Editors' Note: Al-Shabab’s operational capacities and intimidation power have grown in the past year, writes Vanda Felbab-Brown. Many of Kenya’s counterterrorism policies have been counterproductive, and counterinsurgency efforts by the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) have at best stagnated. This piece was originally published by The Cipher Brief.

April 2 marked one year since the Somali terrorist group al-Shabab attacked the Garissa University in Kenya and killed 148 people, galvanizing Kenya to intensify its counterterrorism efforts. Yet al-Shabab’s operational capacities and intimidation power have grown in the past year. Many of Kenya’s counterterrorism policies have been counterproductive, and counterinsurgency efforts by the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) have at best stagnated. State building in Somalia is only creeping, with service-delivery by the federal government and newly formed states mostly lacking. Politics continues to be clan-based, rapacious, and discriminatory, with the forthcoming 2016 elections in Somalia thus far merely intensifying political infighting.

Al-Shabab: A rejuvenation

Despite internal and external threats to its effective functioning, al-Shabab is on the upswing again. It has carried out dozens of terrorist attacks within Somalia, including against hotels used by government officials as workspaces and housing, and on beaches and in markets throughout the country. It has raised fear among the population and hampers the basic government functionality and civil society mobilization.

In February 2016, al-Shabab, for the first time, succeeded in smuggling a bomb onboard a flight from Mogadishu. Disturbingly, it has been retaking cities in southern Somalia, including the important port of Merka. It has also overrun AMISOM bases and seized weapons and humvees: one such attack on a Kenyan forward-operating base was likely the deadliest ever suffered by the Kenyan military. Al-Shabab’s operational capacity has also recovered from the internal rifts between its anti-foreign-jihadi, pro-al-Qaida, pro-ISIS, and Somalia-focused factions.

Not all the power jockeying has been settled, and not all leadership succession struggles have been resolved. Moreover, an ISIS branch independent of and antagonistic to al-Shabab is trying to grow in Somalia and has been battling al-Shabab (in a way that parallels the ISIS-Taliban tangles in Afghanistan). Nonetheless, al-Shabab is once more on the rise and has recovered its financing from charcoal, sugar, and other smuggling in southern Somalia, and from taxing traffic and businesses throughout its area of operation, including in Mogadishu.

Although the terrorist violence is almost always claimed by al-Shabab, many of the attacks and assassinations are the work of politicians, businessmen, and clans, intimidating rivals or seeking revenge in their disputes over land and contracts. Indeed, with the clock ticking down to the expected 2016 national elections in Somalia, much of the current violence also reflects political prepositioning for the elections and desire to eliminate political rivals.

Kenya and AMISOM: Don’t sugarcoat it

In contrast to the upbeat mood among al-Shabab, AMISOM efforts have at best been stalled. With the training of Somali national forces going slowly and the force still torn by clan rivalries and shackled by a lack of military enablers, the 22,000-strong AMISOM continues to be the principal counterinsurgency force. Counterterrorism attacks by U.S. drone and special operations forces complicate al-Shabab’s operations, but do not alter the balance of power on the ground. In its ninth year now, and having cost more than U.S.$1 billion, AMISOM continues to be barricaded in its bases, and many of Somalia’s roads, even in areas that are supposedly cleared, are continually controlled by al-Shabab. In cities where AMISOM is nominally in charge, al-Shabab often rules more than the night as AMISOM conducts little active patrolling or fresh anti-Shabab operations even during the day. Rarely are there formal Somali forces or government offices to whom to hand over the post-clearing “holding and building” efforts. There is little coordination, intelligence sharing, or joint planning among the countries folded under the AMISOM heading, with capabilities vastly uneven. The principle benefit of the Burundi forces in Somalia, for example, is that they are not joining the ethnic infighting developing in their home country.

Ethiopia and Kenya still support their favorite Somali proxies. For Kenya, the key ally is Sheik Ahmed “Madobe,” a former high-level al-Shabab commander who defected to create his Ogadeni anti-Shabab militias, Ras Kamboni, and who in 2015 got himself elected president of the newly-formed Jubaland state. Along with Madobe and other Ogadeni powerbrokers, Kenyan Defense Forces control the Kismayo port. Like al-Shabab, they allegedly illegally tax smuggled sugar, charcoal, and other goods through the port and southern Kenya. In addition to these nefarious proceeds on the order of tens to hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars, Kenya’s other interests in Somalia often clash with those of Ethiopia and the Somali national government, including over projecting power off Somali coast and strengthening local warlords and militias who promise to keep Ogadeni mobilization in Kenya down.

