STAND: the student-led movement to end mass atrocities, ran a virtual campaign this summer in support of robust GFA implementation, in partnership with Mercy Corps. We decided to focus on certain priorities for the Administration to include in the GFS, detailed in our Op-Ed Writing Guide, and based on extensive research by other organizations in the Global Fragility Act coalition. In the released report, the Administration noted four foci to be detailed in the strategy. However, when constructing the comprehensive GFS to meet their legal requirement, the Administration must be sure to:

• Emphasize the inclusion of and support for local, youth-led peacebuilding organizations. The GFA was created in order to address the roots of conflict, and Congress emphasized in the text that this would be possible through local leadership. In the GFS, the Administration must come up with a holistic plan that integrates and elevates local organizations at every step, from programmatic design to evaluation. Further, a comprehensive strategy should detail how any plan to identify, partner with, and include local organizations in diplomatic and political efforts will include and center youth-led groups.

• Select priority countries or regions based on relevant data and potential for U.S. action. This step is imperative for the GFA to be implemented. Without a list of priority regions and countries for GFA implementation, developing multiple 10-year strategies for each by the December 19, 2020 deadline may be delayed. Consistent with the indicators and data sources identified in Section 505 of the GFA and data-driven approaches developed by civil society leaders, priority regions and countries must be selected as soon as possible. By using data and evidence for impactful U.S. action, the GFA will be able to make the broadest impact on global levels of violence and fragility. 

• Address long-term causes of fragility and violence while adapting short-term programming reform that will allow for flexibility. The necessity for improved adaptability in both policy and programming was made clear in Section 510(a)(1) of the GFA. The Administration must explain how it intends to reform programs to be able to adapt to the changing dynamics characteristic of conflict-affected and fragile environments in order to address long-term causes. Among these should include implementation of more flexible procurement mechanisms (see Recommendation 11 of “Getting from Here to There” by Alliance for Peacebuilding and the One Earth Foundation).

• Take a conflict-sensitive, multisectoral approach. A conflict sensitive and multisectoral approach to crafting the 10-year context-specific strategies will be crucial for the GFA to fulfill its goal of addressing the underlying causes of violence. To this extent, the GFS should explain how conflict prevention and peacebuilding can be integrated at any stage of policy formulation and development programming. .

• Detail interagency cooperation with an emphasis on learning. None of the above points will be possible unless the GFS truly describes the whole-of-government approach for implementation of the GFA. Right now, bureaucracy hinders interagency cooperation and detracts from collaboration across sectors. The GFS must explain how various agencies and government leaders will work together and make decisions to further the diplomatic and programmatic efforts necessary to make the goals of the GFA possible.

Elements of these recommendations appear as “objectives” in the summary report; however, a concrete plan to address them remains to be formulated. With nearly 80 million people currently fleeing conflict and persecution amidst a pandemic exacerbating already rising levels of violence, the whole-of-government, preventive approach possible through the GFA is imperative to U.S. foreign policy. We urge the Administration to uphold their legal requirement and release a comprehensive strategy swiftly to ensure this historic piece of legislation can be properly implemented. 

STAND’s Managing Committee is STAND’s central decision-making body, and works to ensure that students have the resources to effectively organize their campuses and communities. Thank you to Megan Smith and members of the GFA summer campaign team for contributing to this statement.

In October 2000, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security (WPS), which was the first UN resolution to recognize the needs of women during and after conflict. The four pillars of WPS, as designated by the UN, are to promote the participation of women in all levels of decision-making, protect women and girls during conflict, ensure that conflict prevention measures include gendered perspectives, and solidify safe and easy access to development programs and humanitarian aid during recovery. The Resolution also served as a policy framework for the Women, Peace, and Security Act, a law passed in 2017 that aimed to improve U.S. security and peace efforts through the implementation of the WPS agenda. However, all facets of both the WPS Act and Resolution require long overdue action to truly prioritize a gendered implementation of solutions to state fragility. 

Conflict disproportionately affects women. During times of conflict, women are uniquely affected due to traditional gender roles and lack of prioritization of women’s security and health. Often confined to domestic spheres and tasked with serving as the head of household if left by or separated from their male counterparts, women may be caring for multiple children, the elderly, and attempting to survive off of limited resources. Conflict also heightens gender inequalities–while women and girls are already less likely to obtain an education, women are two and a half times more likely to be out of school than men in conflict settings. Without access to proper resources and life-saving support, women are left extremely vulnerable to different forms of trafficking, natural disasters, and sexual violence as a weapon of war. Especially in cases of genocide, where atrocities are committed with the intention of preventing the existence of a certain ethnic group or nation, women are subject to rape, forced sterilization, and female genital mutilation. Maternal health is also virtually nonexistent in conflict settings–pregnancy-related deaths constitute 60% of women’s deaths in situations of armed conflict. 

