Mid-Term Evaluation of the Central Asian Community Action 
Investment Program
October 28, 2003
Claire Ehmann, E&E
Sharon Morris, DCHA/CMM
Mahabat Alimkulova USAID/CAR
Table of Contents
Introduction........................................................................................................................3
General Findings...............................................................................................................4
Recommendations ............................................................................................................7
Appendix A ...................................................................................................................... 11
Appendix B ...................................................................................................................... 12
Appendix C...................................................................................................................... 14
Introduction
This report summarizes the findings of a mid-term review of USAID’s Community Action 
Investment Program (CAIP). The review is intended to: (1) evaluate the progress of 
CAIP relative to its stated goal of building the capacity of communities to address 
causes of violence at the local level; (2) provide suggestions on how CAIP can be 
improved and/or adjusted; and (3) make recommendations on the sustainability of CAIP 
and the prospect of renewed program funding following its conclusion in 2005.
The review was undertaken over the course of three weeks in September 2003, 
eighteen months after the start of the program. The team visited four of the five Central 
Asian Republics where CAIP is being implemented (Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, 
Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan1
) and met with all five of CAIP’s implementing partners 
(CHF, Mercy Corps, ACDI-VOCA, UNDP, and the Aga Khan Foundation). A more 
detailed schedule of meetings is attached in Appendix A. For each partner, the team 
interviewed senior and mid-level managers, local staff, local government officials, and 
target communities using a standard set of questions for each group (Appendix B). 
Although there was considerable variation in country context and partner approach, all 
of the programs adhere to the same basic model that uses community mobilization 
around small scale infrastructure projects as a vehicle for addressing underlying 
tensions. The program emphasizes a number of key elements: collective decision￾making, the inclusion of marginalized groups including women and young people, 
transparency in the selection and implementation of projects, and constructive 
engagement with local authorities. CAIP is based on the hypothesis that encouraging 
communities to find solutions to the problems that most immediately affect their daily 
lives will ease tensions at the local level and reduce the potential for violence. 
A number of key questions guided the review. Are the skills learned through collective 
decision making “transferable” to the management of local conflict? Does the inclusion 
of previously marginalized groups in community decision making allow them to assert 
their priorities and address their needs? Do the skills learned by the community allow 
them to more confidently and competently engage with local authorities? Does local 
government in turn become more receptive to the concerns and priorities of local 
citizens as the result of a community mobilization project? How important are local 
factors relative to other factors in determining whether a community suffers from violent 
conflict? To what extent can local level initiatives contribute to the broader goals of 
conflict management and stability?
This last question is critical and sets the parameters for an evaluation of CAIP. It is 
important to be realistic about how much community-based programs can realistically 
accomplish in terms of conflict management or mitigation. Community development 
programs cannot address many of the macro-level issues that drive violence in the 
region, such as the disruption of trade due to border closures, corruption and poor 
governance at the national level, a lack of private land ownership, an unfavorable 
climate for foreign and private investment, human rights abuses, and widespread 
economic stagnation.
Widespread conflict, however, often starts as a small spark at the community level. 
What community mobilization programs can do, if done well, is help to improve 
 
1
 Turkmenistan was excluded because of difficulties encountered in start-up. 
community relations with local government officials, encourage independence and 
initiative at the community level, bring antagonistic groups together in order to find 
solutions to common problems, and provide a measure of hope (through the provision 
of basic services) to a handful of communities that might otherwise be susceptible to the 
appeals of extremist or violent organizations. But it must be remembered that all of this 
will necessarily be on a limited scale and its success and impact depends very much on 
how well communities and projects are chosen. 
Another key issue to consider concerns sustainability. While this was an explicit part of 
the evaluation and the team did consider the issue, it is important to ask whether conflict 
management programs need to be sustainable in the same way that regular 
development programs do. Certainly if the institutions and processes that emerge 
through community mobilization programs help ease tensions, then one would hope that 
these would endure beyond the life of the program. However, in some areas, 
sustainability may not be necessary. 
For example, if young people in a particular community are particularly at risk for being 
recruited by extremist groups or criminal enterprises because of a lack of jobs, then 
relatively targeted, short-term job creation (through small start up grants) may provide a 
safety net or small measure of hope to this cohort until broader economic growth 
programs take hold or immediate sources of instability are attenuated. As long as a 
handful of job creation programs in high-risk areas do not lead to major distortions in the 
economy down the road, these types of projects should probably not be evaluated 
according to the same criteria as other development programs.
