress, public and current administrations be re-oriented
to sharing credit for outputs of the combined local and multi-donor
effort of capacity building?

It will be a difficult policy change from poverty reduction to capacity
development for Congress, media, the public and especially the multitude
of special interest groups that have influenced budget earmarking and
directives. This use of directives and earmarking has been carried out
to the extreme, resulting in very little flexibility and in some cases
the misplacement of resources. Such flexibility is important to
responding with locally applicable prevention options. Similarly, there
is such a history now of these special interest groups and Congress
directing from America where development assistance should go that the
present budget structure leaves little flexibility to respond to local
requirements. Can we change the way the development budget is
structured? It would be needed.

If a new Foreign Assistance Act can be accepted, it would give the
strongest basis for using foreign assistance for creating capable
states. But the negative possibilities of a totally new Act are
significant. They range from the broadest, lengthy national debate
regarding what should be U.S. foreign policy in the post-cold war period
and the role of foreign assistance in a new foreign policy, through
discussion of merger, to competing interests of every special interest
that may see itself losing-out in restructuring foreign aid for
prevention. Instead, the option of just adding a conflict prevention
plank to the existing FAA needs to be weighed against the above
legislative restructuring complications. The work could begin within the
existing legislation or with simple conflict prevention authorization
language, coupled with a budget set aside. This may be the preferred way
to test the program. But as has been learned from previous conflict
prevention efforts, the multi-faceted resistance has blocked less than
comprehensive efforts to change.

Several policy pronouncements in support of conflict prevention have
been made within USAID and State in the past. We all know how strongly
Brian Atwood supported conflict prevention and how disappointing was the
result. Staff in the executive branch has been faced with so many
\"initiatives" that they scoff at the "fad of the month\". This brings
resistance to change. Introduction of conflict prevention policy has
been resisted recently on this basis alone. Leadership would need to be
clear, strong & sustained to overcome this resistance. It would also
need to assure institutionalization of the policy (esp. in Legislation)
that would extend beyond any one Administration. Leadership would need
to structure incentives for policy implementation and hold staff
accountable for policy resistance.

# [Simultaneous Organizational Changes]{.underline}

Institutionalizing Operational Prevention and Structural Prevention
roles for State & USAID are the two most important organizational
changes needed. One of the problems with long term economic and
political development has been the repeated short-term disruptions that
have set back progress. Most USAID staff have been reluctant to engage
in short term \"fire fighting.\" State/Embassy have been frustrated that
USAID's long term development work is seen as inapplicable to the
immediate problems facing a country. This disconnect between those
involved in long-term development and short-term operations in the way
we work must be bridged with significant organizational changes.

A start at this bridging would come from a renewed policy and pro-active
commitment, especially in State and NSC, to "preventative diplomacy." A
preventative diplomacy role for State would be more acceptable and more
successful if combined with practical, technical steps to address the
immediate and historical causes of a potential and/or existing conflict.
This would be the role of operational prevention, supported by foreign
assistance, when parties to a potentially violent conflict could use
(outside) options, to help them find local solutions to their
differences. Combining USAID technical assistance in operational
prevention with State preventative diplomacy would require a significant
change in the way we all do business. It would start with mutual
understanding of the necessity to bring both of their specialties -
diplomacy and technical solutions, together in preventative work and
then reflect this understanding in new internal organizational
arrangements.

One of the classic tensions in international development is also
reflected in stress in the conflict prevention field: this is the
difference between assistance to SOLVE or address an identified problem,
versus assistance to BUILD CAPACITY to prevent or address generic future
problems. Both approaches have merit. Both approaches are needed in
different situations - but both need to be deployed simultaneously, not
consecutively. This could be brought about with a change in
perspective - and that will take leadership and training and changed
organizational arrangements.

