Benin Country Coordinator for US Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability - USAID/West Africa

The USAID/West Africa Regional Mission (USAID/WA) and U.S. Embassy Cotonou seeks an offshore U.S. Personal Services Contractor (USPSC) to serve as the Mission’s Country Coordinator for U.S. Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability (USPCPS) for Benin. The USAID/West Africa Regional Mission partners with regional organizations, the private sector and with local partners to achieve peace and prosperity. Our strategic vision focuses on transnational, transboundary, and multi-country issues. Our regional program, encompassing 21 countries including Benin, reinforces and supports the United States Agency for International Development and the United States Government’s bilateral investments, moving the region toward greater freedom, prosperity, health, resilience, and, ultimately, sustainability. Delivering our programmatic services at the local, national, and regional levels, USAID/West Africa engages with West Africans to leverage the benefits of collective action. The landmark 2019 Global Fragility Act (GFA) presents a new and necessary opportunity for the U.S. Government (USG) to prioritize conflict prevention and transform how it partners with countries affected by fragility and conflict to foster a more peaceful and stable world. The 2020 U.S. Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability (SPCPS) conceives an integrated, evidence-based, prevention-focused, coherent, and field-driven approach to address drivers of fragility that can threaten U.S. national security. The new U.S. SPCPS reflects a response to emerging threats and opportunities and outlines guiding principles to inform our whole-of-government work, in partnership with other countries, institutions, and organizations, as we implement the SPCPS and its four goals. The GFA requires a holistic approach to help partners address the political, social, and economic drivers of fragility, expand effective and accountable governance, and bolster local conflict resolution mechanisms. The U.S. SPCPS recognizes the transnational nature of threats to stability facing certain regions, and the need for regional solutions to address them. SPCPS implementation in Coastal West Africa (CWA) - Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea and Togo – provides the opportunity to build capacity to respond more effectively to shocks and emerging challenges and leverage the transnational social, economic, and political factors that contribute to resilience and peace. The SPCPS elevates connections to current and emerging challenges, including those regarding democracy, governance, respect for human rights, multilateralism, gender equality, youth participation, security and justice sector reform, atrocity prevention, global health security, conflict mitigation, peacebuilding, and climate change. Key to the success of SPCPS implementation is extensive and ongoing partnership with host country government, civil society, academics, private sector, and like-minded and non-traditional donors to jointly design programs, ensuring the local ownership that GFA and the SPCPS envision. There is a unique window of opportunity in CWA to engage regional bodies, governments, local communities, international partners, and sub-national partners to build on existing strengths and prevent internal and external threats from metastasizing into broader conflict or a humanitarian crisis. There is also an opportunity for synergy with stabilization and conflict prevention efforts in the Sahel. Challenges in the Sahel and CWA are interlinked, but each region also faces distinct local political dynamics that shape risks, resiliencies, and responses to conflict and violence. The regional effort proposed for CWA includes five countries, five USG Country Teams, and significant involvement from offices specializing in the entire West African region.