Despite the disproportionate amount of violence that women face in times of conflict, their needs and voices are rarely taken into account when rebuilding post-conflict or implementing measures to prevent future conflict. The Council on Foreign Relations estimates that between 1992 and 2019, women constituted 3% of mediators and 4% of signatories in reconciliation processes. Moreover, from 1990 to 2018, a mere 19.7% of peace agreements contained language or provisions addressing women or gender. The exclusion of women from peace processes sets up societies for repeated failure–if the needs of all individuals in a population are not met, the likelihood of fragility increases. The WPS agenda’s goal of ensuring the participation or representation of women during peace processes is not only necessary but vital to sustainable peace- the International Peace Institute estimates that peace processes involving women are 35% more likely to last at least 15 years. Allowing space for women’s insight and demands ensures a more human-rights based approach to rebuilding that will allow gender equality, rights for marginalized groups, and the root causes of violence to be better addressed. 

The United States has the opportunity to forward the goals of WPS and ensure proper implementation of the WPS Act while preventing conflict worldwide; the Global Fragility Act (GFA), passed in December 2019, is a bipartisan foreign policy bill that reorients the way the U.S. addresses violence and conflict and is designed to meet the needs of those most impacted by conflict- including women. The GFA prioritizes localization by seeking to promote locally-led programs with local actors- this leaves potential for women and youth voices to be centered in civil society, allowing women a chance to engage with their communities as a facilitator, mediator, or signatory during program implementation or peace processes. U.S. agencies working under the GFA are required to consult civil society groups and cede leadership of programs or policies to local governments- with this method of implementation, the voices of all groups in society are taken into account, and listening to groups, such as women and youth, becomes a crucial aspect of the programs’ success. Women’s participation in developing local programs, violence reduction policies, and peace processes directly contributes to the GFA’s goal of conflict prevention while decreasing inequalities and strengthening their state’s ability to govern undisturbed by social pressures. 

The GFA not only fulfills WPS’s goals of promoting women’s roles in decision-making but also establishes long-term tracking of fragile countries through the Global Fragility Strategy (GFS). This evaluation of how effective violence reduction strategies and programs are will make way for better data and analysis of women’s roles in mitigating conflict. The GFA’s long-term evaluation will also showcase the need for gender equality in fragile contexts- gender inequality is one of the most significant warning signs of a fragile state, meaning that the GFA will be compelled to analyze inequalities in society or risk losing sustainable peace. By looking at impact in the long run, the GFA offers opportunities to truly understand the importance of women’s contributions in peacebuilding and challenge the status quo of women as victims as opposed to agents of change. 

It is also important to note that the COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated women’s struggles in fragile regions- the Peace Research Institute of Oslo reports that countries where the status of women is low are more likely to be poorly equipped to treat and handle outbreaks like COVID-19. The current pandemic only increases the urgency to analyze global issues with a gendered perspective and prioritize the protection and inclusion of women and girls.

The goals of Women, Peace, and Security are ultimately intertwined with the sustainable peace and conflict prevention measures that the Global Fragility Act wishes to achieve. To truly address the root causes of conflict and develop strategies for violence reduction, women need to be at the center of all conversations, serving as decision-makers and active leaders in civil society. Successful implementation of the GFA includes successful implementation of WPS priorities,  providing for the security and inclusion of women for years to come.

Additional Sources:

• https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/22/women-peace-security-act-oversight-hearing-equality/
• https://www.usip.org/publications/2020/08/america-can-build-peace-better-if-it-includes-women
• https://giwps.georgetown.edu/how-to-center-women-in-the-global-fragility-act/ 
• https://oefresearch.org/sites/default/files/documents/publications/from-here-to-there-gfa_1.pdf (go to Section 6, last paragraph – pg 25)

Caroline is currently a freshmen at UCLA studying international development and French. She has worked with the STAND MC for the past 2 years and is returning as a co-education lead and co-Burma committee lead. Caroline is currently a research assistant for IDP and refugee issues with the US Campaign for Burma and works with the LA Museum of the Holocaust as a leader of the Museum Impact and Education Committee. In the past, Caroline has interned with Congresswoman Linda Sanchez and founded Together We Prevent Genocide, a non-profit dedicated to genocide education. She is a nominee for the 2020 National Gold Award Girl Scouts for her work with public school genocide awareness curriculum and is writer at Redefy for global affairs and legislative issues.

