Note: This document may not always reflect the actual appropriations determined by Congress. Final budget allocations for USAID's programs are not determined until after passage of an appropriations bill and preparation of the Operating Year Budget (OYB).
THE GREATER HORN OF AFRICA INITIATIVE
FY 1998 Development Fund for Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $15,000,000 Background
If we keep trying to manage crises one by one, dealing with symptoms rather than causes, the international community will soon be overwhelmed, if it isn't already.... We must create an improved capacity to prevent by integrating diplomacy with long-term development.
USAID Administrator J. Brian Atwood, November 13, 1996Nowhere do crises threaten to overwhelm the international community as in the Greater Horn of Africa (GHA). And nowhere is the U.S. Government attempting to deal with causes rather than symptoms as in the GHA.
The Greater Horn of Africa Initiative (GHAI) was born of necessity in 1994, as U.S. development and diplomatic professionals in the region were repeatedly seeing their progress destroyed by recurrent crises. Today, under GHAI those professionals are cooperating across agency and functional boundaries to prevent crises by promoting conflict prevention and food security. Under GHAI, the U.S. Government (USG) is striving to make its development and crisis prevention work in the region conform to five operating principles: (1) African ownership of the approaches we implement in partnership with them; (2) strategic coordination across bureaucratic boundaries; (3) linkage of relief programs with development programs; (4) regional approaches to regional problems; and (5) promotion of stability through change.
The aim of GHAI is very ambitious: to change the way the USG operates in the region, as well as the way our partners operate. Within the USG progress is being made. We have begun to systematically analyze and eliminate the barriers within USAID that prevented development and relief professionals from working together as well as they could have. The Agency is also forging a stronger relationship with the Department of State to better link diplomacy with development. In Africa, the new approaches of GHAI are producing results:
We have a dynamic regional partner in the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). The USG helped to persuade the IGAD member states it was time to assert African leadership by revitalizing IGAD. With practical and logistic support from USAID, the IGAD member states forged a consensus to amend the IGAD charter to take on conflict prevention and to avoid paralysis by a change in decision-making procedures. Now IGAD is taking the lead in crafting regional strategies, and the USG and other donors look to IGAD for leadership.
In the area of food security, USAID has supported innovative programs linking relief and development (such as seed regeneration for post-crisis Rwanda and road rehabilitation assistance in Tanzania benefitting both refugees and local communities). In Uganda, USAID programs have contributed to a rise in agricultural productivity and GHAI funds target food production for Northern Uganda which benefits both Sudanese refugees and the local community. USAID initiated strategic coordination among food donors and the Government of Ethiopia on collaborative food needs forecasting. USAID is doing business differently in Eritrea through its P.L. 480 Title III food assistance program, using the government's own food security policy and implementation plans as a basis for the policy change to be promoted through food assistance.
In the area of conflict prevention, the USG has encouraged African leadership by supporting IGAD's efforts to begin addressing conflict in the region. GHAI funding has provided training in conflict prevention for the USG and private voluntary organizations, utilizing African experience and expertise already fully developed. The strategic planning process for bilateral missions has also been changed to incorporate the conflict prevention perspective into development and emergency assistance.
USAID missions have begun to embrace the principles of GHAI in their bilateral programming and to broaden their focus beyond country boundaries. In particular, the Somalia Integrated Strategic Planning process embodied all five of the GHAI principles, especially linking relief and development. The Uganda mission, with GHAI funding, put principles into action by helping to organize a regional response to a serious aquatic weed infestation on Lake Victoria. Regional trade and refugee flows are explicitly considered in the country strategic plans of Eritrea, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.
The Development Challenge.
The 10 countries of the GHA region (Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda) absorb a huge amount of the financial and human resources of U.S. foreign operations. The percentage of funds expended for emergency response rather than development increased sharply in the early 1990s. Total obligations for development assistance and humanitarian response (Department of State and USAID) in FY1996 totalled about $500 million, of which about three-fifths was for emergencies. Given the difficulty of doing business in the Horn, why should the United States stay engaged?... Because the need is so great...
