One Earth Future 2022 Annual Report

2022 ANNUAL REPORT

OEF is committed to designing integrated solutions for the hardest-to-reach places and toughest conflicts in the world.

Letter FROM OUR CO-FOUNDER

One way in which the private sector and civil society organizations differ is in their feedback loops. For better or for worse, private firms exist in a competitive environment where success and failure are very clear. If a strategy is working, a business is rewarded by financial success, if it isn’t, then it goes bankrupt. Nonprofit organizations face different incentives, and the relationship between success in our mission and our core resources is often, unfortunately, not as clear. In establishing and supporting OEF, it has been important for me that we bring over the same clear feedback loop that allows us to identify success and invest more deeply in what’s working that I have seen in my private work.

Establishing this in One Earth Future has meant developing both formal systems, in our ILA department, for measuring and reporting on our success and learning, and also a habit of strategic review. Our executive team spends a lot of our time on questions about success: what does it look like, how can we know whether things are working, and how can we continue to invest more and more deeply in the work that we’re doing well and iterate away from work that’s not achieving the impacts that we want.

This focus on evidence and iteration has meant a continued development of our strategy and focus. We have for the past several years operated in part as an incubator of novel projects. With projects such as our Stable Seas program, or xNI programs, we’ve helped to create new teams and strategies working outside of OEF for impact. In our strategic review this year, we’ve decided that our impact and learning suggest it may be better to move away from this incubation strategy to one more focused on core competencies. What we have learned over the years is that there are some things we think we do particularly well; well enough, in fact, that we want to nurture them as core aspects of our work rather than spin off new programs. I’m happy to report here that this annual report lays out this vision, a move towards a deepening and focusing of our core strategic capacities in the interest of increased impact.

In keeping with our overall focus on evidence-based learning, this 5-year strategy is not necessarily our permanent strategy. We will continue to learn, and to question ourselves, and it’s possible that in the future we’ll evolve again in a new direction. But for now, we believe that this approach will be a foundation for impact in 2024 and beyond.

Marcel Arsenault Co-Founder/Board Chair

VISION

We envision a future where humanity chooses peaceful solutions over armed conflict.

MISSION VALUES

We Strive for Excellence

Dedicated, long-term resources support our work. We will honor these resources by constantly adding value and becoming the best in the world.

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We Are Stewards of the Long Term

We act today to benefit humanity in the year 2100. Nevertheless, we hold ourselves accountable for achieving short-term, measurable goals of narrow focus.

One Earth

We Are Relentlessly Empirical

While solutions may be visualized, real progress is confirmed by evidence of success. We innovate and iterate.

We Solve Problems By Engaging Stakeholders

We provide the information, the forum, and the structure. Sustainable governance is generated from inclusion, collaboration, and sign-off by engaged parties.

Future prevents armed conflict and promotes stability through creative and inclusive problem-solving.

Image Courtesy USAID - Gregorio Cunha/UNMISS

OUR Work

OEF tackles hard problems in places suffering from fragility and seemingly inescapable conflict. In 15 years of incubating programs as a selffunding, self-operating foundation, OEF has developed best-in-class capacity in a range of competencies that support our mission to prevent armed conflict and promote stability in fragile settings.

In some places, this means creating economic opportunities or facilitating access to finance for migrants and other marginalized groups. In others, it means working to build diplomatic bridges or creating a better understanding of conflict escalation risk factors.

This tailored approach is our greatest strength and the most viable path to peaceful solutions.

Every conflict is unique. A one-sizefits-all approach does not result in sustainable peace. For this reason, OEF works alongside governments, local stakeholders, and other experts before launching any new project to determine how best to apply our expertise in any given environment.

AREAS OF Expertise

Innovative financial solutions

Public and private sector capacity building

Stakeholder engagement and facilitation

Conflict risk modeling and analysis

Peace negotiation and diplomatic engagement

2022 ISSUE Areas

Inclusive rural economic development

Market systems development

Governance strengthening and community engagement

Access to finance, particularly for marginalized groups

Local conflict resolution

Sustainable natural resource management

Nuclear risk reduction and international diplomatic engagement

Capacity building for professionals working on conflict mitigation

Advancing women, peace, and security

OUR Approach

OEF leverages its core funding and overseas development assistance to achieve the flexibility and scale needed to solve problems in communities suffering from instability, fragility, and the everpresent risk of conflict.

