FY2012 Prevention Budget Priorities: Testimony Submitted to the House

Apr 7, 2011

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Saving Lives and Treasure: Investing in the Peaceful Prevention of Deadly Conflict

Public Witness Testimony, Submitted to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs

3/29/11

Since 1943, FCNL has lobbied Congress to prevent war and help build a more peaceful, just world. After all these years, we are encouraged by the consensus now emerging among policymakers that the U.S. needs to invest more in developing nonmilitary tools for addressing global problems and preventing deadly conflict before it erupts. Such investments would save not only lives, but significant taxpayer dollars as well. As Friends, we have seen that the peaceful prevention of deadly conflict is possible through partnerships with local civil society around the world. Our request specifically pertains to the Complex Crises Fund, Conflict Stabilization Operations, Transition Initiatives, the Global Security Contingency Fund, Contributions to International Organizations and Contributions to International Peacekeeping at the State Department and USAID, which total $3.8126 billion in the FY12 request.

Secretary of Defense Gates, Secretary of State Clinton, and bipartisan leaders in Congress have all spoken out on the massive imbalance in the U.S. foreign policy toolbox, which overflows with military hammers but lacks effective civilian tools for resolving problems and averting international crises. Admiral Mullen has said forthrightly he believes U.S. foreign policy has become “too militarized.” Secretary of Defense Gates advocates to Congress for increased funding for the civilian tools of diplomacy and development, and has stated clearly, “economic development is a lot cheaper than sending soldiers.”

The President’s FY 2012 international affairs budget, totaling $47.0 billion, includes a number of modest but important investments to help correct that imbalance and improve the U.S. government’s ability to help prevent and mitigate crises - before they erupt into violent conflicts and threaten national and global security.

Outlined below, these initiatives represent relatively small investments within the international affairs budget, but they could save billions of dollars and thousands of lives by preventing conflicts from turning violent and avoiding future military interventions. Research now demonstrates that every one dollar invested in preventing conflicts from turning deadly would cost 60 dollars in crisis response once violence erupts. Such measures can help avert much more costly humanitarian crises and potential military intervention, as the violent conflict that recently erupted in Libya demonstrates.

Flexible Funding for Prevention and Response Complex Crises Fund (CCF)
The Complex Crises Fund (CCF) provides the State Department and USAID with a new and critical source of flexible funding “to prevent and respond to emerging or unforeseen crises.” The HELP Commission, Council on Foreign Relations, and Albright-Cohen Genocide Prevention Task Force have all called for such a fund for civilian agencies. Without flexible funding, civilian agencies are often unable to act quickly when conflicts escalate or to undertake rapid stabilization, prevention, and crisis response activities. Previously, the Department of Defense had been left to fill this gap, undertaking its own crisis response activities or transferring funding to civilian agencies under the temporary Sec. 1207 authority granted by Congress since 2006. The Sec. 1207 authority expired at the end of 2010, with the CCF replacing it. The CCF was used last year by USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives in Kenya and Kyrgyzstan. .

We commend your committee for funding the Complex Crises Fund for the first time in the final FY 2010 State and Foreign Operations Appropriations bill at $50 million, and in the initial FY11 bill. We are disappointed to see the fund was cut from the House’s more recent FY11 proposals. The Administration’s FY 2012 budget request takes the next step toward fully empowering civilian agencies with flexible crisis prevention and response funding by increasing the Complex Crises Fund to $75 million. We urge full funding of that request.

We urge you to fully fund the Administration’s request of $75 million for the Complex Crises Fund and to work with USAID and the State Department to ensure the fund is effectively used.

Civilian Capacities for Prevention, Reconstruction, and Stabilization

Conflict Stabilization Operations (CSO)
The FY 2012 budget request includes $92.2 million for the Conflict Stabilization Operations (CSO), previously Civilian Stabilization Initiative, which funds the Civilian Response Corps (CRC) and the State Department’s Office of the Coordinator of Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS). S/CRS was created and mandated by Congress to coordinate reconstruction and stabilization operations, and to stand up the CRC. While S/CRS has faced challenges in fulfilling this ambitious mandate, it has taken important steps in beginning to stand up the CRC, developing tools for conflict analysis and interagency coordination, and building capacity and expertise for the State Department in conflict prevention. The CRC’s important contribution to conflict prevention activities during the south Sudan referendum in January 2011, for example, was lauded by U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan General Scott Gration.

The budget also includes $56 million for the Transition Initiatives (TI) account, which supports programs that help fragile or conflict-prone countries transition to peace and stability. USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives runs these programs and has developed a strong track record over 15 years in applying short-term assistance to leverage opportunities for advancing peace and mitigating violence.

In the past, Congress and the Administration acknowledged a lack of coordination and rationalization of reconstruction, stabilization, and crisis prevention activities between S/CRS and OTI, difficulties in standing up the CRC (which is housed jointly by S/CRS and USAID), and strained interagency relations. We shared these concerns and welcome the efforts of many to look for solutions. The recently released Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review calls for S/CRS to be subsumed under a newly created bureau, the Bureau for Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO). A new Assistant Secretary of State will be appointed to head the bureau. The QDDR also lists other measures that will improve and rationalize State and USAID’s capacities for reconstruction, stabilization, and prevention. The QDDR calls for strengthened reporting from the OTI country director to better coordinate activities in the field, an expansion of OTI’s overall capabilities, and a review of “the best location for the political mandate of OTI.”