General Findings
Because this mid-term review is meant to help redirect and refocus CAIP, many of the 
comments that follow are critical. But this should not overshadow the fact that many of 
our partners have done extraordinary work, often in very difficult circumstances. Each 
has developed innovative responses to the challenges they have encountered and if the 
best of each were combined into one program, CAIP would be considerably 
strengthened. Even in its existing form, CAIP has been successful in meeting a number 
of key goals.
For many communities, CAIP represents one of their first experiences with collective 
decision making, an experience that many see as extremely positive. While there are 
certainly exceptions, on the whole CAIP appears to have been successful in terms of 
increasing community activism, encouraging the participation of a broad range of 
community members including women and young people, and building a sense of 
community solidarity and confidence. 
CAIP also seems to have been successful in terms of pushing local communities to take 
the initiative to improve their environment. In CAIP communities, there appears to have 
been a gradual shift away from the notion that the local government should take care of 
all of the community’s problems. Reduced dependence on local government for 
solutions to community problems is a very encouraging development.
In some cases, CAIP also appears to have helped communities develop closer ties with 
local government officials, a central goal of the program. This is a much more mixed 
finding, as will be discussed below, but there were numerous examples of local 
government authorities providing moral support, helping to ease bureaucratic red-tape 
on project approval, or donating machinery, land, or a building. There are also some 
outstanding examples of direct cash contributions, for example, one local government 
contributed roughly 10 million som ($10,000) toward the repair of a kindergarten in 
Uzbekistan. In those communities where the government has taken an active interest in 
CAIP and has contributed in some direct way, community members seem more willing 
to approach local officials than before and seem to have a more positive view of local 
officials. 
When asked about what they had learned through participation in CAIP, many 
community members spoke very highly of the training they had received. This varied by 
partner, but virtually all communities indicated that training in areas such as problem 
solving, project planning, proposal development, and project monitoring gave them 
useful, practical skills that increased their sense of confidence and competence.
Finally, some projects do appear to have reduced tensions in communities, either by 
bringing divided ethnic groups together, meeting a critical basic need, or improving 
relations between a community and local government officials. 
While these are significant accomplishments, there are a number of trends that limit 
CAIP’s effectiveness as a conflict program. The central difficulty is that the vast majority 
of our partners view CAIP as a straightforward development program that takes place in 
a high-risk context rather than as a program that explicitly addresses the causes of 
violence or that needs to be modified in order to take account of conflict dynamics. 
The working hypothesis that most of our partners use is some variation on the theme 
that conflict is caused by poverty, which leads to competition over resources and 
frustration with government, and therefore poverty alleviation programs will reduce the 
potential for violence. Some of our partners have a more sophisticated understanding of 
conflict than others, for example, Mercy Corps and CHF seem to have a pretty solid 
grasp on the causes of conflict, at least at the senior levels. However, even in these 
organizations, the level of understanding drops off sharply as you move from chief of 
party to local staff.
None of our partners sponsor any systematic, formal training in either conflict analysis 
or conflict resolution for their staff, although a handful of staff members had participated 
in conflict seminars or conflict training prior to joining CAIP. Nor do many of our 
partners seem particularly interested in getting more training at the senior level or in 
providing it to their local staff. For example, in Tajikistan, none of our partners 
requested conflict training in response to a recent solicitation from USAID, and senior 
staff at UNDP were clearly frustrated that they were being required to work with their 
Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery. Local staff on the other hand seemed to 
want more training in conflict analysis and mediation, although certainly not all saw this 
as a priority.
The lack of training has a direct impact on how effective our partners have been in 
terms of targeting at-risk communities and working with them to develop creative and 
effective projects. Probably the greatest difficulty is that even when communities are 
chosen well (in-terms of conflict risk factors), there is a disconnect between the conflict 
issue identified in the initial profile and the infrastructure project that follows, even when 
a fairly clear relationship exists between the problem and the project, for example, 
competition over water and an improved irrigation system. 