The Global Fragility Act seeks to address a complex issue that manifests in numerous ways – fragility. Simplistically, a country or region can be considered “fragile” if authorities–at the level of the community, state, regional, or otherwise–do not have the capacity to manage destabilizing risks through the delivery of basic services, protection of citizens, or robust societal relations. The OECD examines these risks through a multidimensional framework, taking into account issues that range from political to environmental. These risks and results are cyclical: a kind of fragility feedback loops arises as risks beget fragility, while increased fragility compounds associated risks. The same issues at the root of fragility often make an area susceptible to violent conflict. These loops of fragility and insecurity can worsen, especially in already fragile contexts, raising the likelihood of instability and potential for violence. 

More evidence points especially to the potential of climate change to exacerbate drivers of conflict. In fact, climate change has been termed a “threat multiplier.” While a direct link between violent conflict and climate change remains unestablished, its effects do have an indirect impact on levels of violence. Further, fragile contexts, including historically marginalized and exploited communities, bear the brunt of both the immediate and future consequences of the climate crisis both in the U.S. and globally. As rising oceans engulf entire coastlines, lakes used for drinking water evaporate, natural disasters intensify, agricultural production slows or even halts, global fragility increases exponentially. These environmental impacts threaten livelihoods while making some regions entirely uninhabitable. They subsequently force migration, exacerbate pre-existing community tensions, and plunge communities further into poverty. These concrete social and economic changes are all at the roots of fragility and violent conflict.

Because climate change exacerbates conditions under which violence begins, peace and environmental security are inextricably linked. However, few international frameworks have emerged to constructively address their nexus while effective high-level cooperation continues faltering, even as scientific research predicts increasingly catastrophic events. Yet, climate change does not imply inevitable conflict. More often, conflict arises when other conditions of fragility accompany extreme climate events. Further, civil society mobilization for climate action and justice proves willingness to build climate resilience at multiple levels. Similarly, successful peacebuilding rests on the knowledge and drive of local peacebuilders. To adequately link all of these goals, peacebuilding must have a climate-sensitive approach. One way to do this is through environmental peacebuilding, which emphasizes that cooperation to address the effects of climate change has great potential to improve community relations rather than highlighting the potential for natural degradation to spur violent conflict. In pursuit of these goals, the U.S. has an immense opportunity through the GFA to prevent conflict while also mitigating climate change.

Though the climate crisis presents the greatest threat to international peace and security, building peace while enhancing climate resiliency through environmental peacebuilding can create a more environmentally, economically, and socially secure world. Improving natural resource management can become a space for peacebuilding rather than just a means to an end. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, at least 18 armed conflicts over the past three decades have been directly linked to natural resource control and have exacerbated pre-existing drivers of violence in about 40% of civil wars over the past six decades. While climate change can exacerbate these stressors, environmental peacebuilding can promote reconciliation and trust between adversaries while instituting sustainable development. Peacebuilding programs have begun to integrate these principles. For instance, the Good Water Neighbors project utilized shared water resources between Palestinian, Israeli, and Jordanian communities as an entry point to both improve sustainable, transboundary resource management and foster trust from individual to regional levels. 

In Nigeria’s Middle Belt, climate change exacerbated historic tensions often over natural resources, resulting in escalated levels of violence. In response, Mercy Corps implemented peacebuilding programming to address both the immediate impacts of climate change and the associated violent conflict. They helped to build community trust through workshops, peace committees, and dialogue sessions, allowing for conflicting parties to better understand and trust each other as natural resources became more scarce. One of the Mercy Corps team members working on these projects, Tog Gang, explained that “[Peacebuilding is] about addressing all those underlying issues that led to the fragility, conflict or violence in the first instance.” 

Through the implementation of the Global Fragility Act, environmental factors must be taken into consideration both as a factor of fragility in priority region selection, as well as when devising the 10-year strategy for each selected priority. Some of these considerations could include those that make up the OECD’s environmental dimension of fragility, which includes both internal and external risk factors. Among these are human displacement, food insecurity, exposure to natural disasters like drought or flooding, vulnerability of livelihoods, or infectious disease rates, as well as many other risks caused by the climate crisis that affect human security. Nonetheless, these risks can be diminished through strengthening both civil society and local governance in a given context. Indeed, one recent USAID study emphasized that while fragility and climate risks coalesce to foster instability, the factors related to conflict remain context-specific. Thus, as the GFA works to tackle root causes of conflict and fragility, each priority country or regional strategy must integrate addressing climate change. By identifying where climate change will most impact security concerns, the GFA can enable the U.S. to act on the effects of climate change in a timely, deliberate manner. 