According to World Bank per capita gross national product calculations, four of the five poorest countries in the world are in the Greater Horn of Africa. Roughly half the population of the entire region lives just one bad harvest away from food crisis. War wracks about half the countries in the region each year. And the proportion of refugees and displaced persons is higher than in any other region of the world.
...Because the promise is so great...
Despite the immense development challenge, there are encouraging signs. All across Africa, democracy is taking root and economies are turning around in countries many people were ready to give up on a few years ago. In the Greater Horn, a creative new generation of leaders is stepping forward to take responsibility for tackling the region's problems.
Several nations are systematically attacking the constraints that have prevented market-driven private sector solutions to the region's problems. There is immense potential for regional and international trade, to the mutual benefit of the GHA and its potential trading partners. An improved agricultural sector in the region would actually lead to more imports of U.S. agricultural products, as a result of rising incomes and changing diet preferences.
In Ethiopia, thanks to improved policies as well as timely rains, agricultural production is up 30% from two years ago. Deregulation of Kenya's grain markets has allowed grain to move freely from surplus areas to deficit areas and increased trade with Uganda.
Progressive government is emerging. The new nation of Eritrea has articulated a clear vision of its own development, and requires a partnership relationship with donors. After decades of civil war, Uganda has become a good development partner and is playing an important role as a regional food supplier, a haven for refugees, and a transit point for relief aid. Tanzania held its first multi-party elections over a year ago and President Mkapa is leading a vigorous economic reform program that could make Tanzania Africa's next success story. ...Because the future is so fragile...
Although responsible African leadership is emerging, the region will not fulfill its promise without continued international assistance.
Agriculture in the region is among the most fragile in the world. With international assistance, agricultural productivity is rising slowly. Unfortunately, due to rising population pressures, the gap between food production and food needs is actually increasing. Correspondingly, the percentage of people without adequate food security is also slowly increasing.
Wars in the region continue to undermine development. International assistance can help prevent conflict by addressing root causes. Conflict often emerges over resource issues, and USAID assistance in economic growth and environment can help address these resource issues. Likewise, USAID assistance in good governance can help people address grievances without resorting to violence.
The refugee caseload continues to require a massive humanitarian response to save lives and alleviate suffering. But the principle of sustainable development requires programs to move refugees from dependence to self-reliance via resettlement and repatriation. Efforts to attack root causes of crisis, if successful in preventing refugee situations, will be even more effective.
...Because the cost of not acting is so high...
Many have commented on the immense cost of responding to crisis compared to the cost of working to prevent crisis. For example, the U.S. military intervention in Somalia early this decade cost five times more than did the previous 30 years of U.S. development assistance to Somalia. The United States must not ignore the problems of the Greater Horn because those problems may deteriorate to a point where U.S. compassion will require an expensive humanitarian response.
Furthermore, the United States cannot afford to ignore the long-term trading potential of the region. As the Business Alliance for International Economic Development states, "... a large part of [U.S. economic] growth is due to trade and investment with partners groomed by our foreign assistance." For example, 50 years of U.S. development assistance to Latin America is now returned every five months in U.S. export revenues from that region. The trading potential of the GHA is in its infancy now, but it may be an important part of U.S. prosperity in the coming decades.
Other Donors
From the beginning of GHAI, the USG has placed a high emphasis on coordination with other donors, as well as with countries in the region and with non-governmental organizations/private voluntary organizations and private sector partners. In the earliest phase of GHAI, the United States worked to create a consensus among donors to commit themselves to the Greater Horn region, to crisis prevention, and to the overarching goals of food security and conflict prevention. Today, a donor mechanism exists to coordinate support of IGAD.In addition to donor nation coordination, the United States is engaged in a dialogue with UN agencies such as the UN High Commissioner on Refugees to build innovative partnerships and creative approaches to refugee problems.
