New Partnerships Initiative (NPI): Conflict-Prevention and Recovery Program (CPRP) Agency for International Development

The New Partnerships Initiative (NPI) was re-launched in 2019 as an effort to operationalize the principles articulated in the Agency’s first Acquisition and Assistance Strategy. NPI’s focus on lowering barriers to entry to working with USAID, supporting greater local engagement, enhancing local capacity development, and expanding the use of co-creation is closely linked with key issues of rebalancing power and accountability to local populations. As USAID renews its commitment to improving the way we engage with local systems through funding, promoting, and empowering local actors, NPI seeks to advance a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive approach to partnering.

Situated within the Local, Faith, and Transformative Partnerships (LFT) Hub of the Bureau for Development, Democracy, and Innovation (DDI), NPI supports the Hub’s goals of strengthening the Agency’s ability to partner with new, nontraditional, and local actors to advance their development goals by elevating local leadership, fostering equity and accountability, and mobilizing resources across the Agency’s programs.

The need to attract and better deploy new, nontraditional, and local partners can be particularly important in countries that are at risk of, or recovering from, violence and conflict, which make up the majority of countries where USAID operates. Environments vulnerable to violence and conflict often face unique constraints, such as weak or undermined institutions, increasingly frayed social fabric, and/or the presence of spoilers who seek to exacerbate grievances or pre-existing cleavages in society. In these contexts, organizations with trust and credibility in local communities are often best-positioned to lead efforts aimed at preventing violence, resolving conflict, building peace, or addressing grievances. Similarly, in places that are emerging from conflict or crisis, formal institutions are often overwhelmed and incapable of responding, and external organizations that have not conducted an adequate conflict-analysis exercise can struggle to understand complex local dynamics (and even risk doing harm when attempting to help). Given those challenges, USAID recognizes that investing in partnerships with new and nontraditional organizations with deep connections to the target communities should be at the forefront of our response in these situations.