The Need to Improve

Despite over a decade of recent experience, the international community continues to struggle with the challenge of building sustainable peace and lasting stability in countries emerging from conflict. While the U.S. and its international partners have learned much about post-conflict reconstruction, no one has analyzed and synthesized the wealth of experience in a comprehensive and systematic way. Past efforts to capture lessons learned have tended to reflect only the particular perspective of the institution that conducted the examination. As a result, no model or framework for coordinating the complex set of associated tasks currently exists. This absence leads to ineffective strategies, ad hoc planning and execution, and squandered resources.

In the fall of 2000, General Gordon Sullivan (USA, Ret.), Former Chief of Staff, US Army and President of the Association of the U.S. Army, and Dr. John Hamre, Former Deputy Secretary of Defense and President and CEO of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, sought to address the dynamics of the problem by combining efforts in the Project on Post-Conflict Reconstruction (PCR). This collaborative endeavor adopts earlier work by the Carnegie Commission for Preventing Deadly Conflict (CCPDC; May 1994-December 1999). The CCPDC initiated the work through its effort at Conflict Prevention and then developed a draft Framework for Preventing the Re-emergence of Violence. AUSA and CSIS further developed the PCR Framework, organizing tasks associated with post-conflict reconstruction to provide a solid foundation for future work in the field.

The events of September 11, 2001 and the ongoing U.S. campaign in Afghanistan highlight the importance of sustainable reconstruction. According to recent reports of the World Bank, since the end of the cold war post-conflict reconstruction efforts achieve success only about 50% of the time. States unable to maintain their political and territorial integrity become susceptible to terrorist ideologies and movements, organized crime, and manipulation by other states. As in Afghanistan, terrorists continue to exploit post-conflict vacuums in Africa, Asia, and the Balkans. The US government and the international community have the incentive and the capability to do better, both to alleviate suffering, and, by being more efficient and effective, to reduce the amount of resources and time spent in extra-ordinary intervention in these countries.

The Project Structure

To ensure practical results, the project has assembled a Commission on Post-Conflict Reconstruction, consisting of senior former U.S. Government civilian and military officials experienced in post-conflict reconstruction, key members of Congress, and experts in private non- governmental organizations and the international community. Their perspectives will be fully integrated into the goals of the project, and they will be the primary recipients of the project deliverables.

Chaired by Dr. Hamre and Gen. Sullivan, the Commission met for the first time on March 20, 2002, on Capitol Hill. The project coordinators presented white papers on Strategy and Planning, and on Civilian Rapid Response. In addition, a Post-Conflict (PCR) Task Framework was submitted for review.

In a series of meetings throughout the year, the commission will develop specific proposals to enhance U.S. participation in international reconstruction efforts in war-torn countries such as Afghanistan, Bosnia, Haiti, and Sierra Leone. Findings will identify gaps in the current response capabilities of the U.S. and international community. The Commission's actionable recommendations will propose legislative and executive action to improve post-conflict reconstruction capabilities within the US Government. The panel's conclusions, based on the project research and working group efforts as well as the Commission meetings, will be published in a final report and distributed to key international and domestic policy-makers in Fall 2002. Mindful of the context of these operations, the project has developed relationships with the international community to condition recommendations to the U.S., and will, in the next phase, specifically address recommended improvements in international capacity, comparative advantages, and division of labor.

Over the next year, the project will continue to sponsor a series of Expert Working Groups, composed of experienced practitioners, to evaluate the lessons learned from previous and ongoing attempts at post-conflict reconstruction, including operations in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Haiti, East Timor, Kosovo, and Sierra Leone. The working groups will focus on specific strategies for improving US Government engagement.

The meetings and working groups will produce a number of deliverables. Interim papers dealing with aspects of the framework, specific cases, and functional recommendations will be published. In addition to the final report of the Commission on Post-Conflict Reconstruction, a Post-Conflict Reconstruction Book entitled Post-Conflict Reconstruction: Meeting the Outsider's Challenge will present the project findings and will cover key issues such as interagency coordination, planning, training, institutional capacity, and funding. The project will also release its PCR Framework and an accompanying practitioners database.

