Email this Page           Printer Friendly

In today’s interdependent world, the United States confronts extraordinary international political, security and humanitarian challenges, from climate change to nuclear proliferation to poverty and instability in regions confronting poverty and state failure. To exercise effective leadership and make progress on these issues, the United States must advance a vision for responsible U.S. global engagement that emphasizes international cooperation, affirms the strong connections between today’s most pressing global issues, and recognizes that progress on compelling global problems will require the active support of friends, allies and other major stakeholders in the international community. The United States will only gain such cooperation and support if it exercises power and influence in a manner that is widely perceived as legitimate, and that clearly demonstrates foresight and responsibility to future generations. This approach embodies principles that have marked U.S. foreign policy at its most effective.

The Connect U.S. Fund has identified four areas of focus for our grant making and for much of our operational work in 2008-2009.  We have focused on those issues in which significant progress demands a far greater degree of international cooperation, including U.S. engagement with and support of international institutions.  In developing our grant making program, in particular, we have considered the comparative advantages of the Connect U.S. community.  The areas of program focus offer unique opportunities for NGO collaborations (both formal and informal) and, as a result, unusual potential for progress on key policy issues affecting the role of the United States in the world.

Human Rights:  Reestablishing U.S. Credibility and Leadership

This issue is critical to effective U.S. re-engagement with friends, allies and other major stakeholders in the international community.  In our program of grant-making for 2007 and 2008, advocacy goals have been focused primarily on U.S. human rights practices related to counterterrorism, including respect for international human rights and humanitarian law by U.S. officials.  Our grantee partners have engaged in advocacy on issues such as habeas corpus, strengthening of protections against mistreatment in interrogation, and revision of the Military Commissions Act, among other issues.

While these efforts have had substantial impacts, there is still limited consensus on the substance and structure of domestic legal regimes to address counter-terrorism issues, or the connection between what the United States practices at home and U.S. officials preach abroad.  Thus, the Connect U.S. Fund is now seeking to work with and support groups that seek to integrate diverse advocacy efforts directed at a new administration, for example, by combining the efforts of activists focused on U.S. domestic law and practices related to counterterrorism with those of groups whose focus is primarily international human rights institutions and advocacy outside the United States.

Nuclear Nonproliferation: Promoting Effective Regimes

In recent years, the United States has largely rejected a range of tools that could be critical to reestablishing leadership in international efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.  For this reason, we are working closely with advocacy groups to press for a U.S. review of nuclear policy and reliance on nuclear weapons in contingency planning, support for multilateral negotiations on a fissile material treaty, ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, further nuclear arms reductions and a ban on the use of space for weapons purposes.   Advocates have been successful in ensuring that these issues have received prominent attention by each of the major presidential campaigns, and the Connect U.S. Fund is now supporting efforts to translate pre-election advocacy into effective measures to influence the transition and post-transition periods.  In particular, we are seeking to encourage close cooperation among the many and varied advocacy efforts in this area.

Civil-Military Relations and Building Civilian Capacity for Stability Operations, Economic Recovery and Development

In recent years, the U.S. strategy for overseas engagement and for overseas assistance, in particular, has envisioned a greatly expanded humanitarian and development mission for the military.   We support more effective civil-military coordination and civilian leadership in overseas assistance policy and aid programs and the identification of appropriate parameters for military engagement on humanitarian and development issues.  

There is a growing realization within both the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. military about the importance of promoting civilian leadership in so-called stability operations, as well as in economic recovery and development.  But this growing awareness has not been matched by strong political commitments, either by the Administration or the Congress, to organize or otherwise enhance civilian capacity to address fragile states, disaster assistance, or post-conflict requirements – and to relate these requirements to economic recovery and development.  Moreover, as long as policies in this area are guided primarily by the fear of terrorism in fragile or failed states, the willingness to focus on civilian capacity will be limited.  And without a clearer conception of what the U.S. government would like civilians to do in these areas, well-funded advocacy for increased legislative appropriations will make little headway.  

A major part of this challenge involves the lack of contact and communication between advocates, experts and practitioners engaged in post-conflict operations and those engaged in more traditional international assistance activities, such as disaster prevention, economic recovery and development.  We thus are seeking opportunities to promote cooperative and collaborative efforts to bring these separate but related communities together -- for more effective, integrated and coherent advocacy on these issues.

Development and Climate Change: Promoting Equitable Policies and Building Institutional Capacity

It is critical that the United States make national commitments relating to greenhouse gas reduction, energy diversification and effective incorporation of state-by-state best practices, and several Connect U.S. Fund grantees have been engaged in efforts to promote these objectives and bring them to the attention of the presidential campaigns.  While advocacy focused primarily on mitigation is now strongly supported by a broad range of funders, there is more work to be done in promoting an international development perspective in the U.S. policy debate on climate change.  Broad acceptance within the U.S. policy establishment of development equities in the climate change debate is not only an ethical issue, but will be critical to any post-Kyoto international regime that enjoys the support of developing countries.  This view is validated by the consensus reached at the Bali Climate Conference, which described a range of objectives – including prevention of deforestation, adaptation, and capacity building – that will require policy support for outcomes that meet developing country concerns.  The Connect U.S. Fund is supporting efforts to promote these objectives in U.S. policy, including efforts to promote U.S. government, international organization and NGO capacity building to address the developmental consequences of climate change.