Causes of Instability and Spread of Violence in West Africa and Recommendations for US/NATO Support Options

Client

RAND Corporation

Advisor

Semester

Spring 2016

Final Report

View Final Report (PDF)

In August 2014, President Obama announced the Security Governance Initiative (SGI), a whole-of-government approach to security sector governance (SSG) reform in six African countries. SGI is designed to go beyond the narrow, militaristic focus of the “train and equip” model. Rather, it seeks to promote sustainable partner nation capacity by taking a holistic approach to SSG and engaging a broader spectrum of stakeholders.

The Capstone team, in cooperation with the RAND Corporation, conducted an assessment of SGI’s progress with the ultimate aim of developing recommendations on how to improve the program’s effectiveness and efficiency. The assessment focused on the “supply” and “demand” side challenges of Security Sector Assistance (SSA), with a particular focus on four SGI pilot countries: Mali, Niger, Ghana, and Nigeria.

The team found that SGI faces design and structural issues as well as in-country implementation challenges that are not conducive to its long-term, holistic approach to comprehensive security sector governance reform. Through the Capstone team’s analysis, they developed a set of recommendations for the U.S. government that address both the design and implementation components of SGI. Key recommendations include:

  • Streamline USG legal authorities to increase SSA flexibility;
  • Improve the assessment, monitoring, and evaluation (AM&E) process for SGI;
  • Stabilize and extend SGI funding and ensure program prioritization;
  • Use SGI to build regional and supraregional organizations’ capacity to impel, guide, and support SSG reform in West Africa;  
  • Reevaluate whether SGI is the best USG tool for building security governance;
  • Link SGI to broader development needs by better including USAID within the program, from the consultation phase to implementation and evaluation.