USAID SIKA Program

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was heavily involved in the Afghan conflict. Over the years it has spent millions of dollars on various programs to improve the life of Afghan citizens and to improve the capacity and capability of the Afghan government to provide basic services, improve governance, and increase security.

The Stability In Key Areas (SIKA) program was established in December 2011 to reduce the impact of the insurgency by promoting good goverance in unstable and high-threat districts and to increase the Afghan peoples confidence in the Afghan government.

USAID 'farmed out' the funds to 'implementing partners' to conduct this program. One of the firms to receive a big USAID contract was AECOM. It was issued an initial contract of $177 million to conduct the SIKA program in eastern Afghanistan. [1]

USAID References

Stability in Key Areas (SIKA) Fact Sheet, USAID.
www.usaid.gov/afghanistan/fact-sheets/stability-key-areas-sika

References, Reports, and Pubs on SIKA

SIGAR, Information on USAID's Stability in Key Areas Program - Eastern Region, Afghanistan, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, SIGAR-19-05-SP, November 2018.
https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/special%20projects/SIGAR-19-05-SP.pdf

Egel, Danil and Peter Glick, Assessing the Stabilizing Effects of Development Programming: A Review of USAID's Evaluation Efforts in Afghanistan, Working Paper, RAND Corporation, June 2016.
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/working_papers/WR1100/WR1106/RAND_WR1106.pdf

Sugar, Adam, The Challenges and Successes of Stabilization in Afghanistan, USAID Impact Blog, July 30, 2013.
https://blog.usaid.gov/2013/07/the-challenges-and-successes-of-stabilization-in-afghanistan/

Acree, John, "Stabilization Success in Afghanistan: The Challenges Within", PRISM 4, No. 1, pages 100-117, 2012.
https://cco.ndu.edu/Portals/96/Documents/prism/prism_4-1/prism100-117_acree.pdf

Footnotes

[1] See AECOM press release on receiving the SIKA-East program contract.