Climate and Conflict in Ghana

This report explores growing concerns surrounding climate change and conflict in Ghana. However, if sufficiently supported, Ghana exhibits resiliency factors that may be critical to the country’s long-term stability. This analysis is the product of a collaborative research effort between Chemonics International and CDA Collaborative Learning Projects.

The Role of Trauma and Mental Health in Violent Extremism

This policy paper assesses the impact of non-ideological risk factors on radicalisation and violent extremism, namely mental health and trauma. It argues that funding is needed for large-scale interdisciplinary research in this area. Prevention and deradicalisation programming will greatly benefit from a wider evidence-base of mental health-related vulnerability factors. Please find the paper linked here.

Building Evidence on Cross-Border Conflict to Inform Effective Responses

Conflicts in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia are rarely confined within state borders. Instead, they extend through the transnational flows of people, weapons, and resources, creating intricate cross-border conflict systems that span the formal and informal, licit, and illicit. These systems empower armed actors, enmesh conflict in crime and violent extremism, and ensnare local…

Final Report: Supporting Moderate Education in Syria Project

Following six months of interventions in Northeast Syria (NES), known as Injaz I, this follow-on project sought to address five years of psychosocial trauma and severely limited foundational learning in NES caused by primary and secondary exposure to ISIS ideology. With the closure of secular schools under ISIS, many children and youth were left susceptible…

Final Report: Libya Transition Initiative 3

From May 2017 to February 2022, LTI 3 sought to prevent further deterioration in political and security conditions in Libya while preserving as much space as possible for eventual political compromise, unified civilian leadership, reconciliation, and positive political transition. The program worked in strategic communities where stability is most fragile while seizing windows of opportunity…

Final Report: USAID/OTI Burkina Faso Regional Program

BFRP leveraged its $9.5 million transition activities pool (TAP) to implement 220 activities supporting locally led solutions to address the most pressing sources of instability in the program’s target communities. BFRP awarded grants to 114 partners consisting of local non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community groups, and host-country government offices. BFRP cleared its first activity in October…

Luke Waggoner

Luke Waggoner is a former senior democracy and governance specialist at Chemonics.

An Evaluation of the Injaz Psychosocial Support Program in Syria

Growing up in Islamic State-held territories, young Syrians have lived through traumatic experiences. Subsequently, many children have become desensitized to violence and developed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. As a result, conflict-affected children urgently need mental health support. Chemonics’ Injaz program is primarily an education project. It works with children in both formal and informal settings, including…

What Does a Systems Approach to Conflict Prevention Look Like?

Today’s conflicts are long, intractable, and more complicated than ever. The last decade saw a marked rise in state-based armed conflict for the first time since the end of the Cold War, all involving non-state actors. Radicalization, organized crime, climate change — and now pandemics — bring new challenges to convoluted conflict systems. Yet, the…