Authors: Liz Hume, Megan Corrado, Megan Schleicher, and Eric Eikenberry

Publisher: Alliance for Peacebuilding

Publication Date: December 21, 2020

Abstract: To address the increasing global challenges to better engage with global partners and reprioritize development, democracy and governance, peacebuilding, and humanitarian assistance—particularly in service of the prevention of violent conflict—the Alliance for Peacebuilding recommends the Biden-Harris Administration address the following priorities: 

1. Restore American leadership and robustly resource a U.S. global, multi-sectoral integrated COVID strategy;

2. Fully implement U.S. laws and support new Youth, Peace, and Security legislation;

3. Urgently implement a new climate change/crisis foreign assistance strategy;

4. Promote democracy and good governance in fragile states and backsliding democracies;

5. Strengthen and empower local civil society-led ownership;

6. Rightsize the military defense budget to ensure critical funding for diplomacy and foreign assistance, including democracy, governance, and peacebuilding programs, and responsibly end and prevent wars;

7. Rebalance and rightsize counterterrorism and preventing/countering violent extremism laws, policies, and programs;

8. Enhance USAID and State Department structures;

9. Restore support to the United Nations and other multilateral institutions to promote international cooperation and partnership on peace and security;

10. Partner with the American private sector for peace and prosperity;

11. End arms sales to countries violating Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law; and

12. Address priority country/regional contexts.

The following 12 recommendations address the ways in which U.S. foreign assistance and diplomacy must adapt and innovate to keep pace with recent upticks in violence and protracted conflict, as well as to create the conditions for the effective prevention, building, and sustainment of peace.