To illustrate, in Kara Suu a survey conducted by ACDI-VOCA identified the migration of 
rural Kyrgyz into a predominantly ethnic Uzbek town as a potent source of tension. This 
type of demographic shift can in fact be highly destabilizing. However, rather than locate 
their infrastructure project in a peri-urban area where recent migrants and poor urban 
Uzbek residents are more likely to clash over scarce resources or cultural differences, 
they chose a community and a project (the repair of a kindergarten) in downtown Kara 
Suu. Nor did they focus on the age cohort (15-29) most likely to be involved in this type 
of violence. Several possible projects might have better helped bridge lines of division, 
for example, a clinic offering services geared to youth health concerns (Kara Suu has 
the second highest HIV/AIDS rates after Osh) or a youth center that brings together 
newly arrived Kyrgyz and poor urban Uzbek youth around vocational education. The 
point here is that the conflict lens should not disappear once a community has been 
selected. It needs to stay engaged throughout program design and implementation. 
This points to a second difficulty which is that the democracy goals and the conflict 
management goals of CAIP may sometimes contradict each other, particularly when 
local staff do not explain the conflict goals of the program to community members. A 
strict adherence to democratic selection of community priorities may result in effectively 
targeted infrastructure projects, but just as often will not.
Another problem is that all of our partners are stretching the “do no harm” principle past 
the point it was meant to go. Local (and particularly expatriate) staff should never go 
into a community and start talking about violence in an incendiary way or in a way that 
puts community members at risk. But “doing no harm” does not mean never mentioning 
the word conflict or never asking divided communities to think about what is keeping 
them apart and what might bring them closer together. These are difficult issues to 
discuss – for example, the discussion of ethnic tension is seen as taboo by many in 
southern Kyrgyzstan – and most of our partners realize this. However, with proper 
training these are not impossible issues to discuss, although they are probably better 
handled by local staff rather than expatriate staff. In fact, many local staff mentioned 
that they would welcome conflict training that would help them talk about the potential 
for violence in a constructive and non-threatening way. 
While partners could be more creative (and slightly more directive) in terms of the 
projects they choose to support, it is important to be realistic about how much 
infrastructure programs alone can do to address the causes of violence, such as 
widespread youth unemployment and alienation, tensions between internal migrants 
and established urban residents, or inter-ethnic competition over resources such as 
land. Most of these are not issues that a gas pipeline, or any small-scale infrastructure 
program, will solve on its own. 
Even building a social center that brings together young people from different ethnicities 
may not be effective (and could in fact be counter-productive) if it is not paired with the 
appropriate ‘software’, for example, vocational education or tolerance training. ACDI￾VOCA has been most effective in terms of folding training or other ‘soft’ programs into 
its infrastructure projects. Mercy Corps has also done a limited number of social events 
through its CAIP program and Aga Khan has stressed that this is an area it is looking 
into, but more needs to be done.
In terms of strengthening relations with local government, as mentioned earlier this is a 
mixed result. In addition to the positive results discussed above, there is some 
evidence that CAIP can sometimes increase anger toward local government authorities 
particularly in Uzbekistan. Some communities question why it is that Americans can 
travel thousands of miles to help their community when their own government will not. In 
other cases, local government authorities have actively disrupted or attempted to hijack 
projects. In one particularly egregious case in Uzbekistan, the community negotiated a 
reduction in the fee it needed to pay for project approval. Once the project (a gas 
pipeline) was completed, government authorities shut off the gas and demanded the full 
fee. If there is little possibility that the government will become more responsive to 
communities, then community mobilization programs may in fact increase tensions. 
In a number of instances, CAIP also appears to have created tensions between 
communities. The size of the award and the number of projects that benefit one 
community over another appears to be a major factor contributing to this trend. 
Finally, one message that still is not getting through to some of our partners is the 
importance of letting program recipients know that funding comes from people in the 
United States. CHF does well on this front; community members used CHF, USAID, 
and the United States interchangeably in our discussions. UNDP and ACDI-VOCA 
were also reasonably good in this regard. However, Mercy Corps and Aga Khan 
communities often had no idea that program funding came from USAID or from the 
United States. In several cases, communities thought that USAID was a UN 
organization. In one meeting, a local government official in Tajikistan was not only 
unaware that USAID provided funding for programs he appeared to hold in high regard, 
he stated that he would not allow any organization (including USAID) other than Aga 
Khan to work in his district since they all lacked AKF’s transparency and accountability. 
Both Mercy Corps and Aga Khan put up the obligatory sign boards, but in the 
communities the evaluation team visited, it was very clear that there had not been much 
time devoted to explaining the message of U.S. support for the project beyond the sign. 