We engage stakeholders up front and employ adaptable timelines, helping us to develop a deep understanding of stakeholder needs and design tailored solutions.

Theory of Peace

No single pressure point leads to violence or prevents peace. Effective peacebuilding requires working across all possible instigators, such as governance, economic development, and historical grievances.

This task is bigger than any single actor or institution. Building sustainable peace requires all parts

Stakeholder Engagement

Addressing instability, fragility, and the risk of violent conflict requires multiple organizations working across structural and crisis elements that create obstacles to peace. How do they work together effectively?

OEF uses the principles of Networked Coordination at all stages of the program lifecycle, from design to implementation to scaling success.

Design, Monitoring, Learning, and Evaluation

OEF’s process for design, monitoring, learning, and evaluation facilitates our partnership with donors, communities, and governments to develop context-specific solutions that work. Our approach yields locally grounded, evidence-based programming, which cultivates sustainable, long-lasting impact. Informed by our experience operating in complex environments, OEF takes a systemic approach to

of a society to work together in a coordinated fashion through systems established to support effective collaboration.

OEF employs our Theory of Peace to ensure that we approach issue areas holistically and develop locally relevant theories of change that reflect the realities of each particular context.

Network-based systems don’t have formal hierarchies or official ways to enforce group decisions. Instead, networks work together tailoring tasks to each participant’s strength and sharing information on their approaches and progress within the network to avoid duplication, build synergies, and maximize impact.

adapt to a wide range of results or logical frameworks with our funding and implementing partners.

We know from experience that we must be adaptive and vigilant to be effective. We employ a systematized and flexible learning toolkit and are focused on providing timely, reliable, comprehensive data and insights that can spur agile and well-informed decision-making.

OUR Impact

OEF’s work produces real results for people living in fragile and conflictaffected environments.

A small loan may help an entrepreneur grow a business that not only generates income for her, but also provides livelihoods and economic opportunity for her community. Peacebuilding and networked coordination can increase food security for a farmer and his family and foster social cohesion that contributes to longterm stability. Enforcement of regulations and data-gathering in coastal areas reduce piracy and help fishing communities thrive.

More than ten years of experience working on the ground directly with communities has enabled OEF to create and implement programs tailored to their specific needs and opportunities.

This approach is an impact multiplier that produces outsized results for our partner communities.

EAST AFRICA

Climate change and violent extremism play a central role in inhibiting development and stability in parts of East Africa, entrenching economic roadblocks, food insecurity, and conflict. Sustainable peace in the region can only be achieved by addressing the roots of these problems and learning to adapt to ever-evolving circumstances. Partnerships and collaboration among communities, the private sector, and local government are the foundation to overcoming these challenges — and OEF’s Network Coordination approach is helping to design solutions.

Our 2022 Impact

22 628

Approved investments Jobs created

1,753

$12 Million

Facilitated loans to to small and medium businesses

129

Increase in fishing products revenue over baseline

310

Jobs created for women Jobs created for youth

2,448

Measured and recorded fishing trips

83% Community members of fisheries co-management associations

Of participants report increased trust in the national government as a result of the CMA

Sustainable Fisheries Management and Livelihoods

Millions of tons of migratory fish pass through Somali waters, giving them the potential to be one of the most lucrative fishing grounds in Africa, if not the world. However, the fisheries sector remains underdeveloped, hindered by piracy, illegal fishing, a lack of infrastructure and data, and challenges to government capacity to enforce laws and regulations.

OEF connects fishers, companies, investors, scientists, and the government to develop the fisheries sector in a way that boosts livelihoods, improves food security, and mitigates conflict while strengthening fishery management. In 2022, OEF’s Secure Fisheries program facilitated the creation of co-management associations through landmark power-sharing agreements between governments and communities.

These partnerships and their associated capacitybuilding efforts increased the revenue of fishing products 83 percent in communities where they work, decreased spoilage, increased trust in local and national government, and addressed community conflicts. Nearly two-thirds of the participants in Secure Fisheries trainings increased their income, and women working in the fishing sector have become more involved in the industry, which not only boosts gender equity but also contributes to the overall development of the sector. In addition, OEF’s data collection project has developed a reliable picture of Somali fisheries to inform policy creation and improve the institutional capacity of ministries and the private sector.