FY 1998 Program
The most important part of the GHAI program is not the $13 million requested for the Initiative itself, but the hundreds of millions of dollars spent in the region by other programs and Agencies. The limited funds allocated to the Initiative are used to facilitate the implementation of the GHAI principles. These funds may be used to develop resources and training applicable throughout the region, to support regional organizations and regional initiatives, and perhaps as seed money to support the development of innovative country and regional programs that reflect the GHAI principles. The GHAI funds are used to transform other spending and make it more effective. For example, $50,000 of GHAI money may assist a strategic design team to incorporate conflict prevention principles into a five-year, $100 million country strategic plan.The GHAI vision is broad and ambitious. Each year USAID programs and those of its development partners will increasingly reflect the principles of GHAI. During FY1997, USAID, its U.S. interagency colleagues, and international and African partners are developing a long-term strategic plan for GHAI. This plan will lay out the steps for implementing the goals and principles of GHAI. Because GHAI's objectives focus on changing the way the USG does business, they are cross-cutting and support all five Agency goals. Contributions to three Agency goals are highlighted below.
Agency Goal: Encouraging Broad Based Economic Growth
While the majority of the countries in the GHA are currently not self-sufficient in food, recent evidence shows that with a reduction in conflict and improved policies the region can increase its food production and increase trade. For example, Ethiopia's food production has increased by 30% in the past two years. The private sector must play a key role in the transformation of agriculture in the region, stimulating the regional economy and promoting agricultural trade between deficit and surplus countries. Assistance provided under GHAI will complement our bilateral economic growth programs by building regional markets and increasing regional coordination of policies affecting trade, transportation and agricultural research. USAID assistance will help our partners implement their own national and regional economic growth strategies as they relate to food security.Conflict undermines the economic development of a country. Countries in the region that experience conflict are undergoing slow or negative economic growth. Conflict prevention is a prerequisite to economic growth. At the same time, investment in economic growth can help prevent resource-based conflict.
Strategic Objective 1: Increase Capacity in the Region to Prevent and Mitigate Conflict
Strategic Objective 2: Promote African Ability to Sustain Food Security within a Regional Context Agency Goal: Building Democracy
Donors and our African partners agree that chronic social and political instability in the Greater Horn is a major obstacle to sustainable development. Democratic institutions are weak and societies are often ripped apart along ethnic or tribal lines. Many societies do not provide the structures which make consensus decisions, compromise, and conciliation possible. Countries of the Greater Horn must strengthen their democratic institutions while developing the political will to prevent and mitigate conflict. Evidence of this political will is beginning to emerge in the more progressive countries in the Greater Horn. Africans are organizing to foresee crisis and conflict, and to develop prevention and mitigation mechanisms in order to promote stability based on democratic values. Africans realize that they must resolve their own conflicts.Non-Africans must proceed with caution and define a role which is constructive and based on African ownership. The USG has been seeking a better understanding of conflict prevention dynamics in the Greater Horn, and is now ready to actively engage with a wide range of Africans and Africaninstitutions to explore African views and needs on the whole range of conflict prevention and mitigation activities. The goal is to move beyond understanding to concrete steps, at the policy and grassroots level, to prevent conflicts from erupting.
USAID is experimenting with ways to incorporate conflict prevention into other programs and ensure that our own activities do not inadvertently exacerbate the potential for conflict. USAID resources will continue to provide training in conflict prevention/mitigation concepts and techniques and support indigenous African groups which are involved in conflict prevention discussions and activities.