Climate change itself is not new. However, the extent of current climate change impacts are anomalous. The climate is no longer simply “changing,” but in crisis. Despite scientific identification of benchmarks necessary to mitigate effects of the climate crisis, international environmental cooperation falters in face of threatened global stability. While the most effective way to confront climate change would be drastic mobilization to curb global warming, action to build peace at the crossroads of conflict, fragility, and climate can still be taken. These efforts, while perhaps seemingly disparate at first glance, correlate. Measures to prevent and mitigate both climate change and violence have a fundamentally similar vision of a more peaceful, secure world. The GFA, through its innovative approach to addressing root causes of fragility, can enable the U.S. to make impactful action at the nexus of conflict and climate. By focusing on mitigating climate risks, the GFA will more effectively reduce fragility.

This coming Saturday, August 22, STAND’s GFA Campaign Team will be hosting an event that features an expert on fragility, peacebuilding, and climate change. Register at this link to hear more in depth how the GFA can address the intersection of environmental fragility and conflict. 

Megan Smith serves as Policy Co-Lead for the GFA Virtual Campaign while working as a Temporary Associate for Dexis Consulting Group’s conflict mitigation and stabilization portfolio. She holds a BA in International Relations and in French from the University of Southern California. This past year, she served as a member of STAND’s Managing Committee and interned at the USC Shoah Foundation.

Brandon Alonzo is a Facilitator at YA-YA Network, Ambassador at Zero Hour, and NY State Advocacy Lead at STAND: The Student-Led Movement to End Mass Atrocities.

This blog is the third in a series on the Global Fragility Act, signed into law on December 20, 2019, which would significantly reorient U.S. foreign policy and assistance to address the root causes of violence. It requires extensive cooperation between U.S. diplomatic, development, and defence agencies in order to develop the Global Fragility Strategy (GFS), to be submitted to Congress on September 15, 2020. The GFS will be the first-ever whole-of-government plan to prevent or reduce conflict in at least five fragile contexts over a 10-year period. Under the new GFS, agencies will use a range of diplomatic and programmatic efforts to address the drivers of violence while the GFA will support learning. about which diplomatic and programmatic efforts are most effective at preventing and reducing violence. Learn more here.

Note: The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of their schools or employers.

The opportunity to fully implement the Global Fragility Act (GFA) is incredibly timely given the recent demands for action against police brutality in the United States. On May 25, the tragic murder of George Floyd by four Minneapolis police officers reignited calls for Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests across America and in more than 60 countries. While focused on responding to police brutality, extrajudicial killings of Black people, and the need for anti-racist measures across all institutions in the U.S., BLM has also awoken a mass consciousness to the longstanding violence against Black people and other marginalized groups globally. 

As a Black woman and Latinx man involved in international non-profit spaces, we have seen how deep-rooted racism can upend a person of color’s physical safety in an instant or ability to navigate predominantly white spaces, as they are born into systems made to oppress them and not uplift them. BLM has pushed anti-racism and inclusion measures to the forefront of all sectors, for instance, highlighting elements of a “white savior complex” in U.S. foreign policy. Organizations like No White Saviors advocate for local experts and leaders to resolve their communities’ problems, not implement Western responses into other contexts. The GFA has the potential to put this into action and commit to its promise of supporting community-led development and amplifying youth advocates in order to address the root causes of violence in its priority countries. 

What we are witnessing in Palestine is similar to what has taken place in the United States against the Black community. Systemic oppression is something that the two communities share in common. One way the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has manifested is in the form of environmental racism. Climate change is a crisis, one that impacts everyone and has the potential to wipe out humanity. Despite this, there is a lack of urgency demonstrated by global leaders on how  to tackle it. Marginalized communities are bearing the brunt of climate change on the global stage. That is exactly what environmental racism is about, and it is a real problem that is often ignored by a large portion of the media. 

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a climate justice issue. Palestinians are vulnerable to climate change because they aren’t allowed to manage their own land and resources. Gaza, a Palestinian territory, has been experiencing a shortage of water supply not only because of climate change but also due to Israeli restrictions on the entry of materials and fuel needed for wastewater treatment. This has resulted in much of the water being contaminated and undrinkable. This is the same water that is home to marine life, so it has raised concerns that the food supply is unsafe as well. This continued contamination of local resources from the land and sea from Israel and external companies undermines Palestinians’ rights to control and rehabilitate their land.