We note that Congress has never met the funding request for S/CRS and the Civilian Response Corps (during either the Bush or Obama administration), and so shares responsibility in its failure to meet expectations. Strengthening, rationalizing, and improving these capacities will require sustained investments and support from Congress. While some restructuring of these capacities may well be needed, reducing funding at this point will only worsen the situation and undermine reform efforts. If anything, these functions remain severely underfunded in the budget. Even so, the deployment of 29 members of the CRC during the south Sudan referendum has shown that this civilian initiative can be successful in supporting U.S. policy goals and preventing the outbreak of violent conflict in strategically important areas. Moreover, a number of ongoing conflict situations in need of urgent preventive action - such as Sudan and Kenya – demand increased, not reduced, funding for these programs if the U.S. is to help avert new outbreaks of violence that could unravel into regional crises.

Transition Initiatives (TI)
The FY2012 budget request also includes $56 million for the Transition Initiatives (TI) account, which supports programs that help fragile or conflict-prone countries transition to peace and stability. USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives implements these programs and has developed a strong track record over 15 years in applying short-term assistance to leverage opportunities for advancing peace and mitigating violence.

We urge you to fund reconstruction, prevention, and stabilization programs in State and USAID at no less than the Administration’s request, including $92.2 million for S/CRS and the CRC, and $56 million for OTI.

Global Security Contingency Fund (GSCF)
The FY12 budget requests $50 million for a new account, the Global Security Contingency Fund (GSCF), to enhance foreign militaries as well as to provide justice sector rule of law and stabilization assistance. The fund is to be pooled jointly between the Department of State and Department of Defense, and the Secretary of State must consult with the Secretary of Defense before using these funds. This fund is very similar to the 1207 transfer funds which were allowed to expire in 2010, in part because your committee and other congressional appropriators believed civilian agencies should be given direct authority over their own funding streams. We are very concerned that the administration’s proposed Global Security Contingency Fund recreates the 1207 authority and perpetuates the militarization of aid. Under the GSCF, the Defense Department would again be involved in what should be civilian agency decision-making regarding rule of law and stabilization assistance, and therefore would repeat problems identified throughout the 1207 experience. While DoD may act as the implementer for some security assistance programs, the State Department and civilian leaders should decide how US taxpayer dollars are spent on foreign assistance.

We urge you to include language that would focus the GSCF specifically on civilian rule of law and stabilization assistance, and appropriate this account solely to the Department of State, rather than a joint account with the Department of Defense.

International Cooperation

Contributions to International Organizations (CIO)
The Contributions to International Organizations (CIO) account provides money to pay U.S. assessed dues at 45 international organizations including the World Health Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Trade Organization, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and the United Nations. These organizations help advance a wide range of shared goals, including promoting economic growth, monitoring weapons proliferation, creating global trade norms, and addressing global health pandemics. In past years, the U.S. has gone into arrears to the UN because of a failure to appropriate enough funds to meet assessed U.S. dues. In the FY10 budget, this subcommittee recognized the importance of providing these funds and paid down all of these uncontested arrears.

We urge this subcommittee to make sure that the U.S. will meet its annual assessed contribution on time and in full by appropriating the President’s full request of $1.6194 billion.

Contributions to International Peacekeeping Activities (CIPA) UN peace operations are cost-efficient and often prove vital in consolidating the peace in countries emerging from conflict. Funding these operations saves lives in Darfur, Chad, Liberia, Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and other conflict zones. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the US plays an instrumental role in voting for the deployment of peacekeeping missions, and should meet its full obligations in supporting those missions. By supporting UN peacekeeping, we lessen the burden on our own forces and reduce our own expenditures. In 2006, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) study concluded that UN peacekeeping is eight times less expensive than funding a U.S. force. UN peacekeeping missions also help end brutal conflicts, support stability, the transition to democratization, and bring relief for hundreds of millions of people. In 2005, The Human Security Report, a major international study on peace and war, judged that the global security climate improved dramatically since the 1980’s, with genocides plummeting by 80 percent. The study attributed that decline to the explosion in conflict prevention, peacemaking, and increases in the number and complexity of UN peacekeeping missions.

FCNL strongly encourages this subcommittee meet the President’s request to fund this account at $1.92 billion, permanently remove the cap inhibiting the U.S. from paying its full share to U.N. peace operations, and meet assessed dues for FY10 on time and in full.

Provide assistance to countries most vulnerable to the burden of climate change
The United States has a national security interest as well as a moral obligation to fund international adaptation programs to help mitigate the effects of climate change. The effects of climate changes, if left unchecked, will lead to greater human migrations and social unrest, putting pressure on governments and services, many of which are already weak, and adding to global instability.

Last year, the U.S. increased its contribution to international adaptation funds. Yet these contributions are not nearly commensurate with the global need for adaptation funding. Several funds have been created under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to address adaptation needs. These funds include the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF), the Special Climate Change Fund, the Adaptation Fund, and the Green Climate Fund established under the Cancun Agreements.

In FY12, the United States should continue the trend of increased climate change assistance and contribute a significant portion of the $86 billion a year which the 2007/2008 United Nations Human Development Report suggests will be needed by 2015 for climate change adaptation in developing countries. A significant portion of the total contributed assistance should go through these multilateral funds, and a particular effort should be made to provide significant funding through the new Green Climate Fund.

Preventing deadly conflict and advancing global peace and stability requires addressing both triggers of violence and underlying root causes of conflict. The international affairs budget includes many other accounts which also contribute to building resilient societies and helping reduce the potential for violent conflict. Thank you for your continued leadership to protect and increase investments in vital foreign assistance programs which increase the security, health and economic well-being for billions around the world.

As you prepare the FY 12 State and Foreign Operations Appropriations bill, and in the face of challenging budgetary choices, we ask that you consider these requests and make saving both lives and dollars a priority.

For more information, contact: Diane Randall, Executive Secretary, Friends Committee on National Legislation Diane@FCNL.org 202-903-2521