June 11, 2012

The U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) has launched an Interagency Professional in Residence (IPR) initiative that is bringing practitioners in peacebuilding to the Institute and at the same time strengthening its ties to a variety of U.S. government agencies.

"Through leveraging of partnerships and deepening collaboration, USIP is growing as a critical interagency and whole-of-community hub and brain trust in the peacebuilding field," said Paul D. Hughes, the Institute’s chief of staff. "USIP is committed to building the U.S. and international capacity to manage conflict, to creating a community of practice, to enhancing civilian-military cooperation and to conducting applied research. Through the IPR program, we are advancing all of those goals."

Four interagency professionals are currently working at USIP. They represent the first tranche of participants in the program, which began in February.

The current four are:

Ambassador Robert G. Loftis, a State Department official for more than three decades who, most recently, served as the acting coordinator for reconstruction and stabilization and led the transition of that office to the new Bureau for Conflict and Stabilization Operations. At USIP, he is examining the range of conflict management-related activities at the Department of Defense as well as areas for possible collaboration with and support for the uniformed services and combatant commands.

Ibrahim M. Shaqir, the director of the Office of International Research Programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). He has been a senior international affairs specialist at the Agriculture Department, with particular expertise on the Middle East and North Africa. He has been working with a collaborative USIP-National Academy of Engineering effort to examine opportunities for peacebuilding through agricultural extension systems in conflict and transitional countries.

Lt. Cmdr. Aaron R. Austin is a U.S. Navy officer with both a surface-warfare and an aviation background. During subsequent service as a foreign-area officer, he worked as a naval liaison to the Republic of Korea Navy and in OPNAV 52 (the Navy’s international engagement division), where he has been an Asia/Pacific specialist covering Japan, the Koreas, China, Taiwan, the Philippines and Vietnam. Austin is supporting USIP work on the peace and conflict dynamics of Northeast Asia, as well as building cooperative engagement with the U.S. Navy.

Kevin Brownawell, a career officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), served until last year as the deputy mission director for USAID/Afghanistan. Earlier, he directed strategic planning for USAID’s Middle East and Asia bureaus. He is analyzing U.S. counterinsurgency operations from the perspective of a civilian development manager.

"These agencies that send people here will see a return in terms of professional development," said Marcia Wong, USIP’s director of intergovernmental affairs. "It’s a cost-effective way for people in various agencies to have a meaningful professional experience at the nation’s conflict management center."

Wong said that USIP is in discussions with other U.S. agencies about participating in the program, as well as with international and nongovernmental organizations. "We’re helping to build the capacity and knowledge of practitioners in the field and expose them to the broader peacebuilding community," she said. "The U.S. government professionals in residence here can interact with a diverse range of experts, which broadens their perspective."

Those currently at USIP are finding the experience useful. "The IPR program exposes Navy foreign-area officers to the interagency process on a level rarely afforded in other U.S. Navy jobs," said Austin. "It includes access to top governmental and military leadership, policymakers, analysts and academics. USIP’s Academy provides an additional opportunity for foreign area officers to advance their knowledge on a host of peacebuilding and conflict-management topics relevant to both Navy maritime-stability and humanitarian assistance/disaster relief operations."

Austin added that the Navy benefits when its foreign-area officers gain understanding of the interagency process and can tap the connections they make at USIP while serving on future tours of duty.

The professionals in residence have integrated themselves into USIP activities in a number of ways.

At USIP’s Center of Innovation for Science, Technology and Peacebuilding, Shaqir has played a useful role in advancing a joint project undertaken by the Institute and the National Academy for Engineering—in particular, work that is assessing how the widespread presence of agricultural extension systems might be adapted to strengthen peacebuilding efforts in rural areas of countries shaken by conflict.

Shaqir’s institutional and in-the-field knowhow have helped moved things forward as USIP and the National Academy develop what may become a new dimension of peacebuilding. "A well-chosen IPR fellow can make all the difference in helping us understand who we need to approach, what their needs are and how best to engage that organization," said Andrew Robertson, a USIP senior program officer who is guiding the agricultural extension/peacebuilding effort. "For example, Shaqir’s relationships with experts within USDA helped accelerate workshop planning, pilot project design and funding and, in the future, deployment to the field."

Though the IPR program is young, Wong sees a mutually beneficial pattern developing. "Everyone of these professionals enriches the environment here and will leave enriched by the experience," she said.