CPRF: Including Peacebuilding in Foreign Assistance Act

By Juontel White

The monthly Conflict Prevention Resolution Forum co-sponsored by SFCG, was hosted today at John Hopkins School of International Studies. Practitioners in the peacebuilding community along with members of the general public gathered to discuss how to reform the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA).

Enacted in 1961, the FAA reorganized aid for foreign assistance programs between military and non-military agencies. It also led to the creation of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The Act currently lacks any language to address programs that aim to prevent and/or resolve conflict. Thus, as it is now up for reform, the peacebuilding community has an opportunity to influence the creation of such language. This would help guarantee funds specifically for programs in conflict resolution and prevention.

Today’s forum was moderated by SFCG Vice President Sandra Malone and included panelists: Diana Ohlbaum, Senior Staff member for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs; Bridget Moix,  Legislative Secretary for the Friends Committee on National Legislation; and Susan Reichle, Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for USAID’s Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance.

They sought to explore the challenges inherent within FAA and address ways to help create a more effective strategy in the future.

*Because the Forum was held under Chatham House Rules, the information discussed is not attributed to any panelist or individual.

Despite the alarming link between conflict and underdevelopment, there has been little collaboration between conflict resolution and development programs in the U.S. In fact, one panelist described these programs as “underfunded, disrespected and disempowered.”

Through the discussion, several key issues in the process of providing foreign assistance were identified:

1) Difficulty to convert information to action

Though agencies develop solutions to addressing conflict in a given nation,   there is often a lag time for when those solutions are actually implemented (if at all)

2) Stages of conflict handled by different agencies

Because pre- and post-conflict strategies are addressed by separate bureaus, there has been little collaboration between these departments

3) Lack of funding

Because of limited funds, programs in peacebuilding have also been limited

4) Lack of Capacity

There is a low reserve of experts in specialized conflict resolution and prevention, such as how to address gender-based sexual violence

A proposed solution to addressing these issues is to increase non-military aid. A panelist explained that between 1998-2005 the Department of Defense’ control of the U.S. Official development assistance fund (ODA) increased from 3.5 to 22 percent.

Meanwhile, USAID control over the Fund during that time decreased 65 to 40 percent.  Reversing this trend and increasing civilian aid would provide peacebuilding programs more resources to fulfill their missions.

In addition, a complementary solution was introduced: cultivating a more integrated peacebuilding effort.  Greater cooperation between U.S. agencies and international organizations involved in conflict resolution and prevention would help strengthen such efforts at a community level.

The peacebuilding community has formed a working group that will express these issues and solutions to Congress. With that, they hope the reformed FAA will effectively address programs in conflict prevention and resolution.