Center for Post-Conflict Peace and Stability Operations

Filling the Gaps: Stabilization and Reconstruction Series

The U.S. government is currently facing enormous challenges in stabilizing nations emerging from conflict. After more than a decade of experience in war-torn states such as Afghanistan, Haiti, and the Balkans, reconstruction and stabilization operations are still plagued by persistent failures. While some national and international mechanisms have been developed to successfully address specific aspects of these interventions—such as conducting elections, coordinating the return of refugees, and privatizing state enterprises—reconstruction and stabilization operations have produced mixed results in other essential areas.

USIP's Filling the Gaps series is taking a hard look at some of these weak but essential areas including: transitional governance, natural resources, mass media, economic development, and the role of women. For each of these sectors, USIP is convening top practitioners and experts in working groups to identify best practices and to generate policy options for those who conduct these complex missions. USIP is also currently developing a framework on best practices, one that will enable a more comprehensive approach to achieving clearly defined end-states for societies emerging from conflict.

The recommendations of the Filling the Gaps working groups are summarized in the Stabilization and Reconstruction report series. The current reports in the series are:

• Developing Media in Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations
  October 2007 | Yll Bajraktari and Emily Hsu
• Employment Generation and Economic Development in Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations
  March 2007 | Johanna Mendelson-Forman and Merriam Mashatt
• The Urge to Remember: The Role of Memorials in Social Reconstruction and Transitional Justice
  January 2007 | Judy Barsalou and Victoria Baxter
• Managing Natural Resource Wealth
  August 2006 | Jill Shankleman
• The Role of Women in Reconstruction and Stabilization
  August 2006 | Camille Pampell Conaway
   Listen to audio from an April 10 event on Camille Pampell Conaway's report.
• Transitional Governance: From Bullets to Ballots
  June 2006 | Beth Cole DeGrasse and Christina Caan
• Measuring Progress in Stabilization and Reconstruction
  March 2006 | Craig Cohen

Filling the Gaps is directed by Vice President for Post-Conflict Peace and Stability Operations Daniel Serwer and managed by Senior Program Officer Beth Cole.