Please welcome Kevin Melton, Senior Civil-Military Transition Assistance Specialist, USAID Office of Transition Initiatives, to discuss OTI's structure, functions, and connection to Civil Affairs. He highlights the Stabilization Assistance Review, a report drafted by DoD, State, and USAID.
---
Transcript:
00:00:00 SPEAKER_03
And they said, we would rather you not do these projects through SERP. We would rather be able to understand our political process and drive it through there. Because so much about what you do is less about the product that you're providing. It's about the process.
00:00:22 SPEAKER_02
Hi, and welcome to the 1CA podcast. My name is John McElligot, your host for today's episode. We're joined by Kevin Melton. He is the Senior Civil Military Transition Assistance Specialist for the USAID Office of Transition Initiatives. Kevin, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, and sorry for that long, arduous title, so I did not choose that myself.
00:00:42 SPEAKER_03
not choose that
00:00:44 SPEAKER_02
Kevin, if you would, please tell us about your background, sort of where you went to school, what you've done. previously before coming to OTI? Sure thing. And let me just thank you again for doing this. I think off the bat,
00:00:53 SPEAKER_03
again for doing this. I think off the bat, it's important to recognize that it's this sort of coordination and cooperation is exactly what this position is for. So I think it's good that we're doing this sort of activity together and spreading that news. But a little bit about myself. So I've been doing... sieve mill, if you will, for quite a while, and also working in the sort of complex conflict environment space, both on the practical side, but then also on my academic side. I started working in this quite a few years ago, about 15 years ago now, with one of the implementing partners that actually OTI works with called Comonix International. And I was focusing at that point in the Africa region. And then they said, well, hey, if he's... This guy's crazy enough to be able to go to areas like South Sudan. Maybe we'll send him to southern Afghanistan. So I was actually out there in 2007 working on some alternative livelihood programming that was unrelated to some OTI stuff, but very similar to the type of activities that we would look at within OTI. And then after that, went into grad school in Australia, went to the University of Queensland as a Rotary Peace Fellow. So even Rotary is involved in a lot of this. I have to put a plug for that. And then after that, I actually went into Afghanistan with OTI, and that was my first time working with them on the ground. And I was, in a way, and I'll talk more about this, but lucky to be thrown into the deep end at the very tactical level to really start learning how, you know, what is SIFMIL really like in a very, very kinetic environment. So I still use that experience to help drive. what I do today, frankly, more at the policy and strategy levels. And so once I left, I came back to Washington and actually since 2012 have been involved both on the public and the private side doing work on research, but also now implementing hopefully how we can better strengthen our engagement.
00:02:56 SPEAKER_02
strengthen our engagement. That's wonderful. It's good. Yeah, a lot of good background experience that you bring to OTI. How many years have you been here? So overall, I mean, as I said from the beginning,
00:03:06 SPEAKER_03
the beginning, I've been involved with OTI. Even though I started with Chemonics on the private side, I was actually helping support a Democratic Republic of the Congo program at the time that OTI had ongoing. Overall, it's been 15 years that I've been in and around OTI, but this position in particular is pretty new and I think symbolizes where OTI wants to put some of its efforts. So I've only been here for about two months now in this one position.
00:03:21 SPEAKER_00
but this
00:03:31 SPEAKER_03
this one position. Much longer history before that.
00:03:34 SPEAKER_02
longer history before that. Not new. Not new to the game. That's good to hear. Well, if you could, Kevin, tell us about the mission of OTI, why it exists, and why does it matter to America? So I have to start by quoting our deputy assistant administrator,
00:03:47 SPEAKER_03
deputy assistant administrator, and he's also a former director of OTI, Rob Jenkins. And so he tells us a lot. He says, I want to quote Churchill by saying, the world is on fire. What are you going to do about it? And I think OTI very much was a response to that from... USAID back in 1994 when the wall came down. And the idea was, how do we now integrate ourselves through USAID to help these democracies build, to look at where civil society hadn't existed, what does it mean to do economic development, but in a very targeted local way. And since then, OTI has expanded the kind of work. that we do much more into the CVE, the DDR, even the stabilization realms, and has been seen as sort of that belly button when it comes to doing that non -security assistance when it comes to the gray zones. But I think that what's unique about OTI is certainly its culture and how we operate. I think that's part of what we call our secret sauce. in a lot of ways. OTI's mission does differ. from the larger agency, even though we do operate under its big umbrella. We are first and foremost aligned to achieving U .S. foreign policy objectives. We are certainly overt about the fact that we do seize political outcomes as part of our programming. And in that, we have to make sure that we're not setting ourselves up for failure through our program. So we're constantly doing different types of analysis and looking at what we call windows of opportunity. And in order to do that, it also takes a very specific but yet adaptable, flexible type of office and program to be able to work in these complex environments. And so over the almost 25 years now that OTI has been in existence, we've definitely had a lot of lessons learned, reintegrated back into how we actually do adapt and flex the type of things we do.
00:06:06 SPEAKER_02
I bet some of those windows of opportunity pop open quickly and briefly at times. That's right. You have to be nimble.
00:06:07 SPEAKER_03
of those
00:06:12 SPEAKER_03
You have to be nimble. And we do. So in order for us to do that, we have to work together with our USAID state and also DOD counterparts in order to make sure we understand that landscape and that environment correctly and we can make the best determination possible to whether or not we want to do a certain program. Recently, I've been saying, if you want to look at us sort of in the current way, it's, well, we're sort of the venture capitalists, if you will, of the larger development community, that our culture does. promote a lot of experimentation, innovation. We're not always going to get it right, nor do we necessarily think we're always going to get it right. Sometimes, you know, being 80 % right is better than being, you know, 80 % right, but being able to do something is better than being able to be 100 % right and not moving. Right. So that's really the mantra that drives our culture.