Project Goals and Objectives

The Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project* explores the needs of societies emerging from armed conflict. In its papers and consultations it will identify benchmark processes and gaps within current capabilities of the US and the international community to address these needs. Such a process can thereby improve the efforts of key actors involved in post-conflict operations. By examining the priorities for post-conflict tasks, and their timing, sequencing, and integration , the project will assess the division of labor among various organizations (civilian/military, national/international, government/non-governmental, public/private) with rigorous analyses of their respective core competencies, limitations, and comparative advantages. Focusing initially on the US Government, the project will make specific, actionable recommendations to maximize the leverage and effectiveness of American engagement and, in a subsequent phase, apply similar techniques to the international community. The project identifies the salient organizational and procedural changes necessary to achieve reconstruction goals, including creation of capacities that are not currently available, and mechanisms for improved division of labor, coordination, and integration among US agencies and international actors. In addition, it seeks bi-partisan consensus on appropriate funding mechanisms for accomplishing post- conflict reconstruction tasks. The project will recommend reforms in planning and coordination, training, and funding functions to institutionalize crosscutting best practices and lessons learned.

The Process

The Post-Conflict Reconstruction Framework is a comprehensive catalog of the tasks that should be performed in Post-Conflict Reconstruction (PCR). It displays and organizes tasks common to reconstruction operations in order to illustrate "how to think" about PCR, rather than "what to think" or do in every operation. The Framework is intended for use by operators to plan, coordinate and execute, however it is not a political-military plan.

The Framework is designed as the basis for planning, research and analysis, identification of capability shortfalls, and resource allocation. Conceptual and temporal definitions have been developed from comprehensive research and a series of expert-workshops conducted by the project. The project's framework and database are organized according to several principles. First, post-conflict reconstruction occurs between the cessation of violent conflict and the return to normalization. Normalization is defined as the point at which the post-conflict society no longer requires extraordinary levels and types of outside assistance, the processes of governance and economic activity are largely functional on a self-determined and self-sustaining basis, and the country can order its internal and external relations according to generally accepted norms of behavior. Second, reconstruction efforts generally follow a continuum with three conceptual phases, defined as initial response, transformation, and fostering sustainability. The first phase - initial response - is often marked by dependence on outside intervention, usually military, for basic security, stability, and emergency services. Initial response also includes laying the foundation for governance and justice systems. The second phase - transformation - develops legitimate and sustainable indigenous capacity. The final phase - fostering sustainability - consolidates long-term recovery efforts, precipitating the departure of extraordinary international involvement. Throughout the first two phases of the Framework, the international community will generally conduct most tasks alone or with limited assistance from indigenous partners. Moving towards normalization, indigenous actors will bear increasing responsibility for critical tasks.

The project's research informed the decision to divide the Framework into four distinct issue areas, or "pillars": security; justice/reconciliation; social/economic well-being; and governance/participation. Repeatedly, the absence of state capacity to provide goods and services within any of these pillars has led to the need for significant and pro- longed international intervention. Within the pillars, the tasks are organized into topics and subtopics to provide the reader with an overarching understanding of the Framework.

To accompany this Framework, the project has built a practitioners' database of lessons learned based on experience and literature in post-conflict operations that contains deconstructed case studies, actors, conditions, descriptions, and reported assessments of how well various tasks in the framework were executed in particular operations; a capacity map of current capabilities that identifies which U.S. agencies have the capacity to perform which tasks; and a set of Metrics, Measures, Standards and Indicators to inform practitioners on the issue of transitions. These project components give policymakers and field practitioners the tools necessary to improve the design and execution of post-conflict reconstruction.

The project addresses transitions by examining the role of metrics, measures, standards and indicators in transitions, both in phasing a reconstruction operation, and, the interaction of organizations within an operation as they accomplish and "hand-off" tasks from one to another. These completions and/or transfers of responsibilities constitute transition points within the post-conflict reconstruction process.

Ideally, these transitions are prompted by corresponding modifications of the recipient's needs. Consequently, mission objectives change. Because various organizations and agencies have different comparative advantages and capabilities, transitions from war to peace involve the [gradual] transfer of responsibilities from outsider to insider, and from military to civilian actors.

The 'end-state' envisioned by the variety of local actors, US government agencies, and international institutions, is particular to each actor/organization. The international community's experience over the last decade shows that significant problems arise when one organization's end-state is achieved and other organizations are not prepared or willing to undertake responsibility for the follow-on tasks. Just as prevalent as these "underlaps" or gaps in task execution, over-laps in responsibilities and operations also cause "turf battles," redundancies, and inefficiently employed resources.