A World Bank study asked what, in 40 years of all sources of foreign
aid, was most helpful to Thailand. The answer was that all donors, in
all sectors, were asked to and did build Thai institutions that
continually turn out trained Thai manpower, to find Thai solutions, to
Thai problems. But at the same time foreign aid helped Thailand work
through the transition problems from monarchy to military to civilian
rule; to face problems of communist insurgency in NE Thailand; to
resolve Muslim rebellion in the south; to help deliver immediate basic
services to the people; helped diffuse ethnic tension, with influential
Chinese minority; etc. Both immediate problem solving and long-term
capacity development-simultaneously, made the greatest impact.

The below table purposely draws a stark distinction between the problem
solving and capacity building positions, and the two U.S.G agencies most
identified with those positions. This is done to stimulate discussion
for a changed way of integrating both short- and long-term business for
prevention. If this is not done, existing tensions, mutual frustrations,
resentments, unrealistic expectations, or worse yet, neglect, will
remain to undermine future conflict prevention work within the U.S.G.

**[Problem Solving]{.underline} [Capacity Building]{.underline}**

State - Embassy USAID - Congress

Short term impact Long-term impact

Political objective Development objective

Broad perspective Narrower perspective

Speed desired Slowness expected

Flexibility stressed Adherence to process

Reaction to present reality Capacity building for future

Policy orientation Technical orientation

Outside direction Local leadership developed

DRL - ESF funding DA - C/S - SEED funding

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

OPERATIONAL PREVENTION [STRUCTURAL PREVENTION]{.smallcaps}

Rather than harmonize or obliterate these differences in the context of
conflict prevention (no pun intended), it is proposed that we change the
way we organize to do business to exploit the strengths in each
different approach. To repeat the framework from above,
organizationally, it would be to assign operational prevention lead to
State, with practical, technical integration by USAID. It would assign
structural prevention lead to USAID, with political-security integration
by State/Embassy.

By making the assignments per above, it may be possible to reduce the
tension between the two approaches and two organizations. The short-term
political approach (represented by State and often resisted by USAID),
and the long-term development approach (represented by USAID and
dismissed as inapplicable to immediate State/Embassy preoccupations),
would get full appreciation of the special contributions of each
approach and organization to conflict prevention. This in turn would
facilitate necessary integration of both operational and structural
prevention functions.

Such a reorganization approach will be faced with many corporate culture
problems within and between USAID and State, and others. Several of
these are outlined below.

One of the major stumbling blocks to come out of GHAI is the realization
that the majority of foreign affairs staff (especially USAID & State)
[do not believe]{.underline} violent conflicts can be predicted with
sufficient precision or horizon to prevent them. Similarly, there is
strong [disbelief]{.underline} in the ability of outsiders and their
foreign aid to actually prevent conflicts. To some extent, training in,
and insistence on all source root cause analysis and inter-discipline
recommendations on preventative measures can help address this. But a
far more convincing conceptualization of the contribution of foreign
assistance to prevention is needed, followed by reinforcing training on
the concept.

USAID\'s corporate culture highly values long term sustainable
development. In that regard, USAID staff should have little difficulty
in endorsing Jane's assignment of a structural prevention role to
development assistance. A corollary in USAID\'s corporate culture is to
generally avoid, down play the value of staff working in emergencies,
relief and post-conflict recovery. That would need to change if they are
to be involved in operational prevention - which they should be. One way
to change this is to require a U.S.DH tour of duty in operational
prevention work, and insist on that in the promotion panel precepts.
Similarly a change from using predominantly contractors, without
extensive development experience, to using larger numbers of U.S.DH in
OFDA & OTI would give relief and operational prevention the development
perspective it needs. At the same time it would bring a change in USAID
development corporate culture that is more supportive of operational
prevention work and how to integrate it with structural prevention
development work.

A through analysis is needed of what aspects of State Department
corporate culture would need to change to support conflict prevention
work by State and by USAID. Some of the more obvious changes needed
include the following: preoccupation with the short-term (helpful to
operational prevention) and depreciate the value of long term
development (needed as the time horizon for structural prevention); a
historical State value on reaction to crises, and devalue preventative
action; real concern about U.S.G conflict prevention work with
non-government organizations that could destabilize governments to which
U.S. diplomats are accredited; inclination to separate
political-security considerations from development work which works
against the integrated methodology required for prevention. Strong,
continuous commitment by high and mid-level leadership in State would be
needed to make the State culture more supportive of State and foreign
assistance roles in conflict prevention.