The next sections look at each partner in more detail. The sections cover: 1) each 
partner’s working definition/understanding of conflict; 2) how communities are initially 
chosen; 3) the process for selecting community groups and prioritizing projects; 4) 
relations with local government; and 5) sustainability. The report concludes with a series 
of recommendations.
Recommendations
1. Training for local staff on how to identify, analyze, and talk about conflict. 
It was clear through our meetings that understanding of conflict decreases from senior 
staff to local facilitators to the community level (where communities do not discuss 
conflict at all). With notable exceptions, most local staff had difficulty explaining the 
conflict rationale for target communities and could not explain whether or not the project 
implemented reduced tensions. All of the partners told us that aside from initial problem 
identification, they do not discuss conflict or tensions with their communities once into 
the infrastructure stage. Training on how to better analyze, discuss, and resolve conflict 
in non-threatening ways with communities and local government is crucial to 
implementing CAIP effectively. While many of our partners suggested that USAID 
should provide them with training, the evaluation team feels that partners who are 
implementing conflict programs have a responsibility to gain expertise in conflict 
analysis and resolution. To provide guidance, USAID/CMM will soon hire a training 
specialist and is developing training modules and “required reading” bibliographies. 
2. Be more explicit about conflict in communities where trust has been 
established.
This recommendation follows on the need for conflict training for community mobilizers 
and facilitators. Too often our partners seem to be taking the “do no harm” approach 
past the point that it was meant to go. Do no harm requires that assistance be provided 
in such a way as to not reinforce existing tensions or create new ones, it does not mean 
never talking about the potential for conflict. One partner representative (Mercy Corps) 
told us, “I hope conflict would never come up in community discussions.” This seems 
excessive, particularly because CAIP is a conflict program. While these issues might be 
more difficult to address in the start-up phase of CAIP, at this mid-term period trust has 
been established in many CAIP communities. This would be an appropriate time to 
make Community Groups (CGs) aware of CAIP’s conflict focus and to encourage CGs 
to think creatively about how to address conflict issues in their communities. This would 
also allow partners to guide their CGs to place more emphasis on building a conflict 
resolution component into planned infrastructure projects, and should lead to a re￾prioritization of projects that will alleviate conflict: building an irrigation canal that will 
serve two communities of different ethnic backgrounds, for example, instead of a school 
or youth center that would only serve one ethnic community.
3. Move to a cluster community approach – particularly in rural areas. 
Some of the implementing partners (CHF, MCI, UNDP) are already moving in this 
direction. Cluster programs that pool resources between communities to work toward 
solutions for common problems are more effective in building stronger ties between 
communities and reducing the potential for conflict. In areas such as Tajikistan and 
parts of Kyrgyzstan where there is the potential for intercommunity conflict, partners 
should select clusters that help break down ethnic and social barriers. However, in all 
countries this approach could be useful since larger clusters may be more effective in 
lobbying local governments for increased resources.
 
4. Don’t limit CAIP to just infrastructure -- allow more flexibility in project design. 
Integrate social projects into infrastructure. 
Some partners told us that the heavy infrastructure focus of CAIP does not allow for 
some of the “softer” programming, such as social events that would bring communities 
together. The CAIP cooperative agreements do not restrict CAIP to just infrastructure, 
however; this seems to be a self-imposed restriction on the part of implementers. Some 
implementers also seem to be framing CAIP as an infrastructure-only program, which 
does not encourage communities to brainstorm about other types of projects that might 
address the tensions in their community. While infrastructure is a very useful tool to 
unite and mobilize communities, to prevent conflict it should also be accompanied by 
social programs that help communities address sources of tension. It is not enough to 
just build a youth center or sports playground to solve the problem of “youth having 
nothing to do”, for example. Programs must be put in place to engage youth 
constructively; refurbishing a building is not enough. For example, it might make sense 
to organize a school debate club or after-school youth peer groups to accompany a 
school rehabilitation project. Other good examples of social programming might include 
vocational training to accompany refurbishment of a youth center or formation of a water 
user’s association to accompany an irrigation canal project.
5. Place increased focus on job creation – particularly for young people.
While most of the CAIP partners discuss job creation in their cooperative agreements, 
and many do create short-term employment in the form of construction, the evaluation 
team found few examples of longer-term job creation in practice. Because youth 
unemployment is a key destabilizing factor in the region, more attention needs to go to 
infrastructure projects that create long-term jobs (such as rehabilitating a flour mill, for 
example). Such programs might require small investments in market research before 
the project is undertaken to ensure viability of the business; however, sustainability of 
jobs does not necessarily have to be the first priority in a conflict prevention program. 