Private Sector Development and Inclusive Access to Finance

A robust private sector is key to development and community stability, which in turn are the stepping stones to sustainable peace—and which will only be possible in Somalia with collaboration among communities, local government, and all other stakeholders.

Shuraako—meaning “partnership” in Somali—is an OEF program that connects entrepreneurs with capital to spark economic growth, create jobs, and promote stability. In 2022, managing the Nordic Horn of Africa Opportunities Fund, Shuraako approved $12 million in loans to foster the development of Somalia’s abundance of credit-worthy small businesses and created 262 permanent jobs in our partner organizations. OEF also partnered with SIDA on the Somali Credit Guarantee project, which guaranteed more than $1.2 million in loans made by Somali banks, helping to stimulate financial inclusion for underserved populations such as women, youth, and small businesses.

Partnerships in East Africa

Provided $12 million in loans to Somali small and medium businesses

Guaranteed $1.2 million in loans made by Somali banks

NORDIC HORN OF AFRICA OPPORTUNITIES FUND

LATIN AMERICA

Colombia began flourishing after the end of a halfcentury of civil war, but the scars of the conflict can still be seen in persistent social distrust and a loss of productivity, particularly in rural areas and the agricultural sector. Working at the nexus of these issues, OEF is helping to improve lives and cement Colombia’s hard-won peace.

Our 2022 Impact

1,304

FARC ex-combatants in program

1,000

Migrants in the program

344

4,365

Jobs created Total value of products sold

Campesinos in the program

Rural Economic Development, Social Cohesion, and Migration

Through its PASO program, OEF develops collaboration platforms employing its theory of Network Coordination—a structured approach to coordination and peacebuilding that maximizes individual contributions to a shared goal. PASO connects national and international institutional expertise, capital, and markets with the local insight and knowledge of campesinos (peasant communities), victims of violence, ex-combatants, farmers, migrants, and others to work together on building social cohesion and economic development.

In 2022, cooperatives and compesinos sold more than $1 million worth of agricultural goods, such as coffee, cacao, and honey, and access to credit has fostered self-reliance and long-term sustainability. Additionally, three strategic partnerships cemented during the year have fostered innovation and expanded PASO’s reach. With a focus on value chain improvement, the Inter-American Development Bank established a cacao purchase fund and a digitized mechanism that tracks storage logistics with local associations. The International Organization for Migration helped PASO expand its presence in 40 territories in an initiative that also opened up new lines of communications with the Colombian government and international donors. Finally, the World Food Program is assisting PASO by building food security, nutrition, and social cohesion.

Partnerships in Latin America

Established a $30,000 cacao purchase fund

Assisted program expansion to 40 territories Supported food security and social cohesion

GLOBAL

Some issues transcend boundaries and reverberate on an international scale, requiring an expansive and borderless lens. On a global scale, OEF concentrates on the roles that inclusiveness, existential threats, and diplomacy and dialogue play in humanity’s common challenges. Working with communities and institutions, OEF believes that effective peacebuilding requires understanding and addressing all of the pressures that lead to violence or prevent peace.

Our 2022 Impact

Amplify women’s voices and gender perspectives

Strengthen the global network of Women, Peace and Security stakeholders

Promote action by multiple stakeholders to turn policy into practice

Connect women peacebuilders to the larger policy and practitioner community

Collect opensource data

Analyze information and produce actionable briefs

Engage decisionmakers through trusted networks

Improve dialogue and de-escalate nuclear threat

Catalyze, coach, and connect BB3 teams

Practice BB3 through interactive exercises, practical application, discussion, and feedback

Women, Peace, and Security

The inclusion of a gender perspective improves security for everyone. However, women make up just a quarter of legislative bodies around the world. Unsurprisingly, a recent study by OEF’s Our Secure Future program found that more than half of the women surveyed said that their views were not represented in security discussions; 71 percent said they disagreed with the security priorities set by the state.

Through our Our Secure Future program, OEF has engaged with 38 national governments to further progress on the UN’s Women, Peace, and Security Agenda national action plans and is concentrating on three avenues to achieve these goals: amplifying women’s voices, strengthening the global network of women peacebuilders, and promoting committed action by stakeholders to turn policy into practice. OEF provides the U.S. Congress and Departments of State and Defense with ongoing strategic advice on program design and security cooperation. The U.S. IndoPacific Command has used OEF’s analyses to advise other countries, such as Australia, on maritime and technology security issues.