Strategic Objective 1: Increase Capacity in the Region to Prevent and Mitigate Conflict
Agency Goal: Protecting the Environment
The relationship between environment and conflict cuts both ways: conflict causes environmental degradation and environmental damage promotes conflict. Some actions of warring parties deliberately seek to destroy the enemy's means of production, while other damage occurs incidentally. When conflict displaces people from their traditional systems of production, the refugees often degrade their new environment in order to extract enough resources to survive. At the same time, environmental degradation can contribute to conflict. As the means of production are degraded, parties feel they must fight to protect their livelihood. Environmental degradation lies at the base of much conflict between pastoralists and agriculturalists. USAID will selectively invest in environmental protection as a means of conflict prevention. For example, GHAI funds are supporting Uganda's efforts to create a regional cooperative response, involving Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda, to a serious aquatic weed infestation afflicting Lake Victoria.
In a similar manner, environmental degradation can hurt agricultural productivity, and the desperate efforts of the resulting hungry people can further degrade the environment. USAID food security strategies will support regional, African-led efforts to protect the environment from both acute emergencies and long-term pressures, such as densely-populated fragile areas.
Strategic Objective 1: Increase Capacity in the Region to Prevent and Mitigate Conflict
Strategic Objective 2: Promote African Ability to Sustain Food Security within a Regional Context
GREATER HORN OF AFRICA INITIATIVE FY 1998 PROGRAM SUMMARY
Encouraging Broad-based Economic Growth
Stabilizing World Population Growth & Protecting Human Health
Protecting the Environment
Building
Democracy
Providing Humanitarian Assistance
TOTALS
USAID Strategic Objectives
SO1. Increase capacity in the region to prevent and mitigate conflict. - Dev. Fund for Africa
2,000,000
---
1,000,000
4,000,000
---
7,000,000
SO2. Promote African ability to sustain food security within a regional context. - Dev. Fund for Africa
7,000,000
---
1,000,000
---
---
8,000,000
Totals -Dev. Fund for Africa
9,000,000
---
2,000,000
4,000,000
---
15,000,000
AFR/EA GHAI Director: Patricia Rader
ACTIVITY DATA SHEET
PROGRAM: GREATER HORN OF AFRICA INITIATIVE (GHAI)
TITLE AND NUMBER: Increase Capacity in the Greater Horn of Africa Region to Prevent and Mitigate Conflict, 698-SO01
STATUS: Continuing
PROPOSED OBLIGATION AND FUNDING SOURCE: FY 1998: $7,000,000 DFA
INITIAL OBLIGATION: FY 1996; ESTIMATED COMPLETION DATE: FY 2000
Purpose: To increase the capacity of Africans to mitigate and prevent conflict in the Greater Horn of Africa.
Background: The U.S. foreign policy community is increasingly emphasizing the need to prevent conflicts and crises rather than to be forced to respond to crises after they occur. At the same time, both Africans and outsiders are recognizing that solutions cannot be imposed externally. Although there is a role which donors and other international partners can play to assist in the process, if peace is ultimately to prevail, Africans themselves must resolve their own conflicts. Progressive African leadership is emerging in the region. The root causes of conflict are often political, economic or environmental.
USAID Role and Achievements to Date: USAID played an important role in encouraging the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) to amend its charter to include conflict prevention. IGAD and other African organizations are actively developing conflict prevention strategies, and the USG will seek ways to be effective partners with these organizations. In the meantime, the USG is concentrating on building its own capacity to understand and analyze conflict. These efforts have included interagency training workshops in Washington and the field, and the development of a manual called "Preventing and Mitigating Violent Conflict: A Guide for Practitioners" to aid USG personnel in practical applications of conflict prevention mechanisms. USAID has created the Horn of Africa Support Project (HASP) as a mechanism to provide GHAI funding to innovative projects that reflect GHAI principles. Other GHAI funding has gone directly to projects in the region and to capacity-building efforts. Among the projects funded directly is Uganda's efforts to create a regional cooperative response, involving Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda, to a serious aquatic weed infestation afflicting Lake Victoria.