Under the CAIP expansion, three implementers will be focusing specifically on 
employment creation; but all partners should be thinking about how to use CAIP to 
create jobs. 
A sub-recommendation would be to allow partners who received the expansion (ie, 
Mercy Corps, CHF, ACDI/VOCA) to work in communities where other partners are also 
working (provided both partners agree to this arrangement). For example, AKF told us 
that they would like MCI to be able to work in some of their VO communities in the 
Rasht Valley to do employment generation projects. The attachment in Appendix C 
lists examples from other countries of youth employment/engagement projects.
6. Make more effort to involve women and youth.
While every partner told us that they include women and youth in their mobilization 
groups, actual representation varied. Youth especially were underrepresented on CGs, 
due to cultural mores which dictate that youth should be seen and not heard. One 
potential model to increase youth involvement is MC Tajikistan, which created separate 
youth and women’s CAGs. Youth and women both have representation on the larger 
CAG, but the smaller forums seemed to encourage more involvement and creativity in 
project design. The mission may also want to consider encouraging the communities to 
implement at least one youth-specific project as a priority. However, it should be 
reinforced to partners and their CGs that just building a sports field or youth center is 
not enough to ensure youth involvement – other activities to engage youth 
constructively must be included in project planning. One good example we saw was 
MC Tajikistan, where the community was building a youth center that included a disco, 
a small canteen, and a hotel for local government officials visiting the village, which was 
also the district center. The idea was that the center would provide youth with a place 
to go, and that it would also generate revenue and create jobs for up to 20 young 
people.
7. Link CAIP with other USAID programs
Where possible, the mission should consider more of a “clustering” approach, 
encouraging economic, democracy, and health program implementers to work in or 
near CAIP communities. Some implementers, including ACDI/VOCA, are doing a good 
job of linking up with other USAID programs such as civic education, Urban Institute’s 
local government program, Pragma, and others. But some implementers are working in 
regions that do not have concomitant USAID programs. A clustering approach will help 
to address some of the underlying sources of conflict that CAIP cannot easily directly 
influence, such as access to credit, poor quality education, deteriorating irrigation 
systems on a larger scale, and ineffective local government. 
 
8. Geographic focus: Recommend continuing CAIP in Ferghana Valley and 
Tajikistan, phase-out or re-focus at end of 3 years in Kazakhstan and southern 
Uzbekistan.
While this evaluation could not be an in-depth conflict assessment of each region in 
which CAIP is active, our cursory review led to the conclusion that CAIP makes the 
most sense in the Ferghana Valley (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan) and in 
Tajikistan, particularly the south and the Rasht Valley/Batken area, where the potential 
for future conflict is highest. In Kazakhstan, higher levels of local government and 
community resources and availability of input materials make CAIP somewhat easier to 
do, and sustainability may be easier to ensure. However, likelihood of conflict seems 
lower than in other parts of Central Asia. One exception may be Turkistan, a Muslim 
pilgrimage site which has had reports of Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) activity. In southern 
Uzbekistan, main problems include poverty, corrupt local government officials, presence 
of religious extremist elements including HT, and repressive national government 
economic and political policies. CGs often have difficult relationships with hokimat
leadership, so sustainability of the CG model is doubtful. USAID is one of the only 
donors in southern Uzbekistan, and there are significant development needs and 
political incentives for staying engaged in this area. Instead of CAIP, however, 
development programs that focus more directly on youth employment and participation 
in civic life might be a more appropriate follow-on program than continued infrastructure 
rehabilitation. 
9. Consider working with neighboring communities.
This recommendation follows the “clustering communities” approach. One thing we 
heard often from both partners, local government, and CGs was that neighboring 
communities were “jealous” of CAIP communities, and often asked how they could 
attract CAIP into their communities. While in some cases we heard of neighboring 
communities establishing their own CGs, the reality is that these often go nowhere 
because resources are unavailable. This problem is inevitable – CAIP cannot reach 
every community. One idea to mitigate potential for conflict between CAIP and non￾CAIP communities might be to explore the possibility of working with neighboring 
communities to have projects that could be shared more broadly (particularly in 
Tajikistan, for example, where communities are often targeted somewhat randomly in 
certain high-risk geographic areas like Batken). This would also address some 
questions of absorptive capacity of one community. In addition, social activities should 
be designed to reach out to people in neighboring communities.