Nuclear Escalation and Risk Reduction

In a time of escalating conflict and international tensions, there is a risk that nuclear weapons could be deployed as a result of uncertainty, misdirection—or even error. Through its Open Nuclear Network program, OEF is working to reduce this risk by collecting and analyzing data, producing actionable briefs, engaging decision-makers, and de-escalating tensions through improved dialogue.

OEF builds relationships across national and alliance boundaries using transparently non-aligned, datadriven analysis and outreach to key actors. It produced some 30 publications in 2022 that have reached critical decision-makers and has been used and referred to in multilateral initiatives and bodies such as The Hague Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation and the Panel of Experts for the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee on North Korea.

Peace Mediation, Negotiation, and Reconciliation

“Who could do what tomorrow to avert war?” Peace negotiator William Ury posed this question, and OEF has taken up the charge to try to find the answer. The eXperimental Negotiation Initiative (xNI) has distilled Ury’s 45 years of learning and practice with impossible conflicts into a transformative mindset called Possibilism, examining political strife around the world—from North Korea to Venezuela to Afghanistan and beyond.

To achieve measurable results, xNI has employed its powerful BB3 method to participants from 115 organizations studying more than 40 different conflicts. Shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, OEF convened a panel of high-level experts which generated two papers that outlined a framework for negotiation on mitigation. The ideas have been circulated at the highest levels in Ukraine, Russia, the United States, China, and other countries.

High-level government officials have said that BB3 fills a significant gap in training.

The Balcony

A place of calm and perspective that allows actors to envision goals

The Bridge

A way to reach across the chasm of conflict

The

Third Side

The surrounding community that can help the parties achieve their goals

[xNI] enlightened our minds, showed us a method capable of always creating an alternative, offered us powerful and impactful tools, and proved that even when we think we’ve tried everything to get to ‘yes,’ we are still only scratching the surface of our entire unleashed potential to transform conflict.

LOOKING Ahead

The pathway to sustainable peace is collaborative, adaptive, and holistic. OEF will combine and build on its proven competencies to deliver value and address underlying drivers of conflict and instability in fragile and insecure settings.

Over the next five years, OEF will complete its migration from selffunded program incubator to competency-based partner of choice for institutions and individuals working to address fragility, conflict, and violence to build stable communities and support peaceful international relations. In 2023, OEF began expanding its strategic collaborations with private, public, bilateral, and multilateral funding sources.

“We are positioned to serve as a lead agency or subrecipient of consortium funding to test new ideas and codesign and implement projects, while remaining adaptable to the inherent unpredictability of working in fragile and unstable settings.”

Jon Bellish Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer

Core Competencies

Design and management of innovative financial solutions

Conflict risk modeling and analysis

Public and private sector capacity building

Peace negotiation and diplomatic engagement

Stakeholder engagement and partnership facilitation

Impact Goals

Over the next five years, OEF will:

Reduce all forms of armed conflict and transform attitudes and beliefs about its usefulness

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Improve governance outcomes as experienced by citizens and communities

Enhance access to sustainable economic opportunities and finance, especially for women, youth, and other marginalized groups

2022 Supporters & Partners

Thank You!

We extend our gratitude to the individuals and organizations around the world with whom we have collaborated to advance peace and stability. We sincerely appreciate the support received from foundations, businesses, government agencies, and individuals worldwide, as they enable us to carry out our mission. As we move forward into the future, we remain committed to deepening our connections and building new partnerships to prevent conflict and promote stability in our one earth.

Partner Governments, Agencies & International Organizations

Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources of Puntland

Investment Fund for Developing Countries (IFU)

Danida

European Union Government of Colombia

Federal Government of the United States

Federal Government of Somalia

Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources of Somaliland

Foreign Ministry of Austria

Ministry of Fishery and Blue Economy

United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM)

United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)

United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

Inter-American Development Bank

International Atomic Energy Agency

Foundations, Educational Institutions & Private Sector

Oxfam

Aid Live Foundation

Verification Research, Training and Information Centre (VERTIC)

University of Notre Dame

Global Food Cold Chain Council

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Arsenault Family Foundation/PAX sapiens

The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency

Summary of Financial Information

As of and for the period ended December 31, 2022

Statement of Financial Position

Statement of Activities

Where Our Money Goes

CONTACT US

oneearthfuture.org info@oneearthfuture.org

Headquarters: 525 Zang Street Broomfield, CO USA

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