engaging fragile states - Woodrow Wilson International Center for ...

“
Some of the most innovative
thinking has emerged out of the
Defense Department about how
the United States structures its
government to deal with failed
and fragile states.”
Reuben Brigety
has engaged the State Department in a Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development
Review (QDDR), which will be completed by late-2010. Modeled on the Pentagon’s
Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), the QDDR’s objective is to evaluate current
US priorities, organizational structure, and resource allocation within the State
Department and USAID. It will also attempt to create short-term and long-term
blueprints for advancing US foreign policy objectives and enhancing coordination
between the two agencies.
In 2002, USAID created CMM within the Bureau of Humanitarian Response
to Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Affairs. CMM’s mandate is to lead
USAID's efforts to identify and analyze sources of conflict, support early responses
that address the causes and consequences of instability and violent conflict, and
to integrate conflict mitigation and management into USAID's analysis, strategies
and programs. Innovative products from this office that have contributed to
USAID’s efforts to prioritize failed and fragile states have been the Fragile States
Strategy, and a Conflict Assessment Framework , which later became the basis
of the joint collaboration of the Interagency Conflict Assessment Framework
(ICAF). In cooperation with S/CRS, CMM has conducted several inter-agency assessments
using the ICAF for specific countries that are deemed at risk of conflict
or instability. CMM has become the office within the United States government
most consistently focused on conflict prevention as opposed to mid-conflict resolution
and post-conflict rebuilding.
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