Week 2: Back to School
It's hard to believe that two weeks at USIP have already passed, but I already feel like I've learned so much. This week I continued my research and tried to narrow it down to a few case studies that I can go into more in depth. I've found several examples of community-based policing efforts ranging from neighborhood watch groups to citizen militias, but finding a depth of information about a few key examples has been challenging.
Part of the challenge is that when these groups do a good job filling in gaps in state security forces, their stories become less "newsworthy." It seems that people only write about them when things go wrong. However, my research goal is to see if it really is the case that the only two means of state engagement with these groups is to incorporate them into state security services or to disband the groups altogether.
In addition to continuing my research this week, I feel like I've also gone back to school. I attended an event at USIP titled Nigeria Conversations led by a visiting fellow, Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim. He gave an overview of Nigeria's history, including his assessment of the conflicts between pastoralists and farmers in the Middle Belt region of the country and how, as a result, this region has become very influential in national elections -- one of which is coming up soon. Dr. Ibrahim also discussed policing in Nigeria and efforts, past and present, to reform the police as well as obstacles to those efforts. This portion of the event was particularly interesting, as it relates directly to my work on the JSD project.
Week 2 at USIP has been full of knowledge-building exercises; I also met with my supervisor again this week to discuss my research and my career goals, and she set up meetings for me with other USIP employees, one of whom explained the process of Monitoring and Evaluation. M&E is basically a way for teams to track progress and analyze whether their efforts are accomplishing their desired goals. Over the years, the importance of M&E in rule of law programming has increased dramatically.
The JSD project poses unique challenges to M&E because of the nature of the work it comprises: improving relations between citizens and their country's security services, increasing trust between those groups, and facilitating open dialogue. These are all hard to measure and they look different at each place where the JSD process operates because they are intrinsic to the needs of local individuals in those places.
Did I mention I feel like I've gone back to school? That might be because, in addition to signing up for an online course through USIP on Conflict Analysis, learning about M&E, and attending an insightful lecture, I also met up with some of my high school friends this weekend for a mini high school reunion! One friend came to visit me from New York, and we met up with some other high school friends who live in the area.
While we were all together, we went to the botanic gardens, the Hirshhorn (a free art gallery), and a bakery called Milk Bar, which I've been dying to try ever since learning about it on one of my favorite shows, Chef's Table.
It was a great week filled with learning and laughing!
