A little-noticed discussion in Washington has recently hit fever pitch as members of the U.S. government debate how to turn their ambition to win the hearts and minds of the global public into action.
A previously undisclosed program intended to counter extremist ideology in West Africa's predominantly Muslim Sahel region, details of which have been described to Foreign Policy, offers a window into how this Washington debate is playing out in the beltway and on the ground.
The quarter-million-dollar "Regional Marketing Campaign," as laid out in a draft Performance Work Statement (PWS) — a document outlining the government's requirements and expectations for a given project — will enlist a private contractor under the auspices of the U.S. Africa Command (Africom), the public-diplomacy shop in the State Department's Africa Bureau, and individual embassies in four West African countries.
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