 
10.Partners must be more aware to avoid infrastructure projects that reinforce 
lines of division, eg. ethnic differences.
Too often we saw examples of projects that addressed only one ethnic community –
refurbishing an Uzbek language school, for example. Schools in Central Asia are 
somewhat problematic in this regard since they are language-based and thus reinforce 
lines of division among people. One partner showed us a community where they were 
rehabbing an Uzbek school, with plans to rehab a neighboring Tajik school in the future. 
Conflict funds would be better spent on a project that would bring both groups of 
children together.
11.Put minimum standards/procedures in place for selection of CG and 
leadership; consider supplementary training to account for CG turnover.
It is natural that in some cases, the community mobilization process can be taken over 
by a “bully” or influential but non-constructive person. There is also a danger of the 
CGs being “hijacked” by local government or mahalla leaders. In these cases other CG 
members may not be sure how to assert their rights or deal with a recalcitrant leader. 
Procedures to remove of bad leadership should be addressed in every CG. While some 
CGs have re-election built in to the leadership, some elections do not occur for 2 years 
– this is too long to wait to get rid of bad leadership. More frequent CG elections will 
also help ensure that more community members have a chance to participate, receive 
training, and gain mobilization skills. 
12.Re-emphasize to partners the importance of giving the USG credit for the CAIP 
program.
While CHF and ACDI/VOCA seem to be doing a good job of letting communities know 
that CAIP is a program funded by the U.S. Government, the other partners, especially 
the Aga Khan Foundation, Mercy Corps and to a lesser degree UNDP are not working 
hard enough to send this message to their communities. In one egregious example, a 
local government official in Tajikistan told us that while he would never work with USAID 
or the UN, he is always happy to work with the Aga Khan Foundation. It should be 
emphasized to implementers that one of the goals of the CAIP program is to let the 
citizens of Central Asia know that Americans care about them and are helping them. 
CAIP is an excellent opportunity to increase goodwill toward the U.S. in Central Asia; 
but too often partners promote themselves, not the USG, as the source of assistance. 
13.A composite CAIP model
Every implementing partner we met with is doing interesting, creative work through 
CAIP. Some of the best lessons learned from each partner include: training for local 
staff in conflict; including “software” (social programs, vocational training, civic 
education) into the “hardware” of an infrastructure project; clustering communities to 
work on common problems; developing infrastructure that can generate employment; 
actively including youth in CGs; and perhaps exploring revolving credit funds, if properly 
managed, as a sustainability mechanism. 
ANNEX A – Meetings
Dates Site Meetings
9/14-9/15 Tashkent Mercy Corps - Heather Carlisle, Chief of Party
CHF - Ivana Sirovic, Country Director and Sanjar Juraev, 
Information Specialist
9/16-9/17 Shymkent ACDI/VOCA - Hugh Brown, Chief of Party
ACDI/VOCA Shymkent Staff
Saule CIC
Bagys CIC
Makulbaev Tyllabaevich - Akim of Sary-Agash
Zharty-Tobe CIC
9/18-9/19 Qarshi CHF - Karshi Staff
Pakhtazor CIC
Nazar Hakimov, Deputy Hokim, Qarshi
Denov CIC
9/21-9/23 Ferghana Mercy Corps - Melinda Leonard
Mercy Corps - Namangan staff
Mustaqillik - mahalla leader/CIC
Haqqulobod - local government, mahalla leader, CIC
Mercy Corps - Andijan staff
Honobod CIC
9/24-9/25 Osh ACDI-VOCA Osh Staff
Kara-Suu CIC
Bazar Korgan CIC
Uzgen Mayor
9/27-9/28 Dushanbe UNDP staff
Aga Khan Foundation staff
Mercy Corps staff
9/28-9/30 Shaartuz UNDP Shaartuz staff
Guliston JDC
Mercy Corps Shaartuz staff
Bahor CAG
Octyabir CAG
9/30-10/1 Kulyab AKF Kulyab staff
Navobod VO
Annex B: Interview Questions
Local Government Questionnaire
1. Are you aware of CAIP projects working in the region?
2. What do you see as a goal of this project?
3. How does the CAIP activity in your rayon affect participating communities? Are 
these projects helpful? In what way?
