Date of Award

3-2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Department of Operational Sciences

First Advisor

Mark A. Gallagher, PhD

Abstract

The Global Fragility Act, H.R.2116 116th Cong. (2019), “directs the Department of State to establish the interagency Global Fragility Initiative to stabilize conflict-affected areas and prevent violence globally, and establishes funds to support such efforts”. 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 (USAID, 2021). The agency gives priority to mitigating the causes and consequences of violent conflicts, instability and extremism and funds programs and activities to accomplish that (USAID, 2021). With this study, we aim to quantitatively assess these programs effectiveness at preventing and deescalating conflicts in the short and long term. The method used in this study can also be applied to evaluate foreign assistance effectiveness at meeting other U.S. objectives. We use publicly available open-source data from 2010 to 2020. We weight the foreign aid impact as a factor on violent conflicts predictions using a logistic model that predicts with 82% accuracy a country’s status the following year. The model indicates that none of the fund are significant factors in the predictions. The funds do not have an immediate impact on countries prone to violence. There are however cumulative long term positive and negative linear relationships between some funds/combinations of funds and the global conflict levels. As the total amount of five years cumulative Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) implemented funds increases, the total number of countries not in conflict (level 0) increases while the total number of the most violent countries (level 5) decrease. The total amount of five years cumulative DSCA implemented funds is also correlated to the decline in total conflict levels during that timeframe.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-ENS-MS-22-M-125

DTIC Accession Number

AD1170715

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