Description: The GHAI strategic planning process, currently underway, will further define the process by which the operating principles will be used to achieve the goal of conflict prevention, and will identify the indicators to be used to manage for results.
African leadership: Our conflict prevention activity is centered on working in partnership with indigenous peace organizations. The USG's relationship with these organizations cuts both ways. The USG looks to these groups to help formulate its conflict prevention framework. And USAID will support and nurture these organizations with research assistance and practical support.
Strategic coordination: The GHAI approach to conflict prevention is not limited to USAID, but rather involves the Department of State and other USG agencies, whose employees serve on GHAI teams. The USG is also reaching out to coordinate with other donors, implementing partners and Africans themselves. The new Joint IGAD Partners Forum is not just a donor forum but provides for significant collaboration between IGAD and the donors.
Linking relief and development: USAID efforts to link relief and development help reduce conflict between refugees and host communities, and lay a foundation for successful repatriation, reintegration and reconciliation. A GHAI team has made over 30 recommendations which USAID senior management is implementing to better link relief and development. When new country strategic plans are due, USAID missions in the region will continue the new practice of developing Integrated Strategic Plans(ISPs). ISPs combine relief and development strategic planning, with joint problem solving and integration of relief and development resources.
Regional approaches: Given cross-border refugee flows and the support of governments or kinship groups in one country for rebellions in another, it is essential to think regionally about conflict prevention. USG bilateral and regional conflict prevention programs will be harmonized under GHAI, and new or changing regional issues relevant to efforts to prevent conflict will be identified.
Promoting stability: Most of the GHA countries are either in transition away from or towards crisis, or have neighbors in crisis, and do not fall neatly into traditional "disaster" or "development" categories. The GHAI vision calls for breaking out of these rigid categories and promoting stability through change. USAID programs in countries such as Ethiopia and Rwanda combine elements traditionally associated with both categories.
Host Countries and Other Donors: IGAD, as a regional organization representing the GHA countries, has revised its charter to include conflict prevention and mitigation, thus placing the leadership for conflict prevention in the hands of Africans. Donor support, both financial and programmatic, is well-coordinated. Much of this support occurs through the newly-formed Joint IGAD Partners Forum.
Beneficiaries: USAID assistance will benefit African communities by supporting African entities that work to prevent and mitigate conflict.
Principal Contractors, Grantees, or Agencies: IGAD; Center for Prevention, Mitigation and Resolution of Conflicts in Africa; U.S. Institute for Peace; Creative Associates International; InterAfrica Group; others to be determined.
Major Results Indicators: To be determined by the strategic planning exercise in FY1997. Indicators will be developed to measure overall progress toward the strategic objective, as well as progress in achieving intermediate results that contribute to the objective. Indicators may also be developed to measure our success in incorporating GHAI operating principles into our programming.
ACTIVITY DATA SHEET
PROGRAM: GREATER HORN OF AFRICA INITIATIVE (GHAI)
TITLE AND NUMBER: Promote African Ability to Sustain Food Security within a Regional Context, 698-SO02
STATUS: Continuing
PROPOSED OBLIGATION AND FUNDING SOURCE: FY 1998: $8,000,000 DFA
INITIAL OBLIGATION: FY 1995; ESTIMATED COMPLETION DATE: FY 2002
Purpose: To promote African ability to sustain food security within a regional context.
Background: The prevalence of drought, locusts, and loss of food production due to conflict have crippled the ability of the populations of the Greater Horn of Africa (GHA) region to work toward sustainable development. The majority of the countries in the GHA are dependent on imports for adequate food supplies and, given current low levels of foreign exchange, require food aid to meet food import needs. However, considerable formal and informal cross-border agricultural trade is occurring, and some countries are emphasizing increased trade to cover structural food deficits. Regional food sufficiency would be enhanced by better policy harmonization and by more environmentally-friendly agricultural practices.
