There is also the frustrating element of pressure in MER reporting in CVE environments. To what
degree must we allow field specialists to make their own judgment calls? The program's MER team
depends greatly on its field specialists however managers have (or should have) a moral obligation to
place field staff safety above the urgency of delivering to the client. Based on my experience in Iraq,
Yemen, Afghanistan and now most recently the Syria project, locally-employed field staff often place
pressure on themselves to deliver, and perform in a way that meets the very demanding standards of
the client, in these cases, the U.S. State Department. When Ambassador Khalilizad arrived in Iraq in
June 2005, in an informal introductory speech to the State Department and the Iraq Reconstruction
and Management Office (IRMO) [5] where I was part of the Information Management Unit that
pulled together IRMO's information that went up to the State Department in Washington D.C., the
Ambassador promised he would "tame the information beast" in reference to various USG agencies.
The reality is that with a new Ambassador at the helm ( a 'change of command'), reporting requirements
grow in what we hope will be a temporary data collection, analysis and reporting spike but actually
ends up setting a new level of expectation for those involved in MER.
In Syria this is magnified by the fluidity of the situation on the ground. Requests for Information (RFI),
and other 'Spot Reports' increased to being almost daily, on top of regular assessments, periodic reports
(Daily, Weekly, Quarterly, Annual) and the basic MER activities, the last of which tend to suffer the
most. These are all the responsibility of the MER team, albeit with the valuable support of the other
departments. Under this kind of pressure to deliver and usually lacking the manpower sufficient to
handle the MER level of effort (LOE), ‘Duty of Care’ concerns often take a back seat. As Senior MER
Manager I could guide or quite frankly, be a buffer for the trickle-down of pressure to meet the
reporting demands. However with informal, female field specialists, a manager's ability to monitor this
aspect of field MER is limited if not impossible.
Recommendation.
The first three recommendations for improving MER in CVE environments require the consideration
of the U.S. State Department and other U.S. agencies contracting implementing partners for activity,
therefore 'top-down.' The fourth involves the initiative of the implementing partners themselves.
Thes e four recommendations would in turn enable further local solutions for more effective MER
results.
1. Push down responsibility for 'vetting' to the local level namely, our MER field specialists. In the
case of Syria, our program used our field specialists to vet hawala vendors, as in most cases it was our
only means to pay our field staff and transfer other program-related payments.[6] Field specialists
have the local knowledge of affiliations and are best-placed to determine possible connections to
terrorist networks or opposition groups that are not in line with U.S. foreign policy. The same model
could be applied to vetting female MER staff who for various reasons cannot go through our formal
recruiting procedure. Also, if the women are family members of a vetted MER field specialist, it is
unlikely that a woman's affiliation(s) would be in conflict with our policies.
2. Relax the 'standards'/parameters for vetting female applicants for field positions. Interviews should
be weighted more heavily, and less emphasis put on CVs and formal documentation of past
employment and education, particularly since the education of many potential staff has been
interrupted by the conflict, yet much talent resides within the Syrian population in the NLA. Skype
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