There already is a challenge to USAID staff corporate culture to view
their development project work in the broadest context. The Integrated
Strategic Plan calls for this. But, we all know the old adage -- "the
operation was a success, but the patient died." What USAID has been
experiencing is "my development project was a success, but the host
government/state collapsed." The cross-discipline, in-service training
that USAID mid-level staff formerly received in the DSP (Development
Studies Program) was important for USAID staff to see USAID project work
in the broader political-military-cultural context of building capable
states. Something like DSP training should be re-installed.

Beyond just USAID staff being able to \"see\" this broader context, they
and others must have the ability to identify and act on root causes of
conflict; this presents another huge corporate culture challenge. In the
past (and present?), USAID and Embassy staff, FSNs, government
opposition, Non-Governmental Organizations, academics, contractors,
private business people, military, police officers, missionaries, civil
society leaders, media representatives, etc. say they have understood
some of these vulnerabilities. But there is a total disconnect between
them and the international foreign policy establishment that should be
in a position to act on the understandings. This will take a significant
change in the way USAID, State, and the intelligence and defense
communities look at their business and organize for it. A corollary of
this is a change from responding primarily to [government]{.underline}
requests, to listening far more attentively to
[non-government]{.underline} views of what is needed to build a capable
society. We Americans, who have an answer for everything, will have
discomfort with the change of listening to NGOs.

Many conflicts have significant regional dimensions. Yet most of the
U.S. foreign affairs staff have bilateral assignments, and single
country operational perspectives. And as regional USAID and Embassy
officers have attempted to be involved in cross-border reporting and
analysis, it has often elicited more territorial resistance than
welcomed cooperation. This must change if conflicts and possible
prevention actions are to be seen and addressed in the regional real
world context. Designation and acceptance of more Embassy officers with
broader regional responsibilities, and change and acceptance of USAID
regional support staff to prevention operations, would be an important
field change. Without this or similar changes, regional integration will
take place in Washington, but on the basis of primarily bilateral
perspectives.

# 

# [Changes in Vulnerability Analysis and Early Warning]{.underline}

The Ethiopian-Eritrea peace agreement signed three weeks ago calls for
an independent investigation into the root causes of that war.
International inquiry into the root causes of the Israel-Palestine
conflict has been accepted by both parties, and started its work three
weeks ago. The Lome peace accord for Sierra Leone fails to address the
root causes of that 9 years war, and many people realize this threatens
future stability and capability. The international community accepts the
premise that it is possible to determine the root causes of conflict
AFTER war starts. It should not be a giant leap of faith that objective
inquiry can identify the root causes of at least some violent conflicts
BEFORE they occur. What is needed is a culture of prevention - placing
as high a value on root cause analysis for preventing violent conflict,
as is placed on resolving conflicts after they breakout. This priority
is now absent.

Arranging for vulnerability and root cause analysis should not be an
insurmountable challenge, but it is complicated. As stated above, most
people in the U.S. foreign policy community do not believe anyone
(especially outsiders) can foresee a potential violent conflict; and
even if root cause analysis and early warning could predict conflict,
fewer still believe conflicts can be prevented. Such skepticism has
undermined the implementation of prevention initiatives to date. About
three years ago, the State Department required U.S. Missions to do
vulnerability analysis and make recommendations in the Mission
Performance Plan (MPP). Because most Ambassadors and Country Team
members did not believe in the requirement, did not find it applicable
to their situation, and most importantly, did not see a relationship to
real resources (people & money) allocated to them, only 3 out of over
100 MPPs addressed this vulnerability requirement. It was just one of
too many questions to be addressed in the MPP, and it was ignored
(without consequences).