At home, Kenya’s counterterrorism activities have been not only parochial, but often outright counterproductive. Post-Garissa dragnets have rounded up countless Kenyan ethnic Somalis and Somali immigrants and refugees. Entire communities have been made scapegoats. For a while, the Kenyan government tried to shut down all Somali hawala services based in Kenya as well as to expel Somali refugees and shut down their camps. Accusations of torture, disappearances, and extrajudicial killings by Kenyan Defense Forces, the police, and other security agencies are widespread. Meanwhile, despite U.S. counterterrorism training and assistance such as through the Security Governance Initiative, debilitating corruption plagues Kenya’s security forces and agencies.

Somalia’s government: Old and new mires

The Somali federal government and the newly formed state-level administrations mostly falter in delivering services that Somali people crave. Competition over state jobs and whatever meager state-sponsored resources are available continue to be mired in clan rivalries and discrimination. Unfortunately, even newly formed (Jubaland, Southwest, and Galmudug) and still-forming states (Hiraan and Middle Shabelle) have not escaped rapacious clan politics. Dominant clans tend not to share power and resources with less numerous ones, often engaging in outright land theft, such as in Jubaland. Civil society contributions have been marginalized. Such misgovernance and clan-based marginalization, as well as more conservative religious politics, are also creeping into Somaliland and Puntland, the two more stable states. Throughout Somalia and in Northeast Kenya, al-Shabab is skillfully inserting itself into clan rivalries and mobilizing support among those who feel marginalized.

The expected 2016 national elections further intensify these clan and elite political rivalries. The hope that the elections could take the form of one man, one vote was once again dashed, with the promise that such elections will take place in 2020. Instead, the 2016 electoral process will reflect the 4.5 model in practice since 2004, in which the four major clans get to appoint the same proportion of the 275 members of the lower chamber and the minority clans will together be allotted half the MP positions that each major clan gets. This system has promoted discriminatory clan rivalries and elite interests. The 54 members of the upper chamber will be appointed by Somalia’s states, including the newly formed and forming states. This arrangement requires that the state formation process is finished well before the elections, but also problematically increases the immediate stakes in the state formation. Finalizing the provisional constitution and getting it approved by a referendum—another key item of the Vision 2016 agreed to by the Somali government and international donors—is also in question.

Perhaps the greatest progress has been made in devolving power from Mogadishu through the formation of subnational states. But there is a real risk that rather than bonding Somalis with state structures as the international community long hoped for and prescribed, the power devolution to newly formed states will instead devolve discriminatory and rapacious politics.

President Obama is right to keep at it in Afghanistan, argues a new policy brief by Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow and director of research for the Brookings Foreign Policy program.

Some have criticized the president’s decision to maintain a significant troop presence there (5,500 troops), instead of following through on the planned military withdrawal. But Afghanistan remains very important to American security, O’Hanlon contends, and the situation in the country is far from hopeless in spite of recent setbacks. We should reinvigorate American efforts in Afghanistan, he argues—not returning to levels seen in previous years, but ramping up somewhat from our current posture.

O’Hanlon calls Obama’s resolve in Afghanistan commendable, but writes that he and his administration are still making mistakes on U.S. policy toward the war-torn country. He advises that Washington make two specific changes to its military strategy in Afghanistan:

1. Allow U.S. and NATO airpower to target the Islamic State and the Taliban (currently, they can only fight those groups if directly attacked). The narrow rules of engagement constraining foreign forces were intended to push Afghan armed forces to defend their territory themselves. While a worthy goal, O’Hanlon says, these rules often prevent us from attacking ISIS (though the targeting strategy towards the group may be changing) as well as the Taliban. They also impose unrealistically high demands on Afghan forces and make too fine a distinction between an array of aligned extremist groups operating in the country.
2. Expand U.S. force presence from the current 5,500 troops to around 12,000 for a few years. In O’Hanlon’s opinion, our current numbers are not enough to work with fielded Afghan forces, and skimping on ground forces has contributed to security challenges in places like Helmand, for instance, which experienced new setbacks in 2015. More broadly, leaders in Washington and Brussels should stress the value of a long-term NATO-Afghanistan partnership, rather than emphasizing an exit strategy. This will signal Western resolve to the Taliban and other groups. While the next commander in chief should set the United States on a gradual path toward downsizing American troops in Afghanistan, he believes it would be a mistake for Obama to do so in the short term.