The PCR project has identified the central challenges in assigning the appropriate metrics, measures, standards and indicators (MMSI) to post-conflict reconstruction tasks, outlined the reasons for doing so, and is currently in the process of establishing task-MMSI pairings by developing a methodology for assigning values to tasks. Recent progress reports and after action reviews illustrate what is currently missing from international efforts to coordinate their activities. For example, recent USAID Situation Reports on Afghanistan impart how many internationally displaced persons (IDP) have been counted in certain areas, and how many metric tons of food was delivered to a particular area by a particular date, however the geographic breakdown for the IDP does not correspond to the breakdown of districts for the figures on metric tons of food delivered. Knowing that 1,500 metric tons of food was delivered to a district does not tell us much about the status of the refugees, and the explanation that 1,500 metric tons of food is enough is enough to feed 150,000 people for one month, still does not orient us without data on the total number of refugees in that district requiring food aid.

In order to develop more meaningful ways of measuring and articulating progress, particularly to enable civilian and military organizations to 'speak the same language,' the project proposes definitions of 'metric,' 'measure,' 'standard,' and 'indicator;' to reconcile competing definitions for these terms. Using the example of food relief, this task means, to the military, air lifting a certain number of tons of food into an area. Thus the military actor will consider it to have been "effective," or to have achieved "success," when it has dropped a certain number of tons into a designated area. The World Food Program places greater emphasis on assuring that the food actually reaches the people in need. A true measure of success would be meeting an agreed upon caloric and vitamin intake standard for a percentage of the population, (i.e., 90% receive 2000 calories and 70% of daily vitamin requirement). Agreement between these two organizations on how to measure progress and success with this task is an example of how MMSI would enhance civil-military cooperation.

The next step is to convene experts from organizations and agencies engaged in post-conflict reconstruction, to work towards developing consensus on task-MMSI pairings. Finally, the project aims to define the relationship between MMSI and the transfer of activities from one actor to another. Research shows that overall mission failure is frequently the result of 1) inadequate attention paid to intra-organizational definitions of task success and the inter-organizational inability to tailor task accomplishment to changing conditions, or 2) obstacles to smooth hand-off of task responsibility from one organization to another with comparative advantage under those changed conditions.

The Project's Future

The project is currently in the process of synthesizing the vast literature regarding task execution and performance. Special emphasis will be placed on identifying gaps within current capabilities of the US Government and international community. With few exceptions, knowledge regarding post-conflict issues is contained in after-action reports and lessons learned documents isolated within the organizations that produced them. The framework, supporting database, and project products cut across organizational and situation specific evidence and literature to integrate requirements, determine capabilities and conditional comparative advantage, and illuminate areas for coherent, comprehensive improvements.

While the project seeks the perspectives of history and reflection of participants and analysts to inform our policy recommendations, we are also keenly aware of the need for immediate policy input on key issues facing the U.S. today. White papers on Rebuilding Afghanistan, Rapid Civilian Response, and Demobilization and Reintegration have been circulated to policy makers and are available on the project web site. Additional papers will become available as they are presented to the Commission for consideration.

Through active consultation with the Administration and Congress, the project team will continue to identify critical challenges and gaps. Success will be determined by gaining a better understanding - from the practitioner's point of view - of the prioritization, timing, sequencing, and integration of post-conflict tasks. Eliciting input on the division of labor among various organizations (civilian-military, national-international, government-NGO, public-private) with rigorous analyses of their respective core competencies, limitations, and comparative advantages will enhance our project stakeholders' and audiences' sense of ownership.

Finally, the project will articulate and build support for policy recommendations. Success will be measured by adoption of proposals to enhance the U.S. government's capacity for post-conflict reconstruction, including the assignment of responsibilities, strengthening of functions, and the creation of new capacities. Due to the international community's inability to foster sustainable peace in countries emerging from conflict over the past decade, many are searching for new ideas and meaningful reforms. The AUSA-CSIS project team reflects the unique civilian-military partnership of the two organizations. As a credible outsider, the project has the ability to bring together disparate organizations and view-points to create a coherent, comprehensive vision of how best to engage and be successful in these difficult, yet necessary operations.

The content of this article was condensed for brevity. For more information, contact Sasha Kishinchand at skishinchand@ausa.org or visit the project website at www.postconflictreconstruction.org.

*A joint project of the Association of the US Army and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Additional funding has been provided by the Better World Fund and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

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