If the policy and concept challenges were met, it would seem the MPP is
still the best vehicle for conveying vulnerability analysis from the
field. It is inter-agency and multi-discipline; it is broad foreign
policy and prescriptive programs, tied to resources. Short of a serious
reengineering of the total U.S.G early warning system, it is believed
the MPP exercise could support the prevention focus, with the following
considerations for discussions.

It would be necessary to change the criteria for deciding when the U.S.
Mission should recommend intervening for prevention. It is very
uncomfortable for most foreign affairs specialists to intervene in a
"non-proven" situation, where only the POTENTIAL for violent conflict
exists. This is doubly true if U.S. foreign policy moves from
identifiable "vital U.S. interests" to a more general "U.S. needs"
foreign policy. Frequently, in the past U.S. intervention only comes
when an actual conflict becomes so costly (in terms of money, lives lost
or political prestige undercut), or so destabilizing to an ally, that it
would be an embarrassment for a super power to remain aloof. It will be
hard (but not impossible) to craft criteria for intervening to prevent a
"possible" conflict, but such crafting is critical to a prevention
focus.

Training in vulnerability analysis will be necessary if the field
analysis and reporting is to become more applicable to both short and
long term prevention. Such inter-agency training under GHAI failed to
receive a warm welcome in Horn of Africa U.S Embassies. Reasons varied
from turf (why was USAID involved in political-security matters?), to
disbelief in conflict prevention, to being too busy to engage, to
deciding this capability should be trained into host-country,
counterpart governments, not U.S.G. It will take more than leadership to
overcome this challenge.

If this challenge is to be overcome, in-service, inter-agency,
multi-discipline training for U.S. mission staff in conflict prevention
(especially root cause and vulnerability analysis) will need to be
undertaken. For the longer term institutionalization within the U.S.
foreign affairs team, the training should be included in the Foreign
Service Officer entrance course (A-100), political craft and economics
training courses at NFTAC (former FSI), to both influence corporate
culture and to view prevention from the multi disciplines required.
Conflict prevention concepts should be strengthened at the Department of
State Inter-Departmental Seminar, National War College, ICAF, SES
Executive Seminar, and other foreign affairs agency staff training
programs. But training and reporting requirements still may need to be
reinforced by some personal and institutional accountability methods.

If it was decided that a more comprehensive Early Warning system is
needed to underpin a serious U.S.G conflict prevention effort, than a
different early warning predictive and response system will be needed.
Right now, the political and intelligence early warning systems
generally have a short-term perspective and cover immediate, not root,
causes -- totally inappropriate to long-term structural prevention. They
tend to alert executive branch leaders to what may appear on CNN, in the
media and in key newspapers in the next day or two that will require
"management". "Long-term" early warning of impending crises is
considered 3-6 months, and again for crises management. Only rarely does
the political-intelligence community try to predict where violent
conflicts could erupt over 0-5 years, where operational prevention could
be applied, or in 5-15 years, where structural prevention could be
focused. Besides a different time frame, the present early warning
system does not often delve into the truly root causes with sufficient
analysis to allow specific prevention attempts. Nor is the early
warning, multi-discipline, multi-source to even describe a potential
conflict from the different sides that reflect the real world of a
situation.

Under an inter-agency GHAI task force headed by the State East Africa
Office Director, Ambassador David Shinn, a fairly comprehensive
multi-discipline processes for Reporting, Analysis, Decision-making And
Response (RADAR) early warning was jointly planned with State, USAID,
DOD & CIA. It is still a workable model. But it ran into tremendous
inter-agency stove piping, turf protections, rivalries and died with
resistance. This type of resistance will only be overcome with strong,
consistent, high level and mid-management inter-agency or NSC leadership
and training.

And these same leaders and managers will need to make trade-offs. One of
the greatest resistances rightly came from over-worked official
reporters and analysts who rightly said if you want us to do this, you
must tell us what to stop doing to free us to do the conflict prevention
reporting and analysis requested.

