In the immediate post-9/11 environment, there was a growing realization that agency silos were not serving the United States government well. A number of incidents had dramatized the need for greater contact and more effective cooperation among the departments and agencies that had critical roles to play in foreign affairs. In response, over a dozen other federal agencies decided they needed to find new ways to communicate, collaborate, and cooperate to deliver better results for the nation. Together with representatives from all these agencies, we built five scenarios of the future and then facilitated three sets of workshops to identify the kinds of interagency capabilities that would be needed for the future. From this exercise, initiatives have arisen in the areas of cross-silo information-sharing, interagency fusion groups for intelligence, global health engagement, global hazards planning and response, and frameworks for partnerships between government and non-government entities. Click here for more information about Project Horizon.