In the U.S., Black communities face similar problems to Palestinians in Gaza, in the sense that they mainly aren’t in charge of managing the resources in their own communities. Along with other marginalized groups, Black Americans have been limited to living in neighborhoods that have higher exposure to pollution and toxicity. From 1987 to 2000, race was the strongest determinant of the location of commercial hazardous waste sites. Black Americans are three times more likely to die from exposure to small particle air pollution than anyone else. Given the fact that Black communities are disproportionately impacted by climate change, race is still the strongest factor in who is systematically targeted. 

The violence demonstrated by the Israeli government doesn’t help either, with reports indicating that the 2014 Israeli war on Gaza resulted in 21,000 tonnes of explosives used on the land, which damaged the soil and agricultural activity. This isn’t even taking into account that the Israeli government has continued to cut down trees in the Gaza strip with 800,000 olive trees uprooted since 1967. The U.S. government has a significant role to play in addressing all of this, given the amount of aid provided to Israel every year. Given the criteria for priority country or region selection, Palestine  would align with the GFA given the levels of fragility, ongoing violence committed against the Palestinian people, and commitment of local Palestinian and Israeli organizations working for peace. Additionally, the U.S government holds significant influence over the Israeli government, which strengthens the possibility that a strategy under the GFA could meaningfully affect the levels of fragility and violence. However, it is highly unlikely that the current administration would consider Palestine as a priority region; further, the Israeli government does not display commitment to possible actions that could be taken under the GFA given the state-sponsored violence committed against Palestinians and most recently, the U.S.-backed plan to annex most of the West Bank which has been indefinitely delayed.

The ongoing civil war in Yemen has also taken a toll on civilians and discontinued access to agricultural activity. Since 2015, the civil war has displaced millions, devastated infrastructure, spurred an economic crisis, and created the largest food security emergency in the world. As number two on the U.S. Holocaust Museum’s Early Warning Project’s list for the estimated risk of mass killing in 2019-2020, Yemen’s fragility is worsening. According to the World Food Programme, as of May 2020, 90% of Yemen’s food was imported and almost two million children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years old suffer from malnutrition. 

The Black American community has also fought food insecurity for decades, as inequitable, racist systems contribute to lower wages and unemployment, geographic placement of supermarkets or organic food sources (also known as food deserts), higher healthcare costs and proclivity towards health issues, mass incarceration, and much more. Even before the food shortage spurred by COVID-19, Black Americans represented the most food-insecure households in America at 21.2%, more than double white households. 

Through GFA’s flexible funding nature, Yemen’s conflict, compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic and five years of relentless violence, may wane. The U.S. has failed to adequately respond to Yemenis’ need for international intervention, as it continues to support the Saudi coalition that targets Yemeni civilians and blocks humanitarian assistance. Last year, the Trump administration’s veto of the Yemen War Powers Resolution sent a clear message that the U.S. was comfortable being unconstitutionally complicit in the war. Including Yemen as a U.S. strategic priority now may be the needed response to halt further violence, decelerate food insecurity, and finally help address the root causes of Yemen’s 2011 uprising that sparked the instability seen today. 

The U.S. must utilize foreign assistance as a tool to support countries and regions like Yemen and Palestine on their journeys to establish peace. The GFA’s core mission to better coordinate U.S. federal agencies’ responses is imperative to more successful stabilization and preventative measures and projects in Palestine, Yemen, and other places affected by conflict and fragility.

2020 has been a critical year, not only for addressing racial inequity and rapidly responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, but also for the first steps towards the successful implementation of the GFA. Not only is investing in prevention cost-effective, but it is inherently in the American national security interest. There are lifelong lessons from the BLM movement and undeniable parallels between the violence abroad and the ongoing war against Blacks in the U.S. The GFA’s implementation has the potential to address deep-rooted injustices and stabilize communities, that we could even use to finally reconcile the atrocities continuously waged against Black Americans since 1619. 

In 2009, the United Nations Secretary-General set a precedent for incorporating local organizations in peacebuilding efforts. The report on Peacebuilding in the Immediate Aftermath of Conflict states, “We know that peacebuilding is a national challenge and responsibility. Only national actors can address their society’s needs and goals in a sustainable way.” The report goes on to detail key aspects that lead to continued fragilities. Some argue that international peacebuilding efforts reinforce global priorities, rather than the needs of the community. 

