Event: Afghanistan's National Solidarity Program

Afghanistan's National Solidarity Program:
Lessons Learned on NGOs and Government Partnerships in Development

 May 9, 2012

2:30 to 4:00pm

InterAction

 1400 16th Street, NW, Suite 210

Washington, DC 20036

 Speakers:

Clare Lockhart, Institute for State Effectiveness

Karim Merchant, former National Solidarity Program Operational Director

Topic: The National Solidarity Program provides a model for coordinating and aligning efforts of the Afghan government, international assistance, international NGOs, Afghan civil society organizations and local Afghan communities in governance and development. In light of the upcoming Tokyo Conference on International Assistance in Afghanistan in July, as well as broader discussions about Aid Effectiveness in Washington and through the Busan Process, this discussion will examine lessons learned about how to coordinate diverse stakeholders to support both governance and development.

RSVP: Lisa Schirch, 3P Human Security at schirchl@emu.edu

Co-sponsored by the Institute for State Effectiveness, 3P Human Security and InterAction

Aid Effectivness in Fragile States - Civil Society

April 20, 2012

World Bank Discusses Aid Effectiveness in Fragile States with Civil Society 

3P Human Security, the Alliance for Peacebuilding, and other members of an InterAction sub-working group on issues of aid effectiveness in conflict-affected and fragile states helped organize a panel discussion about the implementation of New Deal principles at the three-day Civil Society Policy Forum, part of the World Bank and IMF 2012 Spring Meetings. The meeting follows the global buzz generated when 35 donor and recipient countries (including the United States) signed the New Deal in Busan at the end of 2011.  The panel included government representatives from self-described "fragile states" (called the g7+), civil society representatives from the global South, and the coordinator of the North-South inter-governmental dialogue process (called the International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding which produced the New Deal).

The New Deal and the long-term global dialogue that made it become a reality is significant because it signals the broadest consensus ever reached between donor and recipient nations about how international aid to conflict-affected and fragile states must be done in a way that fosters more sustainable and inclusive development outcomes and inclusive state-society relations in parts of the world where cycles of war and poverty are most severe. 3P Human Security and peacebuilders around the world hope the principles of the New Deal will become a core pillar of whatever global development framework emerges after the Millennium Development Goals expire in 2015.

Liberia and Sierra Leone: New Publication from Conciliation Resources

March 27, 2012

Consolidating Peace: Liberia and Sierra Leone

Almost ten years on from the official end of wars in Sierra Leone (2002) and Liberia (2003), attention is shifting from post-war peacebuilding to longer-term development. What headway has been made? What challenges lie ahead? And what lessons that can be learned?

This latest issue in the Accord series draws on experiences and perspectives from across societies in both countries to explore comparative lessons and examine progress. It builds on analysis and recommendations from previous Accord publications on Liberia (Issue 1: 1996) and Sierra Leone (Issue 9: 2000).

Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP) along with 3P hosted London-based Conciliation Resources for a discussion titled Consolidating Peace: Liberia and Sierra Leone.  This event was held at Interaction on Tuesday March 27. 

Experts from Conciliation Resources included Ms. Janet Adama Mohammed, West Africa Program Director and Mr. David Newton, Director of Policy, Practice and Communications. Ms. Mohammed and Mr. Newton shared their analysis on the current state of both Sierra Leone and Liberia's transitions from war to peace, the key challenges that threaten these transitions, and initiatives, both local and international, which respond to these threats. The discussion focused on themes of formal/informal justice and reconciliation mechanisms, extending access and services beyond the cities, security sector reform (SSR), better governance of resource sectors, and creating opportunities for alienated youth. The Accord publication argues that an improved social contract between the state and society is central to continued peacebuilding progress in both countries.  

Click here for Conciliation Resources speaker profiles and for details about this event.  

Event: Implementation and Procurement Reform

February 21, 2012

As part of the USAID Forward reform agenda, USAID is changing its business processes - seeking to contract with and provide grants to more and varied local partners.

3P attended a presentation on February 21, hosted by InterAction, an alliance of U.S.-based NGO organizations focused on the world’s most poor and vulnerable populations.  More than fifty organizations were represented at the event.  USAID’s General Counsel Lisa Gomer discussed the agency’s recent developments in implementation and procurement reform (IPR).  