Similarly, far greater stress needs to be placed on multi-source;
multi-disciplinary integrated analytical products for prevention
response. Classification and compartmentalization restrain this.

Some important progress using inter-agency computers, and all-source
shared reporting, has been made. It has been tested and found very
helpful in such inter-agency exercises like Bosnia and Kosovo where
analysts in all U.S.G departments are reading the same reporting from
all sources. The system exists. It is a strong basis for comprehensive
analysis and conflict prevention recommendations. (The move of USAID
into the RBB (for State budget reasons!) has had multiple program
difficulties: one is State does 90% of its communications work on a
classified system; and USAID does 98% of its work on an incompatible
unclassified system. There is practically no classified email exchange,
and only unclassified exchanges with special effort. If foreign
assistance is to support foreign policy across the board, but especially
in conflict prevention work, this must be remedied. (Similarly, the
recognition of each other's CLEARED for secret status and identity
badges is essential.)

**[Changes in Decision-making, Resource Allocation &
Implementation]{.underline}**

Sufficient reporting exists to start. Besides the inter-discipline
analytical constraint, the biggest problem for integrated action is the
lack of inter-agency decision making. Too often the lack of political
will has been identified as the key constraint. It is the position of
this presentation that the lack of inter-agency decision making far out
weighs political-will as a key constraint. Of course, the highest level
of inter-agency decision making takes place at the NSC and related
working groups. But the NSC staff, departmental Secretaries, and Under
Secretaries are all too engaged in the most immediate, biggest, foreign
policy issues to spend ANY time on only "potential" conflicts. "Fighting
the immediate crocodiles leaves no time to think about draining the
swamp." It is proposed to discuss pushing the conflict prevention
decision-making down to inter-agency geographic Office-Directors levels,
with staff work by country desk officers and oversight accountability
vested in the Assistant Secretaries, and DASs. This is the level where
resources are managed; where problems can be put into the regional
context so often required for effective conflict prevention. Again,
given the extensive competing demands on staff at these levels,
supervisors must decide juggle competing priorities for time and
attention, even if they have finally convinced themselves of the
potential benefits of conflict prevention interventions.

Institutional responsibility for resource allocation and implementation
is critical. A whole other paper could be (and needs to be) written on
this topic. The organizational option of USAID staff implementing
operational prevention activities led by State/Embassy does create
tensions which are important to acknowledge including: the competing
demands on scarce USAID staff time, diversion from long-term structural
prevention and development, a corporate culture uncomfortable with
political-security-intelligence sectors, and sheer TURF concerns.
Likewise, State/Embassy staff trying to implement operational prevention
has problems of accountability, technical competence, corporate culture
discomfort with operations, coordination problems with long-term
structural prevention work by USAID in the same sector; and sheer TURF
concerns.

Critical to this initiative is funding flexibility. OTI was established
by USAID because it needed a management tool for short term, flexible,
more politicized development work with countries in transition from
state controlled to market economies; transitions from authoritarian to
representative governments. Flexible funding and implementation
arrangements were and are considered essential to quickly supporting
these transitions, which are different from long term capacity building
development needs. That same flexibility is a change needed to support
conflict prevention by whichever organization implements it.

For some time, State has become more involved in planning, funding and
implementing programs in democracy, governance, elections, justices,
public safety, drug enforcement, etc. Some say these programs, critical
to conflict prevention in capable states, were undertaken by State to
closely integrate them with post-conflict transitions; others say it was
in response to USAID\'s inflexibility; others say it was "turf" and
power play. One of the challenges to implementing conflict prevention
will be to sort out the duplication between State and USAID in these
areas. It may be as simple as defining the operational (State) and
structural (USAID) divisions of responsibility, even in the same
sectors, in the same country.

As always, real implementation takes place in the field. In one sense,
inter-agency, inter-discipline integration is easier at this level. The
integration responsibilities of the Ambassador and U.S. Mission are well
defined and accepted. But conflict prevention implementation at this
level has been stymied in the past by disbelief, continual stove piping
and turf. Just as U.S. Mission cross- agency training in crises
management has been fairly effective, it is recommended that conflict
prevention training be conducted for the several levels of inter-agency
integration. A strong requirement for cross-agency participation will be
needed to break through the inhibiting corporate culture of the
intelligence, political, and sometimes military and development
organizations in U.S. missions.