USAID Role and Achievements to Date: USAID played a major role in supporting African member states in their desire to revitalize the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an institution created to provide a framework for regional food security in the Greater Horn of Africa. USAID sponsored an African-led study of the transportation system in the southern tier of the GHA (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi). This study is being used to coordinate regional trade issues, and was so successful it has led to the request for a similar study in the northern countries. At the same time GHAI funding is sponsoring an African-led "private sector core group" to systematically increase the private sector contribution to regional food security in the southern tier. In Ethiopia, USAID has helped facilitate unprecedented donor coordination and collaboration with the government in food needs assessments. In Eritrea, an innovative Title III program supports the Government of Eritrea's commitment to policy reform and food security through economic growth. In addition, USAID programs that link relief to development while promoting agricultural markets are underway. USAID has created the Horn of Africa Support Project (HASP) as a mechanism to provide GHAI funding to innovative projects that reflect GHAI principles. Other GHAI funding has gone directly to projects in the region and to capacity-building efforts.
Description: The GHAI strategic planning process, currently underway, will further define the process by which the operating principles will be used to achieve the goal of food security, and will identify the indicators to be used to manage for results.
African ownership: USAID provides support for national and regional food security strategies (especially IGAD's), and channels technical and other assistance to African organizations, such as ASARECA.
Strategic coordination: Building on the successful experience coordinating food needs assessment in Ethiopia, as well as the transportation study, USAID will continue to work to bring together donors, governments, regional organizations and the private sector to address food security issues. The new Joint IGAD Partners Forum is not just a donor forum but provides for significant collaboration between IGAD and the donors.
Linking relief and development: Relief programs could easily undermine local agricultural markets and create dependency, so efforts will continue to improve the theory and practice of linking relief to development. GHAI funds support the Northern Uganda Food Security Project which helps local farmers benefit from the food needs of refugees. USAID/Kenya monetizes food aid in an effort to help marginalized communities transition from relief to development. A GHAI team has made over 30recommendations which USAID senior management is implementing to better link relief and development. When new country strategic plans are due, USAID missions in the region will continue the new practice of developing Integrated Strategic Plans (ISPs). ISPs combine relief and development strategic planning, with joint problem solving and integration of relief and development resources.
Regional approaches: USAID will continue to promote food security through improved regional trade and policy harmonization. This support will build on the process begun with the transportation study, and where appropriate will involve IGAD and other regional institutions. USAID also supports regional agricultural research. A wide range of African institutions and international actors are promoting food security, and under GHAI regional dimensions of these different strategies will be highlighted and assisted.
Promoting stability: Although efforts to increase agricultural productivity are succeeding, structural food deficits remain and population growth outstrips food production gains. USAID's food security assistance promotes broad-based economic growth and aims to help people develop enough resources that an occasional poor harvest does not precipitate a food crisis or conflict. For example, work to increase regional trade helps promote stability by improving the macroeconomic picture, allowing more resources to naturally flow to areas of need, and fostering a cooperative atmosphere. USAID also fosters long-term stability by promoting more environmentally-sustainable agricultural practices.
Host Country and Other Donors: USAID is working with a number of food aid and food security organizations (UN Food and Agricultural Organization, World Food Program, and various private voluntary organizations) and with African technical and regional organizations, especially IGAD. Donor support, both financial and programmatic, is well-coordinated. Much of this support occurs through the newly-formed Joint IGAD Partners Forum.
Beneficiaries: USAID assistance will benefit African communities by supporting African entities that work to increase food security through better agriculture and stronger markets and trade.
Principal Contractors, Grantees or Agencies: IGAD; ASARECA; East African Transportation Symposium; other regional food security and private sector organizations to be determined.
Major Results Indicators: To be determined by the strategic planning exercise in FY1997. Indicators will be developed to measure overall progress toward the strategic objective, as well as progress in achieving intermediate results that contribute to the objective. Indicators may also be developed to measure our success in incorporating GHAI operating principles into our programming.
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