Focus

Established in 2010, the Defense Institution Reform Initiative (DIRI) is the Department's of Defense (DoD) primary security cooperation tool for supporting partner nation efforts to develop accountable, effective, and efficient defense governance institutions.

The DIRI program provides support to DoD through its focus on the following areas:

• Support the establishment and improvement of functional capabilities necessary to organize, train, equip and sustain security forces under civilian control.
• Support in establishing and improving civil-military relations and inter-ministerial coordination.
• Defense policy, strategy, and planning.
• Resource management (including capability planning, budgeting, financial management and oversight, and contracting/procurement).
• Human resource management (including Professional Military Education (PME) and civilian defense cadre management and development).
• Logistics and acquisition.
• Facilitation of OSD-to-MOD engagements that strengthen our relationships with partners and allies.

Competencies

DIRI seeks to enhance DoD capacity to conduct Defense Institution Building (DIB) with a balanced, centralized, expert, and efficient approach that includes deliberate outreach to security cooperation providers and decision makers. DIRI provides the DoD and the broader USG with a coherent DIB framework. This includes building a shared understanding of the links between security sector reform and DIB, articulating basic DIB elements and principles, providing a forum for sharing lessons learned and best practices, and facilitating dissemination of these findings among decision makers, security cooperation  practitioners, and DIB providers.