4. How do you perceive the approach of mobilizing people to solve their problems? 
What do you think about the process?
5. How have you been involved in the community-development process? Have you 
attended the planning meetings and how frequently?
6. What was your level of participation? Were you a part of the CIC/CAG?
7. Did the LG contribute resources or in some way?
8. What are your views on your relations between local government and community?
9. Is your relationship with CAIP communities different from those that are not 
participating in activities?
10.Because CAIP is working only in the selected communities, do you hear of any 
problems from other communities, where CAIP is not working?
11.How do you see this activity continuing after CAIP leaves? Would you like to see the 
Initiative Groups continue their activity? 
12.What role will the government play after CAIP leaves?
13.Are there any important issues facing your community that CAIP is not able to 
address?
Community Initiative Group Questionnaire
1. How were the CIC/CAG members chosen?
2. Was there a lot of interest/did many people want to join the CIC?
3. How do you make decisions? For example, how does your community decide on the 
needs and priorities of your community? By consensus? By majority voting?
4. How does your Group manage situations in which members of the CIC/CAG have 
differing opinions? (Or, how do you manage conflict of opinions?)
5. Do important issues ever come up in your discussions that CAIP/infrastructure 
cannot address? 
6. Were there any projects that the implementer refused to deal with?
7. Do you have any youth members on your CIC/CAG? 
8. Which community group do you think benefits most / least from this project?
9. What efforts were made to insure that all segments of the community were informed 
about and encouraged to participate in the CAIP project?
10.What was the role of the local government, local NGOs, and local businesses in the 
project?
11.How are your relationships with LG different since CAIP?
12.How do you involve young people in your work?
13.Do you think the CIC/CAG will continue working after the CAIP leaves?
14.How do you see it working? If resources are needed, how would the CIC/CAG solve 
the problem?
15.If you were director of USAID, how would you change the CAIP project? (and you 
can’t ask for more money)
Partner/Staff Questions
1. How do you select your communities? 
2. How do you choose the ones that are most vulnerable to conflict?
3. Have you had any training on conflict?
4. What are some of the issues that communities raise when talking about 
tensions/problems?
5. Do communities ever raise issues/problems that infrastructure projects cannot 
address?
6. How do you involve LG in CAIP?
7. Do you think CAIP is sustainable? How? What will remain behind?
8. How would you change CAIP?
9. What do you like most about CAIP/best results?
10.Do you work with any other USAID programs?
Annex C: Youth Activities
Youth and Conflict Management: 
Potential Measures
There is a strong correlation between large youth cohorts (a high number of 15 to 29 
year olds relative to the total population) and political violence.2
 A large pool of young 
people does not need to be destabilizing, however if young people – particularly young 
men – are uprooted, jobless, intolerant, alienated and with few opportunities for positive 
engagement, they represent a ready pool of recruits for ethnic, religious, and political 
extremists seeking to mobilize violence. Young people living in urban and semi-urban 
areas are particularly at risk, in part because they lack the informal social and economic 
safety nets that exist in rural areas. It is important to state that young people are not a 
cause of violence; in many places young people have been a powerful force for positive 
change. However in many societies, there is a disturbing tendency for political elites to 
harness the destructive rather than constructive potential of young people. The 
challenge is to identify those youth most at risk and find ways to engage them in 
constructive economic, political, and social activities. 
The following programs are examples of efforts to engage at-risk young people. This is 
a new area and tools are still being developed to measure the impact these programs 
have on reducing the potential for violence. However, many of these programs have 
shown promise in reaching out to young people who often are left behind in more 
traditional development efforts.
Job Training and Youth Employment Programs
Unemployment is at the heart of the risk this age group represents. Young people often 
participate in violence because membership in extremist organizations provides 
immediate economic benefits, because violence itself offers opportunities for economic 
gain (through direct payment or looting), or because conflict promises to open up longer 
term economic options (for example, through patronage if ‘their’ ethnic or religious 
group captures power). Providing targeted job training and employment for young 
people is therefore a critical element in dampening incentives for violence. Examples of 
possible programs include:
· In the West Bank/Gaza, a program developed together with local Palestinian 
businessmen uses small scale entrepreneurship as an engine for youth employment. 
After participating in the program, 96% of the beneficiaries were either employed or 
self-employed; overall income levels increased 110%; and 84% of the small 
businesses started are still successfully operating. 
