The Foreign Service Journal, November 2010

N O V E M B E R 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 13 competitive process, would go a long way to improve the quality of the indi- viduals hired. Even given the dangers of deployment to places like Iraq and Afghanistan, there are large pools of untapped candidates who would be willing, indeed enthusiastic, about the work if they knew about it and were ac- tively approached. Aggressively seek- ing these individuals via consulting and law firms, corporations, state and local government and the traditional devel- opment community will allow the State Department to be much more selec- tive in the people it hires. Once candidates complete the hir- ing process, they should be placed on an “available roster” that is accessible to field leadership. Through consulta- tions and bidding processes (enabled by a user-friendly Web site), in-coun- try managers could work together on succession planning and filling vacan- cies. Investing in a robust recruiting pro- cess leads to hiring the right people, which is the most important element of success. And for the fiscally minded, it is less expensive than hiring the wrong people. Meaningful Preparation Once hired, PRT members need to be given more thorough training and orientation. The current pre-deploy- ment curriculum should provide more practical and more specialized training along the following lines: Week 1: The Players. This module should focus on the structure and com- position of the host-county govern- ment (national, provincial and local), as well as U.S. players (Department of State, USAID and the military). Week 2: Local Culture. Similar to the current training program, this mini-course should provide a day on the history of the host country (for depth, students should be required to complete a reading list before class). Days two and three should cover cul- ture and norms, as well as tribes and religions. And days four and five should be dedicated to learning key words and phrases and working with linguists, a crucial skill that can mean the difference between success and failure. (Of course, each day of the course could cover several topics con- currently.) Week 3: The Basics of Advising. The principal role of Provincial Re- construction Teams is to advise and support, to build local capacity — to teach, not to do. In addition to pos- sessing specialized technical expertise, PRT members must also be skilled ad- visers, educators and mentors. They need to be able to build relationships and obtain buy-in for reform, design and conduct training programs, en- courage changes in attitudes, and un- derstand and manage expectations. Weeks 4, 5 and 6: Specialized Train- ing. New hires should receive at least three weeks of specialized instruction based on their prospective position. Nationbuilding literature and the com- position of the PRTs indicate that at least five “tracks” should be offered: • Introduction to Governance and Public Administration in Fragile States • Introduction to Infrastructure Development in Fragile States • Introduction to the Rule of Law in Fragile States • Introduction to Economic Devel- opment in Fragile States • Introduction to Education, Health Care and Social Development in Frag- ile States Practical Tools Nationbuilding should be as well- developed a profession as warfighting. We invest millions of dollars a year to craft and perfect military doctrine. We need a comparable investment in na- tionbuilding. A number of existing frameworks provide good starting points (e.g., the U.S. Institute of Peace’s “Strategic Framework for Fragile States and So- cieties Emerging fromConflict”). But more practical tools are needed, as well. Drawing on decades of develop- ment work, as well as our recent expe- rience in Iraq and Afghanistan, we now have the intellectual capital to more systematically develop and catalog “how to” guides that advisers can use in the field. Take, for example, those officials working with provincial councils in Iraq. When first established, every one of these councils needed to learn how to conduct plenary meetings, run com- mittees, review budgets and fulfill their oversight responsibilities. But there were few toolkits available to the PRTs to enable them to assist Iraqis to ac- quire these skills. Consequently, each team did its own thing, and wheels were reinvented all over the country. It’s time to de- velop a canon of resources, tools and S P E A K I N G O U T Consequently, each team did its own thing, and wheels were reinvented all over the country.