Thanks Matt and Ken for your posts.

First a mea culpa....totally embarrassed about my referring ORHA/CPA as State Department venture. DoD of course created both and I had many buddies in ORHA working with the extremely talented and inspirational Jay Garner. My frustration lies along what James Dobbins stated

“Rather than use the structures that had done our nation-building for the last decade, we created a completely new structure. We transferred responsibilities from State and the Agency for International Development to the Department of Defense for things the Department of Defense had never been responsible for. That imposed another very substantial burden in terms of creating a whole new bureaucracy to do things for which there already existed bureaucracies.” Katherine McIntire Peters, “Blind Ambition,” GovernmentExecutive, July 1, 2004, http://www.govexec.com/features/0704-01/0704-01s3.htm (accessed July 14, 2006).

Regarding S/CRS, thanks for clarification and reminder that civil servants from other agencies (Commerce, Justice, Ag, etc) will be called up. I just cannot shake my strong belief that prior overseas experience working in development/stabilization is critical for senior leadership positions. Maybe that can be included in call up requirements within each of these agencies or at least some kind of overseas living experience.

I agree with you that a coordination mechanism is needed - no doubt. Just wish it had more folks who had post conflict reconstruction/stabilization/development field experience. I am familiar that S/CRS has a number of USAID folks ...and hats off to them for bringing in Larry Sampler as S/CRS Deputy Coordinator (from USAID) Larry Sampler - a real coup.

On CRC, I suppose I cannot shake the idea to more fully train CRC deployees. I was a peace corps volunteer and while I was a "joe generalist" 90% of my "technical" training was cultural contextualization of basic tenets of public health. I guess I look to the decision of the HTS program to train folks for 4 months - CRC may not need 4 months but I maintain it needs more than 2 weeks.

Thanks Ken for your post on USAID mandate. Just wanted to add some more on the specific post conflict mandate of the Office of Transitional Initiatives within USAID DCHA Bureau to give an idea of the depth of the work...

Some background on OTI

Since 1994, OTI, part of USAID’s Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance, has laid the foundation for long-term development in thirty-one conflict-prone countries by promoting reconciliation, jumpstarting local economies, supporting nascent independent media, and fostering peace and democracy through innovative programming. In countries undergoing a transition from authoritarianism to democracy, violent conflict to peace, or pivotal political events, initiatives serve as catalysts for positive political change. OTI programs are short-term -- typically, two to three years in duration. OTI works closely with regional bureaus, missions and other counterparts to identify programs that complement other assistance efforts and lay a foundation for longer-term development. OTI programs often are initiated in fragile states that have not reached the stability needed to initiate longer-term development programs.

To determine where to devote its resources, OTI has developed key criteria for engagement:

Criteria 1. Is the country significant to U.S. national interests? While humanitarian aid is distributed on the basis of need alone, transition assistance is allocated with an eye to advancing U.S. foreign policy objectives and priorities. Stable, democratic countries are better able to meet the needs of their own people, are more reliable trading partners, are less likely to engage in aggression against their neighbors, and are less inclined to provide support for terrorists. In consultation with the State Department, the Defense Department and the National Security Council, and with the consent of Congress, OTI seeks to focus its resources where they will have the greatest impact on U.S diplomatic and security interests.

For example, OTI has worked in Kosovo, East Timor, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and currently is getting underway in FATA Pakistan

Thanks again Matt for your clarifications and I appreciate learning more and more as things unfold.

Best, Bronwen