Ryan leads USAID’s Center for Conflict and Violence Prevention (CVP). USAID is at the forefront of our nation’s international response to the COVID pandemic. One pillar of that response is to prepare for, mitigate, and address possible second-order economic, civilian-security, stabilization, and governance impacts of COVID-19. Eighty percent of the countries where USAID has programs are already in acute crisis, recovering from crisis, or experiencing smaller-scale upheaval. COVID-19 will have devastating effects on human security in many of these contexts, thus peacebuilding and violence prevention must be critical components of all responses, stabilization, and long-term development efforts. Regardless of the development or humanitarian sector, USAID must ensure that its COVID-19 responses are conflict-sensitive to avoid further destabilization of already fragile and fraught contexts. CVP spearheads agency efforts to monitor the impacts and consequences of our own and host nation actions to ensure program benefits flow to all affected communities and avoid exacerbating underlying drivers of conflict or crime, such as resource competition or inequality. CVP also leads USAID efforts to promote peace and stability within local and national institutions. These activities support partner governments and organizations to take timely pandemic actions and communicate transparently to mitigate conflict and violence and avoid exacerbating grievances, as well as expand community-engagement and awareness programming that mitigate underlying conflict factors, including religious, ethnic, economic, political, cultural, and social cleavages. Note: Ryan also served as USAID Senior Advisor to the USAWC from 2016 to 2018.
Ryan S. McCannell
Resident Class of 2016
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
