United States Institute of Peace

Description

Founded by Congress, the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) is an independent, nonpartisan institution charged with increasing the nation’s capacity to prevent, mitigate, and help resolve international conflict without violence. For over 30 years, USIP has worked to prevent and resolve global conflict. From Iraq to Nigeria to Colombia, USIP has trained and supported local communities to build peace.

What Does This Buy?

Supports specialized trainers, mediators, and researchers who work in conflict zones and in Washington, D.C. to provide resources, education, and analysis that prevent and resolve conflict.

Justification for the Request

• USIP plays a unique national security role, acting as a catalyst for the broader whole-of-government effort toprevent violent conflict and extremism.
• USIP is cost-effective in preventing conflict and maintaining peace. With under $39 million in appropriations, it builds security through preventing violence, saving both lives and money.
• When new crises arise, USIP responds more quickly than typically is possible in larger, federal government agencies by having a light footprint and working “outside the wire” to reduce violent conflict and costs to the American taxpayer.
• In 2007, in Mahmoudiya, Iraq, USIP conducted a mediation of tribal warfare. At just $250,000, this effort helped relieve over 2,800 U.S. soldiers of duty and saved military costs of more than $150 million per month. Mahmoudiya’s peace holds a decade later.

U.S. Interest

• USIP sends specialized teams of USIP mediators and trainers to some of the most fragile and dangerous places in the world to equip local civil society organizations and communities with the skills necessary to prevent or resolve their own violent conflicts before they threaten U.S. national security interests.
• USIP’s cost-effective approach serves as a force multiplier for the U.S. by helping preserve U.S. investments in hard-won military gains and through our nation’s economic support in post-conflict environments.

Bold Vision

• More funds would allow USIP to work in more conflict-affected areas and expand its efforts to address threats from China, North Korea, and Russia in addition to its work on humanitarian crises, forced migrations, and violent extremism.
• USIP could expand its work on upstream conflict prevention, addressing grievances and causes of fragility earlier on.
• As more contexts transition out of full-scale conflict, USIP could use additional resources to stabilize more areas, providing its unique capabilities alongside the military and diplomats.
• With additional funding, USIP could seed even more innovative work on peace and technology, science, and
  other areas that could shape the future of U.S. national security.

Impact of Cuts

• Cuts weaken USIP’s ability to prevent armed conflict, possibly accelerating the proliferation of conflict, leading to exponentially more expensive efforts to mitigate and end conflicts.
•  Cuts to USIP’s work on stabilizing post conflict areas jeopardize progress, erasing gains and providing space for extremism to grow. For example, they would obstruct USIP’s local peacemaking efforts in Iraq, which have become more urgent in order to prevent communal fights from reescalating in areas freed from the Islamic State (ISIS) and prevent extremists from exploiting communal conflicts to fuel new rounds of terrorism.
• Cuts weaken USIP, creating more challenges for diplomatic, development, and military agencies.