The long haul

O’Hanlon also argues that the United States needs to take a longer-term perspective on key political and economic issues in Afghanistan. On the economic front, there seems to be little thinking about an agricultural development plan for Afghanistan, associated infrastructure support, and land reform, among other challenges. On the political front, conversations often tend to focus on shorter-term issues like organizing parliamentary elections, reforming the Independent Election Commission, or modifying the current power-sharing arrangement. In the process, conversations about foundational political strategy focusing on Afghan institutions and the health of its democracy get short-changed. The parliament is in need of reforms, for instance, as is the political party system (which should encourage Afghans to group around ideas and policy platforms, rather than tribes and patronage networks).

O’Hanlon concludes that the situation in Afghanistan today, while fraught, is understandable given the Taliban’s resilience and NATO’s gradual withdrawal of 125,000 troops. We should not be despondent, he writes—rather, we should identify specific strategies that can help improve the situation. At the end of the day, Afghans must make the big decisions about the future of their country. But as long as the United States and its partners are still providing tremendous resources—and as long as security threats emanating from South Asia continue to threaten the United States—leaders in Washington should use their influence wisely.

The development community issued a collective sigh of relief last week when the U.S. Senate, after a seven-month delay, finally confirmed a new Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). In addition to dealing with the many global development issues, Gayle Smith also has the task of making good on the Obama administration’s commitment to make USAID a preeminent 21st century development agency.

While a year might seem a short time for anyone to make a difference in a new government position, Gayle Smith assuming the lead in USAID should be seen more as the capstone of a seven-year tenure guiding U.S. global development policy.  She led the interagency process that produced the 2010 Presidential Policy Determination on Development (PDD), and has been involved in every administration development policy initiative since, including major reforms inside USAID.

The five items below are suggestions on how Smith can institutionalize and take to the next level reforms and initiatives that have been part of the development agenda of which she has been a principal architect.

The PPD lays out key elements for making our assistance programs more accountable, including “greater transparency” and “more substantial investment of resources in monitoring and evaluation.”

USAID staff have designed a well thought out Cost Program Management Plan to advance the public availability of its data and to fulfill the U.S. commitment to the International Assistance Transparency Initiative (IATI). What this plan needs is a little boost from the new administrator, her explicit endorsement and energy, and maybe the freeing-up of more resources so phases two and three to get more and better USAID data into the IATI registry can be completed by the end of 2016 rather than slipping over into the next administration. In addition, the fourth and final phase of the plan needs to be approved so data transparency is integrated into the planned Development Information Solution (DIS), which will provide a comprehensive integration of program and financial information. 

Meanwhile, in January 2011 USAID adopted an evaluation policy that was praised by the American Evaluation Association as a model for other government agencies. In FY 2014, the agency completed 224 evaluations. The new administrator could provide leadership in several areas that would raise the quality and use of USAID’s evaluations. She should weigh in on the sometimes theological debate over what type of evaluation works best by being clear that there is no single, all-purpose type of evaluation. Evaluations need to fit the context and question to be addressed, from most significant change (focusing solely on the most significant change generated by a project), to performance evaluation, to impact evaluation.   

Second, evaluation is an expertise that is not quickly acquired. Some 2,000 USAID staff have been trained, but mainly through short-term courses. The training needs to be broadened to all staff and deepened in content. This will contribute to a cultural change whereby USAID staff learn not just how to conduct evaluations, but how to value and use the findings.

