CONFLICT PREVENTION AND POST-CONFLICT
RECONSTRUCTION
INTRODUCTION
1. The International Development Committee has been
the first committee of the House of Commons to concentrate exclusively
on development issues since the demise of the Select Committee
on Overseas Development in 1979. Our work has covered a wide variety
of topics, ranging from the natural emergency of the eruption
on Montserrat to the complexities of the European Community Development
Budget. It is useful to stand back and consider what overarching
issues have emerged from our inquiries which are crucial to the
battle against poverty. In our view one matter emerges again and
again as a cause of poverty and deprivation - the prevalence of
conflict in the developing world.
2. We have conducted two inquiries into humanitarian
crises which are the direct consequence of war - Sudan and Kosovo.
The implications of conflict, however, are there in all aspects
of development policy. Our inquiries into debt relief, for example,
have brought to light the problems of debt overhang for those
countries such as Rwanda, attempting to claw themselves out of
conflict and to reconstruct a shattered and traumatised community.
The engagement of the development community at the policy level
with the problems of conflict is relatively recent. With the end
of the Cold War, and the experiences of complex emergencies in
such countries as Somalia and Rwanda, there has been a recognition
that the old 'charity' or 'aid' model cannot meet the developmental
challenges of the world on the eve of the 21st century.
For us to examine conflict is thus also to examine how development
itself is coming of age, how developmental ministries and agencies
are attempting to integrate traditionally political considerations
into their policy and practice.
3. Conflict is now a fashionable subject in development
circles. Large quantities of paper have been produced and in many
areas considerable consensus has emerged. A report such as ours
cannot attempt to survey all the literature produced or touch
on every issue. Our experience in recent months makes clear the
particular contribution of a parliamentary report, not to produce
new developmental theory but to press for its implementation.
Volumes of good practice which remain on shelves never save lives
or prevent conflict. Sadly we have witnessed failures repeated
by the international community from one crisis to another despite
the publication of excellent policy frameworks. It is now time
to add political will to development theory.
4. In putting together this Report the Committee
has drawn on a wide range of written evidence sent to us on the
subject as well as a series of oral evidence sessions which took
place last year. We took evidence from the Rt hon Clare Short
MP, Secretary of State for International Development, as well
as a number of distinguished politicians, representatives of NGOs,
government officials and academics. A full list of those who provided
evidence is found at p. lxxvi of this Report. We are very grateful
to all who spoke to us or provided written evidence during the
course of this inquiry. We also visited Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda
in 1998 and FYR Macedonia and Albania in 1999. In these countries
we saw first-hand the impoverishment that both causes and results
from conflict. This was complemented by visits to the United Nations
in New York and the World Bank and IMF in Washington. There we
learned more about the response of the international agencies
to conflict.
5. Events in Kosovo have focussed British and world
attention on conflict and the costs attached to it. At the height
of the crisis, one million refugees had fled Kosovo, and there
were many thousands of internally displaced persons still within
its borders. To date, UNHCR has requested US$531 million, 45 per
cent (US$238 million) of which has already been pledged. There
are currently ten UN appeals for countries or regions in sub-Saharan
Africa. On average, only 25 per cent of funds requested for humanitarian
assistance in those countries has been provided (see Figures 1
and 2).
6. There is a worrying discrepancy between the
significant resources already made available to Kosovo and the
neglect of conflicts in other less strategically important parts
of the world. This is not to resent the funds committed to Kosovo,
merely to demand that the conflicts of the developing world, and
sub-Saharan Africa in particular, receive as much international
attention, compassion, generosity and political resolve.
7. The reasons for any development policy to take
conflict seriously are evident from just a few facts. A recent
OECD study showed that twenty of the poorest 34 countries of the
world "are either in the midst of armed conflict of have
only recently emerged from it".[1]
This correlation between conflict and poverty is explained partly
by the simple fact that conflict destroys so much of the capital
and infrastructure necessary for development. The Secretary of
State, in the DFID memorandum, stated, "The damage done to
development by violent conflict is enormous. To give but one example,
the 15-year civil war in Mozambique destroyed 70 per cent of the
country's schools and cost the country an estimated US$ 15 billion.
Today, Mozambique is officially designated the world's poorest
country. Violent conflict destroys economic and social infrastructure,
reduces people's access to basic services and often leads to large-scale
population displacement. And it can leave a legacy of bitter social
and ethnic division which can last for generations".[2]
8. The Committee is concerned to ensure the efficient
and effective expenditure of taxpayers' money in development.
As the preceding paragraph makes clear, conflict exacerbates,
deepens and complicates poverty, multiplying the costs of reconstruction
and development in countries which were already poor. This is
reason enough for our interest in conflict prevention on the one
hand, and our concern for adequate funds for post-conflict reconstruction
on the other. We must add that conflict erases in a matter of
weeks the achievements of years of development assistance. A development
policy without strategies to prevent conflict or minimise its
effects is an inefficient development policy. Therefore we
welcome the initiatives within DFID to give explicit consideration
to conflict issues. These include the creation within DFID of
the Conflict and Humanitarian Affairs Department (CHAD)[3]
and the publication of strategy papers such as 'Conflict Reduction
and Humanitarian Assistance'. We also welcome the establishment
within Whitehall of the Inter-Departmental Working Group on Conflict.
1 Evidence p.1 Back
2
Evidence p.1 Back
3 Q.
1 Back
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