Most notably, USAID’s IPR initiative includes revisions to Regulation 22 CFR 228 Source and Nationality Policy which establishes USAID’s source and nationality procurement requirements. The new regulation, published on January 10, 2012, is intended to both simplify and streamline USAID’s procurements by::

1. Authorizing procurements in the recipient and other developing countries along with the United States, as Congress directed in the Foreign Assistance Act, via a new default Geographic Code of 937.
2. Eliminating the requirement to determine the “origin” of a commodity -- a difficult task in today’s globalized economy -- and simplifying and clarifying source and nationality requirements to restrict procurements from foreign government controlled vendors.
3. Streamlining procedures, including those necessary to obtain a waiver in the event goods or services are needed from any other country or region. 

Examples of how the objectives of IPR are being implemented can be viewed here in a September 2011 USAID newsletter.

Event: Civ-Mil Space & Humanitarian Response

January 19, 2012

Crowded Civil-Military Space: Evolution of Humanitarian Crises and Response

3P and InterAction hosted a roundtable discussion with Feinstein International Center of Tufts University to discuss their in-depth research and resulting policy implication for the evolving field of humanitarian response and the link between humanitarian, development and security goals and actors. 

This roundtable discussion featured Peter Walker, Director and Professor of Nutrition & Human Security and Antonio Donini, Senior Research and Instructor, both from the Feinstein International Center.  Walker and Donini presented Feinstein’s research on three broad areas: 

1) Working with Complexity

2) Aid and Military Sharing Space 

3) Working with the State. 

Presentations were drawn from their respective research reports on Professionalizing the Humanitarian Sector (2010) and Winning Hearts and Minds: Examining the Relationship between Aid and Security in Afghanistan (Jan 2012) along with their forthcoming book on the instrumentalization of aid.

Click here to see the PowerPoint presentation Working with the State.

Click here to see the PowerPoint presentation Perception of Security and Aid.

1) Working with Complexity: How is the humanitarian enterprise handling the complexity it faces, with more frequent and more types of crises, competition between and amongst local and international actors, and differences between state vs non-state humanitarian approaches?

2) Aid and Military Sharing Space: What does research suggest about the use of humanitarian and development projects in the service of counterinsurgency to bring or maintain security in strategically important environments, and by "winning hearts and minds" undermine support for radical, insurgent, or terrorist groups?

3) Working with the State: With sovereignty and nationalism increasingly impacting on the practice of humanitarian action, how are tensions between “state avoiding” and the “state embracing” agendas affecting humanitarianism?

Peter Walker and Antonio Donini from Tufts University Feinstein International Center talk with Worldvision's Randy Tift in front of InterAction's memorial to Fallen Colleagues whose lives were cut short while providing relief and development services around the world."

Alliance for Peacebuilding Fall Gathering

Dec 7, 2011

3P organized two policy events for the Fall Gathering of members of the Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP), the leading U.S.-based network of peacebuilding institutions and practitioners working worldwide:

Conflict Prevention Capacities in the U.S. Government:

The first was a panel presentation by Gustavo Delgado and Tod Wilson of the State Department's new Conflict and Stabilization Operations(CSO) Bureau and Mary Stata, the Coordinator of the Prevention and Protection Working Group about the new structures the government is putting in place to improve its overall capacity to prevent violent conflict and mass atrocities. The State Department officials described the vision and creation of the CSO Bureau, and Ms. Stata informed AfP members about the new inter-agency Atrocities Prevention Board, as well as updates on key Congressional budget accounts that provides the funds for conflict prevention activities. 

 Material Support Regulations that Restrict Critical Peacebuilding:

The second event was a participatory discussion of U.S. "material support" to terrorism regulations that have placed a chilling effect on important track II peacebuilding, development, and humanitarian relief activities around the world. AfP members heard from Kay Guinane of the Charity and SecurityNetwork (CSN) and Sharon Bradford Franklin of The Constitution Project about the latest discussions with the State Department, Treasury, and Justice Dept. exploring various potential legal mechanisms that would allow critical peacebuilding activities to resume without the fear of being prosecuted for material support