Interagency Planning/Coordination

Norway has been a prominent supporter of the UN’s Integrated Approach and has actively contributed to the development of NATO’s Comprehensive Approach. Norway’s own whole-of-government approach has, however, been limited to its engagement with Afghanistan. There is already a growing body of literature on the whole-of-government approach. Surprisingly little has been written about Norway in this context. This report represents a first attempt at comprehensively explaining the Norwegian whole-of-government approach, as well as and analyzing its effectiveness to date. The authors of the report conclude that Norway lacks a comprehensive strategy for engaging in fragile states in general, as well as a whole-of-government strategy for any particular country, including Afghanistan.

From CNAS: Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan by Major General Michael T. Flynn, Captain Matt Pottinger, and Paul D. Batchelor

Among the initiatives Major General Flynn directs:
• Empower select teams of analysts to move between field elements, much like journalists, to visit collectors of information at the grassroots level and carry that information back to the regional command level.
• Integrate information collected by civil affairs officers, PRTs, atmospherics teams, Afghan liaison officers, female engagement teams, willing non-governmental organizations and development organizations, United Nations officials, psychological operations teams, human terrain teams, and infantry battalions, to name a few.
• Divide work along geographic lines, instead of functional lines, and write comprehensive district assessments covering governance, development, and stability.
• Provide all data to teams of "information brokers" at the regional command level, who will organize and disseminate all reports and data gathered from the grassroots level.
• The analysts and information brokers will work in what the authors call "Stability Operations Information Centers," which will be placed under and in cooperation with the State Department's senior civilian representatives administering governance, development and stability efforts in Regional Command East and South.
• Invest time and energy into selecting the best, most extroverted, and hungriest analysts to serve in the Stability Operations Information Centers.