This reflects the traditional top-down approach to peacebuilding. Because international organizations have their own operational procedures and bylaws, their peacebuilding efforts abroad reflect external systems. In a Washington Post article, an NGO worker in Congo is quoted stating, “There is so much pressure to be accountable… complying with the rules and regulations and not having any corruption or fraud. There is not much appetite for failure. You often have problems because you don’t have time to train people. We don’t even have any reflection time. If an activity is not a big failure, we just go onto the next thing.” The need to spend allocated funds is another problematic component of top-down peacebuilding. International organizations typically focus on spending their allocated money, rather than addressing the needs of a community. An international staff member from South Sudan mentions, “People spend 40 percent of their time talking about their burn rate [the rate at which they spend allocated funds].” However, to ensure a more peaceful transition and prevention of future conflict, peacebuilding efforts must become a bottom-up approach, including the perspective of civil society and marginalized groups. 

In conversations about a bottom-up approach to peacebuilding, the term “local” gets used a lot. However, the international community struggles to agree on a definition of the term. In workshops hosted by the United Nations University Institute for Sustainability and Peace in 2009 and 2010, participants did not come to a clear consensus on what determines a local stakeholder. “Locals” can mean government representatives, civil society groups, community and religious leaders, and marginalized groups, such as women, children, and minorities from the conflict-affected area. 

Even though the United Nations and other prominent international organizations praise the concept of locally-led peace initiatives, they do not always follow their own advice. International peace programs are crucial for facilitating peace agreements, maintaining peace between parties, and providing financial and technical resources. However, these interventions only help the short-term impacts of violence and do not address the root causes. A report by Peace Direct and the Alliance for Peacebuilding argues, “Peace is only sustainable when it is driven and led locally, that is, by the people and institutions of the country or countries concerned. This is because peace is only likely to be sustained when local people take the lead. They know the context well enough to judge what measures might work, and have the knowledge, relationships, and motivation needed to ensure they do work, especially over the longer term.” When developing and implementing strategies related to international peacebuilding, the perspective and action of local communities are necessary for successful implementation. They are the only people who truly understand how the conflict impacts their diverse community members. They can also respond to new developments and changes in the conflict. Thus, when developing a plan for peace, international organizations and other states must practice what they preach and be a guide rather than an administrator or sole leader. 

Peace Direct makes it easy to connect with local peacebuilders and local experts on the conflict in the country or region. They developed PeaceInsight, a map that organizes over 1500 local peacebuilding organizations around the world. Peace Direct recognizes that local peace leaders are often forgotten, even though they have the most impact on preventing and resolving conflict in their communities. This map aims to bring awareness and public support to local peacebuilding efforts. By simply clicking on a country of interest, a user can find a list of local organizations, read blogs on the conflict, and connect to a local peace expert. 

Local peacebuilding has been proven effective. In Burundi, communities that established ‘peace clubs’ saw a significant decrease in electoral violence between 2010 and 2015. The Democratic Republic of Congo also saw a reduction in violence after peace committees facilitated dialogue with armed militia groups. Communities in Kordofan, Sudan established peace committees as well. In their evaluative studies, they discovered 94% of interventions partially or fully resolved the conflict, and 80% of interventions where conflict ended saw no further violence. Sierra Leone’s Fambul Tok programme evaluations showed that 84% of people believed that the program prevented conflict, as well as 96% of the respondents saw containment of violence. The graph below demonstrates the importance of early local response and the potential consequences if not addressed locally. These statistics and examples taken together exemplify the importance of locally-led peace initiatives. 

     Credit: Christian Aid, ‘In It For the Long Haul?: Lessons on Peacebuilding in South Sudan’, 2018.

The future implementation of U.S. foreign policy must include locally-led and owned peace initiatives. December 2019 marked a significant date in U.S. foreign policy’s recognition of the importance of local peacebuilding. With the signing of the Global Fragility Act, coordination with local organizations to carry out the conflict prevention policy in selected priority regions became mandatory. In approximately one month, the President must submit a Global Fragility Strategy (GFS) to Congress. The law mentions multiple points that focus on locally-led peacebuilding, such as empowering local leaders to understand the needs of their communities and developing, designing, implementing, and monitoring peacebuilding programs that address root causes to fragility and violence in their communities. These points must not be perfunctory in developing the GFS. 