There will also be the need for changes in the way we do business within
a country, in a region, and with segments elements of society. That must
start with the Ambassador promoting change instead of maintaining the
status quo as an illusion of stability and allowing work with the
opposition and civil society instead of protecting relations with the
government "to which he/she is accredited." USAID would need to change
its resistant attitude and relationship with State implementing
prevention work on short-term operational problems in the same sectors
with the same local organizations/staff as USAID considers "their"
counterparts. Ambassadorial leadership, strong agency support and staff
training are critical to making this work.

There is a current example demonstrating the need for integrated
analysis and decision making for conflict prevention. In Ethiopia, the
Embassy POL may be reporting on the Tigre leadership of the new
Government of Ethiopia. USAID may report the disproportionate share of
domestic budget and private investment going to Tigre; the missionaries
and NGOs may be reporting the disaffection of other sub-regional, large,
ethnic-tribal groups that feel their neglected grievances are no more
being addressed by Tigre leaders than they were under Amhara leaders;
intelligence sources may be reporting Oromo and Gallas are organizing
for more aggressive airing of their grievances; Defense may be reporting
the inflow of arms to these groups through neighboring countries that
have separate regional agendas. But where does all this come together
that there is the potential for violent conflict? And what are the
operational and structural steps proposed to take with the GOE, local
society and regional and international communities to prevent this from
becoming another violent conflict (in the tradition of almost 25 years
of war in Ethiopia)? Stronger relations with those outside of government
are critical to integrated analysis and integrated analysis within a
culture of prevention is critical to decisions for preventative actions.

New ways of doing business in a given country is needed with groups
outside of government. This includes NGOs, business people, academics,
media representatives, civil society, local leaders, clerics,
missionaries and any others with insights into people's grievances. It
is essential to liaise with others known to have legitimate grievances,
and even to understand those known to be greedy. Most of these groups
will be reluctant to be seen as informers, or part of an American
political or intelligence operation. All this could take an enormous
amount of time and staff if done in the traditional U.S. Mission way.
All these groups do reporting vertically within their own organizations.
New relationships are needed to share their insights into root causes of
potential conflicts. Sharing non-attributed reporting electronically may
offer some new ways of doing business, as RELIEF NET once proposed.

It must be recognized that U.S.G representatives are not omniscient in
their understanding of local situations. We need to learn to listen to
others, liaise with others, not only to identify root causes of
potential conflicts, but also to understand their alternative ways of
addressing those root causes. This field level is also where real
integration of operational and structural prevention must take place,
helping local organizations to become more capable of solving their
local problems -- strengthening organizations by their involvement in
problem solving, learning by doing.

Ultimately, conflict prevention demands a new-way of doing U.S.G
business. It does demand a policy of engagement, the humility to listen,
patience in building local prevention capacity, and a thorough airing of
comparative options. Restraint needs to be recognized as a useful tool
in allowing room for local growth; mindsets have to be broadened to
incorporate regional perspectives even while serving in a bilateral
assignment, and openness to inter-agency, multi-disciplinary approaches.
These changes are probably too much to be expected in even the best of
circumstances. They become even more difficult when faced with shrinking
foreign affairs staff and budgets. They will only come as trades-off in
staff time and priorities. It is in this crunch of priorities that the
U.S.G has short-sightedly not only retreated from involvement in
prevention strategies but also assumed a posture of non-involvement
"because there is no U.S. vital interest at stake." Meanwhile the U.S.
pours in hundreds of millions of relief dollars and humanitarian aid
into conflicts we failed to help prevent, and development investments
destroyed. We can change this pattern through early involvement in
prevention interventions.

