Assessing the US foreign assistance activities impact on violent conflicts

Abstract

The Global Fragility Act, H.R.2116 116th Congress, directs the Department of State to establish an interagency initiative to stabilize conflict-affected areas and prevent violence globally. We propose and demonstrate an approach to evaluate the success of funding these initiatives. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has identified deteriorating economies, weak, or illegitimate political institutions, and competition over natural resources as causes of violence, extremism, and instability. The agency prioritizes mitigating the causes and consequences of violent conflicts, instability, and extremism and funds corresponding programs. Focused on military aid, we quantitatively assess these programs effectiveness at preventing or deescalating conflicts during 2010 to 2020. Our statistical analysis shows the funds during that period did not have an immediate impact on countries prone to violence. However, cumulative long-term relationships exist between some funds and the global conflict levels. As the total amount of 5 years cumulative Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) implemented funds increases, the total number of countries not-in-conflict increases while the total number of the most violent countries decreases. Those funds also correlate to the decline in total conflict levels during that timeframe. This quantitative approach assesses the aggregate effectiveness of aid across various countries.