Third, evaluations need to be translated into learning. The E3 Bureau (Bureau for Economic Growth, Education and Environment) has set the model of analyzing and incorporating evaluation findings into its policies and programs, and a few missions have bought evaluations into their program cycle. This needs to be done throughout the agency. Further, USAID should use its convening power to share its findings with other U.S. government agencies, other donors, and the broader development community.

Current USAID processes are considered rigid and time-consuming. This is not uncommon to large institutions, but in recent years the agency has been seeking more innovative, flexible instruments. The USAID Global Development Lab is experimenting with what is alternatively referred to as the Development Innovation Accelerator (DIA) or Broad Agency Announcement (BAA), whereby it invites ideas on a specific development problem and then selects the authors of the best, most relevant, to join USAID staff in co-creating solutions—something the corporate sector has been calling for—to be involved at the beginning of problem-solving. Similarly, the Policy, Planning, and Learning Bureau is in the midst of redesigning the program cycle to introduce adaptive management, allowing for greater collaboration and real-time response to new information and evolving local circumstances. Adaptive management would allow for more customized approaches and learning based on local context.

Again, the PPD calls for “innovation.” As with accountability, an expression of interest and support from the new administrator, and an articulation of the need to inculcate innovation into the USAID culture, could move these endeavors from tentative experiment to practice.

Gayle Smith has been immersed in guiding U.S. policy in unstable, fragile states. She knows the territory well and cares. The U.S. has been an active participant and leader in the New Deal for Fragile States. The New Deal framework is a thoughtful, comprehensive structure for moving fragile states to stability, but recent analyses indicate that neither members of the G7+ countries nor donors are following the explicit steps. They are not dealing with national and local politics, which are the essential levers through which to bring stability to a country, and are not adequately including civil society. Maybe the New Deal structures are too complicated for a country that has minimal governance. Certainly, there has been insufficient senior-level leadership from donors and buy-in from G7+ leaders and stakeholders. With her deep knowledge of the dynamics in fragile states, Smith could bring sorely needed U.S. leadership to this arena.

The PPD calls for “robust policy, budget, planning, and evaluation capabilities.” USAID moved quickly on these objectives, not just in restoring USAID former capabilities in evaluation, but also in policy and budget through the resurrection of the planning and policy function (Policy, Planning, and Learning Bureau, or PPL) and the budget function (Office of Bureau and Resource Management, or BRM). PPL has reestablished USAID’s former policy function, but USAID’s budget authority has only been partially restored.

Gayle Smith needs to take the next obvious step. Budget is policy. The integration of policy and budget is an essential foundation of evidence-based policymaking. The two need to be joined so these functions can support each other rather than operating in isolated cones. Budget deliberations are not just about numbers; policies get set by budget decisions, so policy and budget need to be integrated so budget decisions are informed by strategy and policy knowledge.

I go back to the model of the late 1970s when Alex Shakow was head of the Policy, Planning, and Coordination Bureau (PPC), which encompassed both policy and budget. Here you had in one senior official someone who was knowledgeable about policy and budget and understood how the two interact. He was the go-to-person the agency sent to Capitol Hill. He could deal with the range of issues that always unexpectedly arise during congressional committee hearings and markups. He could effectively deal with the State Department and interagency meetings on a broad sweep of policy and program matters. He could represent the U.S. globally, such as at the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and other international development meetings.

With the expansion of the development agenda and frequency of interagency and international meetings, such a person is in even greater need today. USAID needs three or four senior officials—administrator, deputy administrator, associate administrator, and the head of a joined-up policy/budget function —to cover the demand domestically and internationally for senior USAID leadership with a deep knowledge of the broad scope of USAID programs.    

The arguments for the need to reform U.S. food assistance programs are incontrovertible and have been hashed hundreds of times, so no need to repeat them here. But it is clearly in the interests of the tens of millions of people globally who each year face hunger and starvation for the U.S. to maximize the use of its resources by moving its food aid from an antiquated 1950s model to current market realities. There is leadership for this on the Hill in the Food for Peace Reform Act of 2015, introduced by Senators Bob Corker and Chris Coons. Gayle Smith could help build the momentum for this bill and contribute to an important Obama legacy, whether enactment happens in 2016 or under a new administration and Congress in 2017.