**Annex A: Definitions**

1.  **Foreign Assistance**: broadly encompassing all types of U.S.G
    assistance (development assistance, food aid, disaster and relief
    assistance, humanitarian assistance, peace keeping, SEED, ESF,
    etc.). Partly administered for U.S.G by State and partly by USAID.

2.  **Development Assistance**: narrower than foreign assistance;
    includes DA, Child Survival, SEED, ESF funded parts of foreign
    assistance; objective long-term sustainable economic & political
    development in developing countries. Mainly administered in U.S.G by
    USAID.

3.  "**We**" applies to USAID in most cases, but can signify U.S.G,
    U.S.A and will include State Department when text requires.

4.  **Operational Prevention**: short-term targeted assistance to
    resolve an identified problem in the pre-conflict stage; can be
    coupled with Preventative Diplomacy during the conflict resolution
    stage.

5.  **Structural Prevention** -- longer term, institution building,
    capacity building to address generic problems in a country on a
    continuing basis.

## Conflict Prevention - pre-conflict

6.  **Conflict Resolution** - during conflict

7.  **Post Conflict** - after conflict stops

8.  **Violent Conflict** - involves massive loss of life to bring about
    change, not peaceful change.

9.  **Fundamental Question** What has to change for the U.S.G to
    successfully use foreign assistance and development assistance to
    prevent deadly conflicts?

> Note: Conceptually, the paper addresses preventing conflicts in
> developing and transition countries not violent conflicts and war
> between developed countries.

To help clarify and focus the discussion (and hopefully decisions), it
is proposed the challenge of changing the way we do business be
disaggregated in a couple of ways. While this does damage to critical
interrelationships in implementation, it may be helpful to focus the
discussion on the changed concepts underlying prevention.

The tasks are different when a conflict situation is in three different
phases:

a.  Pre-conflict - involves PREVENTION

b.  Crises, conflict - involves RESOLUTION

c.  Post-conflict - involves RECOVERY

The Operational & Structural Prevention modes may be required in all
three-conflict phases, and may be required to be applied simultaneously.

In an "operational mode," targeted assistance is carried out in close
conjunction with a short-term, often immediate objective - often
dictated by a political process of preventative diplomacy. (This closely
allies with the use of ESF.) The technical sector may be same as where
structural prevention work is being undertaken, but the tactics are
operational instead of capacity building.

In the "structural mode," assistance is given with a developmental
objective of building local capacity for a state to deal with
preventing, or resolving conflicts to which they may be a party on a
continuing basis. It also is to create the capability to conduct
effective post-conflict reconstruction if necessary. It is to build long
term, sustainable, local capacity including applying that capacity for
"learning by doing". This closely correlates with the philosophy and
mandates of Development Assistance (DA/SEED, etc).

**Annex B: Stages of Conflict and Types of Prevention**

+---------------------+------------------------+-----------------------+
|                     | ########               | ########              |
|                     | Operational Prevention | Structural Prevention |
+---------------------+------------------------+-----------------------+
| ######## Pre-       | Targeted, short-term   | Capacity building,    |
| Conflict Prevention | political process with | long-term development |
|                     | technical              | process in a          |
|                     | reinforcement          | political-security    |
|                     |                        | context               |
+---------------------+------------------------+-----------------------+
| ########            | Targeted, short-term   | Conflict prevention,  |
| Conflict Resolution | political process with | long-term development |
|                     | technical              |                       |
|                     | reinforcement          |                       |
+---------------------+------------------------+-----------------------+
| **Post-Conflict     | Targeted short-term    | Conflict prevention,  |
| Reconstruction**    | political process,     | long-term development |
|                     | with technical         |                       |
|                     | reinforcement          |                       |
+---------------------+------------------------+-----------------------+
|                     | *State Department      | *USAID lead, using    |
|                     | lead*                  | DA, ESF, SEED, etc.*  |
|                     |                        |                       |
|                     | *USAID technical       | *State providing      |
|                     | support using ESF*     | political-security    |
|                     |                        | context*              |
+---------------------+------------------------+-----------------------+