• Analytical Services: MSI helps organizations, governments and nonprofit groups conduct assessments, prepare strategies, design projects, conduct research, monitor and evaluate performance, and engage in informed policy dialogue regarding their efforts to improve governance and deepen democracy. Specific areas of MSI analytic expertise include: overall democracy assessment and strategies, democracy surveys, democracy training, conflict resolution, rule of law, civil society, anti-corruption activities, modernization of the state, local government, and civic education. Based on analytical work in more than 40 countries, MSI has produced a wide range of manuals, best practice papers, training courses and conferences on these topics.
• Implementing Policy Change: MSI directed for 10 years the U.S. Government's flagship Implementing Policy Change Project (IPC) and has provided hands-on technical assistance to a host of governments and organizations seeking to improve the management of policy change. The technical notes, research papers, books, monographs and training programs developed as a byproduct of these activities have helped redefine the state of the art in improving and democratizing the policy change process.
• Public Participation and Civil Society: MSI has advised on and implemented a wide range of programs intended to strengthen civil society and improve the impact of civil society organizations on public policy. We have been particularly active in the development of advocacy networks and think tanks, in enhancing public-private dialogue, and in strengthening the institutional capacity of nonprofit organizations.
• Local Government and Decentralization: MSI has a long record of implementing decentralization projects that includes work in Europe, Latin America and Africa. Currently, we hold two USAID-funded decentralization projects in Latin America (Honduras and Colombia) and recently ended programs in Mali and Sierra Leone. We partner on local government programs in South Africa and Iraq. This diverse portfolio has addressed issues of local government management and efficiency in service delivery, citizen participation, promotion of transparency and accountability and the strengthening of civil society actors as effective dialogue partners with their respective local officials. It has also addressed issues of ties between central governments, regions and municipalities to build more effective service delivery at the local level.
• Linking Democracy, Good Governance and Economic Growth: MSI has specific experience helping governments and citizen groups assess and foster positive links between democracy, good governance and economic growth. Technical assistance in this area focuses on issues such as legal and institutional change, WTO accession, and constituencies for reform, transparency, and public accountability.
• Anti-Corruption Programs: MSI has global expertise helping governments and their citizens combat corruption. With an emphasis on approaches that promote local ownership and sustainability, MSI has comprehensive first-hand experience in collaborating with host country counterparts, civil society organizations, the private sector, the mass media, and international organizations in the implementation of carefully crafted anti-corruption strategies.

MSI Develops Guides on Development and Violent Extremism

This past year, MSI developed two landmark works under contract with USAID, delving into the critical and timely topic of development aid and extremism. The first paper, a Guide to the Drivers of Violent Extremism, draws on the broad literature related to violent extremism in general and focuses heavily on factors associated with vulnerability to violent Islamist extremism. It finds 20 factors, which can loosely be divided into cultural, political and socio-economic factors to increase a society's vulnerability to violent extremism.

The second piece, a companion piece, Development Assistance and Counter-Extremism, lays out an approach to assessing risk and examines the role of development assistance in general in preventing or mitigating violent Islamist extremism. This paper provides a menu of development assistance options related to each driver.

Development Assistance and Counter-Extremism

Guide to the Drivers of Violent Extremism