Gayle knows better than anyone the Obama development agenda. These ideas are humbly presented as an outside observer’s suggestions of how to solidify key administration aid effectiveness initiatives. 

President Obama is right to keep at it in Afghanistan, argues a new policy brief by Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow and director of research for the Brookings Foreign Policy program.

Some have criticized the president’s decision to maintain a significant troop presence there (5,500 troops), instead of following through on the planned military withdrawal. But Afghanistan remains very important to American security, O’Hanlon contends, and the situation in the country is far from hopeless in spite of recent setbacks. We should reinvigorate American efforts in Afghanistan, he argues—not returning to levels seen in previous years, but ramping up somewhat from our current posture.

O’Hanlon calls Obama’s resolve in Afghanistan commendable, but writes that he and his administration are still making mistakes on U.S. policy toward the war-torn country. He advises that Washington make two specific changes to its military strategy in Afghanistan:

1. Allow U.S. and NATO airpower to target the Islamic State and the Taliban (currently, they can only fight those groups if directly attacked). The narrow rules of engagement constraining foreign forces were intended to push Afghan armed forces to defend their territory themselves. While a worthy goal, O’Hanlon says, these rules often prevent us from attacking ISIS (though the targeting strategy towards the group may be changing) as well as the Taliban. They also impose unrealistically high demands on Afghan forces and make too fine a distinction between an array of aligned extremist groups operating in the country.
2. Expand U.S. force presence from the current 5,500 troops to around 12,000 for a few years. In O’Hanlon’s opinion, our current numbers are not enough to work with fielded Afghan forces, and skimping on ground forces has contributed to security challenges in places like Helmand, for instance, which experienced new setbacks in 2015. More broadly, leaders in Washington and Brussels should stress the value of a long-term NATO-Afghanistan partnership, rather than emphasizing an exit strategy. This will signal Western resolve to the Taliban and other groups. While the next commander in chief should set the United States on a gradual path toward downsizing American troops in Afghanistan, he believes it would be a mistake for Obama to do so in the short term.

The long haul

O’Hanlon also argues that the United States needs to take a longer-term perspective on key political and economic issues in Afghanistan. On the economic front, there seems to be little thinking about an agricultural development plan for Afghanistan, associated infrastructure support, and land reform, among other challenges. On the political front, conversations often tend to focus on shorter-term issues like organizing parliamentary elections, reforming the Independent Election Commission, or modifying the current power-sharing arrangement. In the process, conversations about foundational political strategy focusing on Afghan institutions and the health of its democracy get short-changed. The parliament is in need of reforms, for instance, as is the political party system (which should encourage Afghans to group around ideas and policy platforms, rather than tribes and patronage networks).

O’Hanlon concludes that the situation in Afghanistan today, while fraught, is understandable given the Taliban’s resilience and NATO’s gradual withdrawal of 125,000 troops. We should not be despondent, he writes—rather, we should identify specific strategies that can help improve the situation. At the end of the day, Afghans must make the big decisions about the future of their country. But as long as the United States and its partners are still providing tremendous resources—and as long as security threats emanating from South Asia continue to threaten the United States—leaders in Washington should use their influence wisely.

INTRODUCTION—

Achieving universal education is a twofold challenge: to get children and youth into school and then to teach them something meaningful while they are there. While important progress has been made on the first challenge, there is a crisis unfolding in relation to learning. Around the world, there have been major gains in primary school enrollment partly due to the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals and the abolition of school fees by many national governments. However in many countries, students are spending years in school without learning core competencies, such as reading and writing. To address this learning crisis, the global community and national governments need to place a much greater focus on the ultimate objective of education—to acquire knowledge and develop skills.

This shift in focus away from just enrollment to enrollment plus quality learning requires measuring learning outcomes. However, the global education community is not yet systematically using effective instruments for measuring primary school learning in low- and middle-income countries. This policy brief reviews the global efforts among the primary donors to support the measurement of learning outcomes. It then suggests steps needed to transition global education policy into a new paradigm of enrollment plus quality learning, which includes: scaling up the implementation of national education accounts and national assessment systems; increasing attention to monitoring early learning during child development to improve readiness for school; and expanding the systematic use of simple assessments of basic cognitive functions in the early grades to help teachers improve their practice.

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