Forbes: Peace Through Community-Led Development
Musu Clemens-Hope, chief of party at the Peace through Development II program, a USAID-funded initiative implemented by IRD

“USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah likes to remind the development community that the purpose of foreign aid, including relief efforts, is to help people create the conditions so they no longer need it. … Relieving the immediate suffering of vulnerable people is the duty of all humanitarian organizations. Assisting in the stabilization and resilience of communities wracked by violence is an emerging focus, as development groups recognize that economic and social development requires stable relationships, consensus-driven rules, and expectations that the future will be better than the past. Both relief and stabilization can and must ‘look to the end.’ That end is market-driven economic and inclusive social development that rids communities of poverty, enhances stable and effective governance, and enables development groups to look elsewhere to achieve their goals” (8/4).