· A young man who grew up in the slums around Nairobi founded an organization that 
provides a range of services to at-risk urban youth including recreational activities, 
computer training, basic business skills, and start-up loans for small enterprises. 
Because young people are considered a bad credit risk, they are often excluded 
from traditional micro-finance programs. 
· In southern Sri Lanka where support for the radical, anti-peace JVP party is strong, 
the local chamber of commerce is working with vocational schools and universities to 
 
2
 See for example, Daniel Esty et al.1998. State Failure Task Force Report: Phase II Findings. McLean, 
VA: Science Applications International, for State Failure Task Force.
match training to market needs and has a database that links local businesses to 
unemployed youth, particularly those that form the core base of support for the JVP.
· In Brazil, a local organization works to combat violence in urban slums through a 
comprehensive program that provides job training and employment placement, 
voluntary weapons collection programs through local churches, and social activities 
such as boxing, concerts, and citizenship classes. 
Constructive Political Participation:
In many parts of the world, political parties and other social movements use young 
people to intimidate rivals, destabilize opponents, and fill campaign coffers. This is often 
the only form of political participation open to young people, particularly those with little 
education or few personal connections. A number of programs attempt to offer at-risk 
youth the opportunity for constructive political engagement.
· Civic education programs in Nigeria and the Balkans bring young people from 
different ethnic and religious groups together to identify local problems, develop 
realistic solutions, and work through democratic channels – the media, local 
government, civil society – to implement solutions. These programs scale up to 
national level competitions, which can encourage exchange and collaboration across 
regions. 
· In Sierra Leone, urban youth who were used by politicians as thugs to intimidate 
voters in past elections were trained in voter registration and election monitoring, 
thereby giving them a stake in the success of the process. The young people also 
held events where they challenged politicians to pledge not to use youth as a 
destabilizing force in their campaigns. 
· Young people played a critical role in the pro-democracy movement that ultimately 
toppled Milosevic in Serbia. The Democracy Learning-Youth Participation program 
has built on that strength through a project that supports the work of youth NGOs by 
equipping them with basic knowledge, values, and skills to engage in democratic 
participation. Encouraging tolerance for difference is an explicit component of the 
program. 
· A project in Yemen promotes youth participation in decision making and civic 
responsibility at the community level. It emphasizes the positive role that youth can 
play in the democratic process through activities, such as the publication of a 
quarterly newsletter that discusses important youth issues and issues related to 
democracy, direct participation in elections for association leadership, and regular 
sporting and cultural events. 
· In Angola, a project provides training and education to young people so that they 
can be active players in the national reconciliation process. The target group 
includes university students, political and community youth associations, and 
internally displaced youth and returnees.
Peace Education and Tolerance Training
In many parts of the world, leaders use negative ethnic and religious stereotypes to 
mobilize support for violence, stereotypes that are often reinforced in school, by family 
members, and in the media. A number of programs, both inside and outside the formal 
school system, attempt to build tolerance for difference and give young people the skills 
they need to manage conflict in a non-violent way. Examples include: 
· In Burundi, young Hutu and Tutsi ex-combatants jointly developed a program that 
reaches out to school children to talk about the personal costs of violence. They 
have developed cartoon books (now used by the Ministry of Education throughout 
Burundi) that deal with the previously taboo subject of how elites recruit youth to 
engage in ethnically-motivated violence.
· Designed to prevent conflict in refugee camps in Kenya, a UNHCR Peace Education 
Program (PEP) provides materials that were designed for use in resource-poor 
environments. The program emphasizes developing locally-meaningful resource 
materials, including posters, role-play scenarios, proverb cards, booklets of poetry, 
and stories that illustrate both challenging and hopeful issues for reflection and 
discussion. The success of the program led Kenyan police to call on a program 
graduate to facilitate an agreement between two disputing clans. Similarly, a group 
of program graduates formed a group to resolve daily conflicts in camp affairs.
· A network of young people in the Balkans encourage inter-ethnic cooperation and 
non-violent communication by focusing on activities that youth find interesting, new, 
and progressive. Formed at the height of the conflict, early projects focused on 
simply bringing young people together across ethnic divisions to participate in social 
activities such as drama, music, and films. Without losing the focus on fostering 
tolerance, post-conflict initiatives have expanded to include discussions about 
globalization, unemployment, the media, the public school system, and civic 
engagement.