Focus Area

From the outset of each program, Creative emphasizes inclusion and incorporates active engagement from women, youth, and marginalized groups as we map out peacemaking approaches informed by a strong systems lens and understanding of complex social ties and power dynamics. We assess groups affected by violence, social norms that cause vulnerability, barriers for marginalized groups in access to services and civic participation, and host-country policies, as well as strategies to address risks, increase protective factors, and mainstream equity and inclusion. We use co-creation processes with marginalized groups, including women, youth, religious and ethnic minorities, LGBTQI+ populations, and persons with disabilities, to identify priorities and amplify their contributions to conflict mitigation and advocacy as leaders within our programming.
We work at all levels, across sectors, and with diverse stakeholders to engage women—from national and local leaders to those most vulnerable—in design and implementation to ensure initiatives are responsive, equitable, and locally owned.

Education plays a vital role in rebuilding conflict and crisis-affected communities and instilling resilience for a peaceful future. Creative quickly assesses the unique needs of educational systems in these situations and collaborates with communities, governments and the private sector to develop sustainable strategies that provide access to quality education in safe learning environments.

See our other education work.

Through three decades of addressing some of the world’s most complex foreign policy and national security challenges, Creative has honed its approach to partnering with the USAID Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) to deliver adaptive, technically deep transition programming that supports the promotion of democratic norms and addresses long-standing grievances. We will adapt and apply Creative’s proven approach — locally informed, politically aware, innovative — based on effective leadership, programmatic and operational agility, accountability, local ownership and informed security and risk posture to maximize results in rapidly changing and complex dynamics. Creative has helped prevent democratic backsliding and implements politically informed programming attuned to U.S. government priorities and country context to shore up bright spots for democratic reform.   

Applying a holistic policy-to-person approach, Creative works with various stakeholders to link local, national, and regional efforts focused on collective learning and coordination for preventing and countering violent extremism (PVE/CVE). Creative has assisted governments in creating a regional CVE Guiding Framework, a regional PVE/CVE training curriculum, and national CVE strategies and action plans, organizing participatory capacity development and knowledge-sharing sessions to improve understanding of PVE/CVE among government officials, civil society organizations and journalists. 

Conflict manifests across many fault lines in society, and Creative’s work in peacebuilding consciously and holistically unites individuals and groups as members of their community. We support local groups across all segments of society to build trust, focusing on groups with conflict in their past or present. Our work on social cohesion enables individuals to build resilience in addressing intracommunity conflict and collaborating to achieve mutual goals, using dialogues and cultural celebrations to enable community members to build empathy and reduce biases against marginalized groups. We work across actors in communities and entities, including strengthening authorities and institutions to enable collaboration and offer opportunities for civic participation and the collective pursuit of peace and economic security.  

Working in areas still in, or recently emerging from active warfighting, Creative delivers strategic, responsive, inclusive and conflict-sensitive stabilization activities. Where rapid stabilization is needed, we assist local actors in providing high-visibility, quick-impact projects that respond to citizens’ needs, fulfill our client’s objectives and are flexible enough to evolve given the situation on the ground. Through all activities, we encourage engagement in good governance principles, as areas cannot stabilize without those foundations.

Focusing on community hotspots facing the most violence, gang influence, or crime, Creative has helped citizens create community-level violence-prevention strategies, strengthen local governance to reduce crime and work with trusted local stakeholders to address the root causes of different forms of violence (e.g., domestic, homicide, street crime). Our public health, place-based approach to crime and violence prevention identifies individual, interpersonal, community, and structural factors that contribute to crime and violence. Creative’s approach enables the design of integrated, long-term approaches leveraging identified local assets to respond to root causes and drivers. A recognized thought leader in citizen- and human-security programming, Creative has been at the forefront of innovative crime- and violence-prevention methodologies for USAID, including in Honduras, El Salvador and the Caribbean.