Last month, Peace Direct and the Alliance for Peacebuilding published a report on the intersection of the GFA and local peacebuilding after co-hosting a virtual dialogue with 140 participants from 39 countries. Through these talks, they found that conversation with all groups of local peacebuilders is essential for an effective GFS and comprehensive understanding of violence. Peacebuilders expressed the need for inclusion throughout the entire process from designing, implementing, and evaluating programs. Participant Dlanga Yusuf of Nigeria states, “To overcome challenges to local participation, we need to prioritize the bottom-top approach of our project design and implementation. Participation in project design, promote owner[ship], and community engagement.” The participants express how the U.S. government and organizations should relinquish their extensive involvement in conflict analysis and program development and implementation. Participant Reem Alsalem from Jordan states, “Involving civil society organizations and grassroots organizations that are truly connected to the communities and that understand the context and the needs is key.” Something participants recommend is that the U.S. should provide funding for trauma, psychosocial, and mental health resources. In response to all of these findings from the conversation, Peace Direct recommends that the GFS and GFA implementation engages the entirety of the local community, includes and prioritizes local perspectives, and addresses barriers to local engagement early. 

The GFS must bridge the gap between policy rhetoric and the reality of what happens on the ground. For the GFA to be effective, local peacebuilders must lead and take ownership of the efforts in their community. This act presents the opportunity for the United States to be a part of long-lasting change in global conflict reduction and prevention by allocating the funds and providing resources and support, but ultimately leaving the development, implementation, and evaluation of peace efforts to the locals, the first-hand experts of their lived experiences with conflict.

Jenna holds a Bachelor of Arts in Global Studies from Bridgewater College. She is currently working towards two Master of Arts degrees at West Chester University of Pennsylvania: Holocaust and Genocide Studies and General Psychology. The guiding theme of Jenna’s research is the overlap of social/peace psychology and mass atrocities. She is specifically interested bystander and rescuer behavior during genocides. In addition to her extensive research in genocide studies, she has a background in advocacy. As a member of the Church of the Brethren, she attended three Christian Citizenship Seminars lobbying for policies related to carbon footprint, childhood poverty, and immigration. She also held an internship at the Borgen Project where she wrote articles connecting global poverty and human rights abuses, lobbied congresspeople, and fundraised for the organization.

“Our world faces a common enemy: COVID-19. The virus does not care about nationality or ethnicity, faction, or face; it attacks all relentlessly. Meanwhile, armed conflict rages on around the world. The most vulnerable, women and children, people with disabilities, the marginalized, and the displaced, pay the highest price. They are also at the highest risk of suffering devastating losses from COVID-19.” – United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres

On March 23, 2020, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the international community to commit to a global ceasefire. All attention, he implored, should instead be turned to fight a shared enemy: COVID-19. Within days, governments participating in conflicts around the world began announcing that they would heed Guterres’ call for a ceasefire. Armed groups that have been fighting without stop for decades such as the New People’s Army (NPA) in the Philippines and the National Liberation Army (ELN) in Colombia put down their weapons. Even Saudi Arabia, a country responsible for indiscriminately bombing Yemeni markets, schools, and health care centers announced that they would adhere to a ceasefire in Yemen—albeit, a unilateral one. By early April, parties in an estimated 11 countries committed to a global ceasefire. 

At first, the shared pandemic experience appeared to mitigate conflict, serving as a cause for cooperation. The Colombian and Venezuelan governments reopened communication for the first time in over a year to discuss how they could work together to fight the spread of the virus across their border. For the first time in over ten years, the U.S. sent aid to the Georgian region of Abkhazia. The United Arab Emirates—the main backers of the Saudis in Yemen—sent over 30 tons of humanitarian aid to Iran. 

Yet, in Ukraine, where the fighting parties had verbally committed to the ceasefire, fighting continued as before. In other places, such as Yemen or Cameroon, ceasefires were either short-lived or ignored. In countries where ceasefires were agreed upon, they were mostly not renewed.

Now, months after Guterres’ call for a global ceasefire and the optimism of early March, the pandemic has proved that it is not, in itself, a path for peace. Indeed, there is no evidence global violence decreased in the past four months. Instead, conflict zones have seen the increased targeting of aid workers, massive displacement, and unabating outbreaks—factors only exacerbated by stanched aid flows and the international community’s reticence to take concrete and sustainable action to promote cooperation and prevention. On a broader level, a ceasefire does nothing to protect states classified as “fragile” who, being vulnerable to shocks like health crises, are among the most susceptible to future conflict.

The international community has had ample opportunity to learn how conflict and disease act like fuel and flint, feeding into each other’s worst effects. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where conflict has raged on for nearly three decades, fractionalization of power and the devastation of infrastructure has rendered health care and aid practically inaccessible. As such, thousands of Congolese lives have been lost in the country’s ten-plus major outbreaks of Ebola. In Yemen, the Saudi-led coalition’s blockade and airstrikes have destroyed water sources, razed hospitals and clinics, and manufactured a man-made famine—factors credited with generating “the largest cholera outbreak in epidemiological recorded history.” 

