Trace Carlson is a 2017 MAIR graduate of The Maxwell School. This past fall he interned at The Fund for Peace as part of the Maxwell-in-Washington fall program.
My fall semester in D.C. was busy, but incredibly rewarding. Between interning full-time, taking twelve hours of classes, three of which was language study, and finding time to enjoy all that D.C. has to offer, I was busy to say the least. I spent the fall semester interning for the Fund for Peace, an NGO that focuses on conflict research and mitigation activities around the world. The Fund for Peace is most well known for their prolific Fragile States Index. However, I did not work on the Fragile States Index. I worked on a USAID-funded project that sought to develop early warning conflict systems for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The scope of the work is what drew me to the Fund for Peace and to decline other internship opportunities.
For the project, we conducted months-long desktop research on every country in ECOWAS and wrote a national-level report detailing specific indicators and sub-indicators in each country that could contribute to the outbreak of conflict. The reports were then analyzed to understand the major issues in each country so that we could develop a list of stakeholders to interview in each country. Unfortunately, I did not get to go on any field visits for the stakeholder interviews. The transcripts and other data collected from the field visits were culled for pertinent information to either corroborate the research or edit aspects we had previously misinterpreted to better reflect the situation on the ground. The stakeholder interviews occurred in different states or provinces around each country and helped inform our research on the hyperlocal issues. The collective voice of stakeholders and the issues they faced were used to write a sub-national report for nearly every state, province, or region in every ECOWAS country. The national level report was further edited and the sub-national level reports were added to it, as well as other data packets and analyses to comprise the final report.
Read more about Trace Carlson in India and Nepal:
Maxwell School Programs: