Yesterday, I presented on a National Endowment for Democracy panel on “Fostering Democracy, Good Governance, and Human Rights in Africa Through Security Sector Assistance.” Video of the event can be found here and links to the papers we presented are below:

• Christopher Holshek from the Alliance for Peacebuilding presented on Mali’s Teachable Moment: The Primacy of Civil Authority in Security Sector Development and Assistance and on People Power (i.e., Human Security).
• I presented on the study I worked on last year while on assignment at the Center for Complex Operations on The Trans Sahara Counter Terrorism Partnership: Building Partner Capacity to Counter Terrorism and Violent Extremism.
• COL Daniel Hampton from the Africa Center for Strategic Studies presented on Creating Sustainable Peacekeeping Capability in Africa.

During the panel, we touched on the Presidential Policy Directive 23 on Security Sector Assistance, released by the Obama Administration last spring. Although the ends of PPD-23 are stated in the factsheet, little is known about its ways and means. Perhaps the upcoming U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit (August 4-6, 2014) might offer additional details on the implementation of PPD-23 as it relates to Africa.