One clear lesson is that mass displacement invites outbreak among conflicts’ most vulnerable: displaced persons and refugees. Since late March, approximately 480,000 people have been displaced due to violence in the Congo—a region that must simultaneously battle Ebola, conflict, and now COVID-19. Similarly, in refugee camps, cramped and unhygienic conditions make following World Health Organization guidelines like “social distancing” a laughable impossibility. Perhaps most worrying, because conflict zones render conducting and processing testing difficult, we cannot yet quantify COVID-19 infections in conflict-affected regions. When surveyed in mid-April, around one-fourth of Rohingya refugees in camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh reported experiencing at least one common symptom of COVID-19. 

Even in places where WHO guidelines could theoretically be enforced, COVID-19 has proved to be a trust exercise between governments and the governed—meaning that in conflict zones where authority is ambiguous or viewed as unjustified, people are less likely to adhere to safety guidelines due to a lack of trust. Many of the same states that struggle with citizen-state trust internally are likely underreporting their COVID numbers internationally. Many suspect that the Burundi president’s recent death—supposedly from cardiac arrest—was the result of COVID-19. After the government vehemently refused to impose health and safety regulations, the president’s sudden death by illness suggests that the disease had a much further reach than the government has reported. Similarly, Yemen currently touts incredibly low COVID-19 numbers compared to its Middle East neighbors. This is most likely not a sign that the warzone has miraculously been spared; as of May 28, authorities had conducted less than 1,000 tests across the entire country. Reports abound of hospitals and health care centers turning away people with symptoms common to COVID-19. 

While the concept of trust allows us to understand how conflict has shaped the pandemic experience, it, perhaps more importantly, suggests how the pandemic experience might shape future conflict. COVID-19 has already caused extensive individual health, social, and economic damage. We cannot predict its trajectory. This latter fact presents more troubling uncertainties. We can only hypothesize the extent of the consequences that this disease will have on the world order, the shape of our societies, or even the health of those it infects. Already, governments like Russia have been curtailing human rights in the name of preventing COVID-19. Across the world, major elections have been rescheduled or delayed indefinitely. Especially in states with broad emergency powers, this opens up opportunities for unpopular or exploitative governments to stay in power. 

Source: Foreign Policy

How many will die or be displaced not by COVID-19, but by the world’s response to it? On the Venezuela/Colombia border, a bridge closed, diverting the estimated 35,000 Venezuelan refugees who used it daily to dangerous illegal crossing points. The world’s response has already triggered a global recession with profound effects: according to a USIP report, “nearly half of all jobs [in Africa] could be lost, and nearly half of the global population could be living in poverty—on less than $1.90 a day—as a result of the pandemic.”

Not since the Spanish Flu have we seen a pandemic that has so ravaged the global economy, interrupting flows of aid and sowing the seeds for future conflicts. Just in time for a swelling need, foreign aid workers have been airlifted out of conflict zones—both due to safety and the evaporation of funding. Those who remain on the ground face overwhelming hurdles to receive aid and make it accessible while still maintaining their own lives as funding dries out and the pandemic rages on. 

If there is one lesson that we learned in the 20th century, it is that it is far cheaper to prevent conflict than to mitigate it. In light of dwindling funding and growing need for aid, the United States has an unprecedented chance to implement the Global Fragility Act to counter some of the effects of the pandemic on the world’s most fragile states. Since the bill passed as a part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act in December 2019, its funding can work against the global downward capital flows of the COVID-19 pandemic today and continue to provide a stable foundation of aid in target regions in the years to come. 

Abby Edwards is STAND’s co-Student Director and a senior in the Dual BA program between Sciences Po Paris and Columbia University, where she is pursuing degrees in Human Rights and Politics & Government. In addition to her work with STAND, Abby is currently a research fellow with the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at  Columbia University and an intern at the Embassy of France in the United States. 

To support implementation of the GFS, we are asking Congress to appropriate (set aside in law) the funds that the GFA authorizes (establishes). These include $50 million annually to the Complex Crises Fund (CCF), $200 million annually to the Prevention and Stabilization Fund (PSF), and $25 million total to the Multi-Donor Global Fragility Fund. Further, legislative report text must ensure a substantial portion of the CCF and the PSF is available for implementation of the GFS.