Following 2004´s training workshops for Iraqi national security officials (conducted in the U.S.) and for community leaders/civic activists (conducted in Baghdad and Sulaymaniyah), our priority for 2005 was to bring the two participant audiences together, and transfer the capability to conduct the sophisticated computer-based Strategic Economic Needs and Security Exercise (SENSE) simulation to an Iraqi partner organization.
Following 2004´s training workshops for Iraqi national security officials (conducted in the U.S.) and for community leaders/civic activists (conducted in Baghdad and Sulaymaniyah), our priority for 2005 was to bring the two participant audiences together, and transfer the capability to conduct the sophisticated computer-based Strategic Economic Needs and Security Exercise (SENSE) simulation to an Iraqi partner organization. The SENSE simulation was developed by the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), and is designed to model decision-making in a post-conflict environment, while addressing the full range of economic, political and social issues. At USIP request, IDA has modified SENSE, both to make it even more applicable to Iraq (with a major oil export sector subject to terrorist disruption) and to encompass monetary policy and the risk of inflation.
We held two one-week training and SENSE workshops in Amman, Jordan. Participants included Iraqis working for NGOs and international organizations, with the objective of maximizing institutional exposure to the benefits of SENSE training. The first of the two SENSE simulations in Amman provided training experience to a cadre of Iraqi SENSE facilitators and tutor-coaches, who then administered the second simulation with the assistance of USIP´s DC-based contracted SENSE team. These trained Iraqis now have contracts with a local NGO- the Iraqi Institute for Economic Reform (IIER) - which has acquired the use of the SENSE computer hardware and software (appropriate licensing arrangements have been worked out with IDA). IIER has been working on conducting SENSE programs in Iraq.
The USIP Amman team included Vice President for Professional Training Mike Lekson, Senior Program Officers Ted Feifer and Nina Sughrue, Intermittent Program Officer Allison Frendak, Program Officer Noor Kirdar, and Senior Program Assistant Josh Erdossy.