00:07:09 SPEAKER_02
culture. That's great to hear. And you talked about OTI being able to respond quickly. You have engagement criteria by which USA and OTI would follow before getting involved somewhere. Can you talk about what those criteria are and add on to that? Who makes that decision? So there's four criteria, really, that we look at whenever we assess being able to go into a country.
00:07:27 SPEAKER_03
look at whenever we assess being able to go into a country. And keep in mind that it goes well beyond just this four criteria. I mean, there's a... plethora of different political and foreign policy discussions and decisions that go into whether or not we move forward. And so in all honesty, a lot of that goes into... what our first engagement criteria is, is whether or not there's an opportunity or threat that's important to U .S. foreign policy interests. I think the second one goes into what we've already talked about a little bit, which is that window of opportunity. Do we see a window? Are there the right players on the ground that we could actually work with? Who are those players? There's, again, not going to get 100 % right, but based on our experience in the last... quarter century, it's the ability to understand where that window is, and we work with the mission and the embassy on the ground to help determine that. Thirdly, OTI, again, because of the way that we do our programming, adaptable, flexible, innovative, do we even hold a comparative advantage when it comes to entering that country? It might be that one of our donor partners, another country. already has a mechanism in place that can maybe take care of some of that, or really just working through the host government and advising the mission using OTI advisors to say, here's a way maybe you can use existing resources rather than having us duplicate it through a program, right? So it's making sure we check that box.
00:09:06 SPEAKER_02
we check that box. So in that case, if you're not engaged in a country, it doesn't mean you don't care about it, but... If it doesn't fit that criteria, then it could mean, as you say, the host country just simply has a mechanism in place or an allied nation has a better way of doing it.
00:09:20 SPEAKER_03
Correct. And there could be a myriad of other reasons, but what we're trying not to do is just rush to the assumption that you need a program, that we have to ultimately spend money, put people's lives at risk in order to get an objective that frankly may just need... you know, a facilitated planning session or maybe certain expertise coming from our different experts that we have who understand how to work in these environments that can also support the USAID mission and the embassy that is out there. And I think that speaks, too, to the fourth criteria, which is we, OTI, do not operate when we know that our implementing partners cannot operate. Our model is we are very much... in tune working together with our close partners that are all U .S.-based organizations, and they are the ones really running the operations when it comes down to it. They are the ones making sure that we can hire and vet the correct local staff, the local organizations, that we can even have offices in the specific country. And in countries where We don't have a footprint because security may be too tight. We still can do proxy -type operations, but we also have to make sure our implementing partners can do that and do it in a safe way. So that's really important for us in achieving success. Kevin, can you talk about where OTI is operating overseas today? Well, so I'll make the point here, actually, that we work where you work. I think it's important because rather than go through every single country, I'll tell you that at any point, we operate globally. We do touch on most continents, again, where there's foreign policy objectives in place. Currently, we're in 14 countries, and that's about average for us to operate. Again, I want to stress that... Even though we may not have a programming presence, because those countries are where we have programming, it's not that we're not looking at additional areas, nor advising. on other areas through our teams. And usually we do that both here in Washington, but also out at the missions and through phone calls and also with the State Department. More and more, we're having discussions with our DOD colleagues about that. Part of my job is actually to figure out a way to make sure we strengthen that engagement through different areas, both here in the United States, but also as we see each other. at the operational and tactical levels. You know, the idea being that when we operate in these countries that we know we're going to go in with a certain idea of what that plan is, but then that plan is going to change over time. And hopefully that means our program continues in those countries because we see, again, there's still a window of opportunity to be there. But there are times where there may be a decision made where that's... That's not necessarily where we're going to stick around, or maybe we need to shift the way that we're currently doing it.
00:12:29 SPEAKER_02
So, Kevin, you're the Senior Civ Metal Transition Assistance Specialist. Would you say that your role is that you talk about coordinating with the civil affairs community. Is that sort of at the tactical, operational, strategic level in terms of DoD speak? And I understand that you work with the active duty and reserve components. So are you sort of a belly button? and OTI for the CA community?
00:12:54 SPEAKER_03
Yeah, I'm a one -man show, right? Ultimately, OTI has, for a very long time, worked together with our uniform partners. We've done it mostly on an ad hoc basis. I'd say the first time we really put more momentum behind it was in Iraq and Afghanistan. where we saw ourselves really, really needing to deconflict and understand what it meant to work together at that operational tactical. I'm sorry?
00:13:23 SPEAKER_02
that operational tactical. I'm sorry? What do you think led to that need? What were the conflicts that needed to be deconflicted? Right. So I would say I think a lot of it did lead to that deconfliction in terms of... Understanding the environment,
00:13:30 SPEAKER_03
Right. So I would say I think a lot of it did lead to that deconfliction in terms of... Understanding the environment, so creating that common operating picture that at times understanding what the grievances were, where were the sources of conflict that we were actually trying to address at some of those very local levels so that we weren't working at cross -purposes. When you're working together in that close environment, One thing you do, because again, we're aiming for political outcomes. If you're aiming for that political outcome in a way that doesn't necessarily jive with maybe what the security side is trying to accomplish, you can put people's lives at risk. And frankly, that's not how we should be managing the taxpayer dollar in the best way. And so I think understanding that we usually face common missions, even though it may not be written as such, but we do understand that se