The Foreign Service Journal, May 2010

M A Y 2 0 1 0 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 41 JH: The key thing to keep in mind here is that because Haiti has been designated as a humanitarian crisis, the U.S. Agency for Interna- tional Development has been as- signed the lead role for organizing the U.S. response. As part of that effort, within 24 hours of the task- ing we sent personnel from eight different agencies to the State and USAID task forces responding to the crisis. These personnel were drawn not just from State and USAID, but fromCommerce, Trea- sury, Health and Human Services, Justice, Agriculture and Homeland Security. Moreover, immediately after the earthquake, we had 10 Civilian Response Corps members ready to deploy to Haiti for planning beyond the humanitarian assistance phase, if called upon by the State Department. We also identified a few dozen Civilian Response Corps mem- bers with relevant skill sets who could be available for fu- ture deployments. FSJ: What is the concept behind the Civilian Response Corps? JH: Because no single U.S. government entity has all of the relevant expertise to deal with these threats, the Civilian Response Corps is a partnership of eight de- partments and agencies: the Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development, and the depart- ments of Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Justice and Treasury. The Civilian Response Corps consists of three complemen- tary components: active, standby and reserve. The Active Component (CRC-A), has more than 100 full-time members as of now, but our goal is to in- crease that number to 264 by the end of the current fis- cal year. These are full-time federal employees, from the Foreign Service and elsewhere, whose specific job is to train for, prepare and staff reconstruction, stabilization and conflict prevention efforts. They can deploy any- where in the world within 48 hours of an emergency to focus on critical interagency functions such as assess- ments, planning, management, administration, coordi- nation, logistics and resource mobilization. We currently have 619 individuals in the Standby Component (CRC-S), with a goal of increasing that to 1,000 people by the end of this fiscal year. Like their active-duty colleagues, these are all full-time employees of vari- ous U.S. government departments, with specialized expertise useful in reconstruction and stabilization operations. They are available to deploy within 30 days in the event of a reconstruction or stabilization operation. Finally, the Reserve Compo- nent (CRC-R) has not yet been funded, but will consist of up to 2,000 U.S. citizens, each of whom commits to be available within 45 to 60 days of call-up to serve as U.S. government temporary employ- ees in support of overseas reconstruction and stabiliza- tion operations. These individuals, to be drawn from the private sector as well as state and local governments across the country, would have expertise in such fields as policing and the rule of law, infrastructure development, economic stabilization, state and local governance, agri- culture and provision of basic services. These services, critical to efforts to bring “normalcy” to countries, require capabilities career federal employees simply cannot match in expertise or in number. FSJ: Has the Civilian Response Corps been able to make effective use of retired FSOs? JH: I would say so. There are many examples I could cite, but let me talk about Afghanistan. We’ve been in- volved there for over two years now in a variety of roles, with something like 20 to 24 CRC members in country at any given time. They have supported the Special Rep- resentative for Afghanistan & Pakistan, the U.S. embassy in Kabul, and the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul to help implement the president’s strat- egy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. As part of that mission, we went out to all 12 U.S. Provincial Reconstruction Teams around the country and helped them write plans for civilian operations. We’ve also established a civilian group in Embassy Kabul. In addition, at the Afghan government’s request, we rendered technical assistance in preparation for their presidential elections last summer, dealing with issues like communications and planning. F O C U S “There was some skepticism about our office when it first started up a couple of years ago, but I think there’s less today.” — Ambassador John Herbst, Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization