The Spirit of Partnership: Implementing the U.S. Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability

F.P. Report

WASHINGTON: The United States is committed to strengthening global resiliency and democratic renewal, and promoting peaceful, self-reliant nations that become strong economic and security partners capable of addressing shared challenges.  To that end, the U.S. Government is moving forward in the spirit of partnership with Haiti, Libya, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, and five countries in the Coastal West Africa region (Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, and Togo) to implement the ten-year U.S. Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability.

Along with our friends and allies and the wider international community, we are facing destabilizing transnational challenges, which disrupt ways of life, economies, and whole societies.  Democratic governance and respect for human rights are increasingly under threat as violent extremists and practitioners of oppression assert their authoritarian will through coercion and violence.  Through this Strategy, we will confront these negative global trends and create new models for broader cooperation, grounded in mutual accountability and enduring stability.

We are fully committed to successful implementation of the Strategy and look forward to working together with the selected countries to create and implement long-term, locally-led plans to build resilience, strengthen the roots of stability, and prevent conflict.  We will factor in the sometimes difficult lessons learned from decades of U.S. involvement in stabilization efforts and apply them to how we engage through our new approach.

The State Department will lead this whole-of-government Strategy to align U.S. capabilities in diplomacy, development, and the security sector.  Working closely with in-country partners, businesses, and civil society organizations at the national and local levels, we will shape a common purpose to harness all the tools at our disposal in support of the Strategy, through our Embassies overseas, our country and technical experts in Washington, and with integrated and intentional planning and monitoring, evaluation, and learning across the U.S. Government.

I am grateful to the U.S. Congress for its passage of the landmark bipartisan Global Fragility Act that underpins this Strategy and demands a fundamental shift in how we work to prevent conflict globally.  I also appreciate those in civil society and expert communities who advocated for the Act and will be crucial to help us turn it into action.  Thanks to all of these efforts, we now have an ambitious framework for engaging creatively with our global partners to anticipate and prevent conflict and promote stability.