Luke Waggoner is a former senior democracy and governance specialist at Chemonics.
Growing up in Islamic State-held territories, young Syrians have lived through traumatic experiences. Subsequently, many children have become desensitized to violence and developed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. As a result, conflict-affected children urgently need mental health support. Chemonics’ Injaz program is primarily an education project. It works with children in both formal and informal settings, including…
The Security Sector Governance (SSG) Task Order was a six-year USAID funded program that provided technical assistance and analysis on rule of law and security sector reform and assisted communities to more effectively assess, design, implement, and evaluate security sector governance projects. SSG was demand-driven and enabled USAID and the U.S. government to respond to…
The event examined how informal power drives conflict through the lens of “Elite Bargains and Political Deals” theory. By exploring the new approach’s potential, the presenters sketched a roadmap for engaging often elusive power brokers in peacebuilding programming. Panelists, drawn from across academia and implementation, discussed how “Elite Bargains and Political Deals” theory sheds new…
Today’s conflicts are long, intractable, and more complicated than ever. The last decade saw a marked rise in state-based armed conflict for the first time since the end of the Cold War, all involving non-state actors. Radicalization, organized crime, climate change — and now pandemics — bring new challenges to convoluted conflict systems. Yet, the…
Michael has spent much of the past decade working in conflict-affected environments, mostly as an adviser for FCDO and USAID OTI programs in locations including Uruzgan and Syria. He also served as the civilian stabilization adviser to the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Syria/Iraq Stabilization Review in 2017. In 2020 he led the startup team…
The practical guide provides a means to analyze power dynamics in local conflicts. The approaches and activities contained support organizations to develop conflict mitigation, resolution, and prevention techniques that reflect the underlying political and cultural factors that drive conflict. The free, open-access toolkit provides organizations with a step-by-step guide on how to plan and run…
The free, open-access toolkit provides organizations a step-by-step guide to plan and run a two-to-four-day workshop on applying “Elite Bargains and Political Deals” (EBPD) theory in community-level conflicts. The workshop explains foundational EBPD concepts and helps local organizations translate theory into practical peace and stabilization activities. Peacebuilding and stabilization efforts must consider informal power structures…
Daniel Emory has more than five years of international development experience supporting USAID and U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO)-funded projects in west and southern Africa spanning conflict prevention, democracy and governance, and agricultural development. He currently serves as project manager for the Transparency and Accountability for Inclusive Development in Mozambique project, and recently…
Since 2012, Mali has faced a succession of violent conflicts. This violence has fractured Mali’s political landscape, with several warring factions holding power in different parts of the country. In Mali’s Sahel region, local and international NGOs are promoting dialogue among influential groups to revitalize the stalling peace process, reduce violence, and deliver long-term stability.…
Jaclyn Grace is a Programme Technical Manager in Chemonics’ United Kingdom Division. She is concurrently pursuing her MPhil in Development Studies at the University of Oxford, focusing on conflict and stabilisation in West Africa. Her ongoing academic research undertakes a comparative analysis of evolving conflict dynamics across Malian and Burkinabe borderlands. At Chemonics, she most…
Six years into the Yemen conflict, the war shows no sign of abating. The situation is dire: 80% of Yemen’s population of 30 million requires some form of humanitarian assistance; nearly half the population is in acute need. With violence spilling across Yemen’s borders and threatening maritime security in the Red Sea’s strategically important Bab el-Mandab Strait, regional…