Examination of Witnesses (Questions 220
- 239)
WEDNESDAY 10 MAY 2006
DR NEIL
COOPER, PROFESSOR
MIKE PUGH
AND DR
JONATHAN GOODHAND
Q220 Chairman:
In the context of Africa, do you think that the UK and the French
Governments should work more closely together?
Professor Pugh: My understanding
is that one of the initiatives which occurred as a consequence
of the Great Lakes crisis, in part anyway, was closer co-operation
between the British and the French, and you could trace this co-operation
through to Operation Artemis and the EU's sending of a force to
Bunia, was it not, in Ituri province. That needs to be solidified
and underpinned by an EU policy towards Africa. At this point,
I might add that I think DFID is ahead of the game, in many respects,
in its approaches to regionalism, and perhaps one of the practical
things it could do is transform Hilary Benn's approach into a
European-wide thing.
Q221 Ann McKechin:
Regional conflicts obviously are dominated by shadowy and survival
economies, as you have stated in your research. The question is
how do you turn that into what you propose, audited and taxable
economic activity, which, to say the least, is easier said than
done? Two specific examples spring to mind. One is Afghanistan,
which you have mentioned previously, and also now the DRC, which
is about to go through a period of elections and a permanent government.
How do you think the UK Government should be acting to try to
bring back a legitimate economy to these two areas?
Dr Goodhand: I will talk a bit
about Afghanistan. First of all, going back to first principles,
I think one thing, in research we have been doing, is that state-building
is the primary objective, if you are talking about durable peace
in the country, and we have been critical of, initially at least,
a minimalist approach to this, which was focusing basically on
counter-insurgency, a minimalist version of a state, which was
related basically to an exit strategy. There has been a lot of
work which shows that US pragmatic alliances with local warlords,
which is a kind of trade-off of financial support and military
support for stability, actually are working against the longer-term
project of state-building. That has changed in the last four years
and I think there is more of a consensus now about the need to
develop and support a fiscal contract, and taxation is at the
heart of that. There are still a lot of tensions and trade-offs
around doing this, because there is still a lot of short-term
security imperatives around counter-terrorism, as opposed to the
longer-term and much more difficult task of building capacity.
There has been a tendency to import capacity rather than build
it within the state. In the security sector there has been a greater
emphasis on the counter-insurgency activity rather than reforming
the sector as a whole. I think DFID has been much more enlightened
than most other donors; it has supported the Afghan Reconstruction
Trust Fund and it has gone for budget support for the Government.
I think that is the way it should be going, but the two biggest
donors—the Japanese and the US—have tended to circumvent
the Government and have gone for intervention and implementation
through contractors and NGOs.
Q222 Ann McKechin:
I can understand this with regard to the provision of public services,
in terms of schools and hospitals and transport and government
infrastructure, but we are talking here about economic activity,
where we would expect this normally to come from the private sector.
Unfortunately, in Afghanistan, the private sector is dominated
by heroin production. Quite how do you think that DFID should
target its policies so that we have legitimate private economic
activity in Afghanistan?
Dr Goodhand: First of all, obviously,
there is no quick fix and actually eradication is destabilising,
in terms of the Government. There is a question here about sequencing.
Q223 Ann McKechin:
It is very destabilising in terms of the products and what the
end result is for thousands of people, so what is the balance
between the two?
Dr Goodhand: It is a question
of sequencing and of timing. Eradication has led to an increased
reaction against the Government, particularly in the south. In
Nangarhar, although there was "a successful eradication"
which led to something like 96% decline in planting for that year,
this was done through pragmatic arrangements with local power-holders,
which solidified their control, who are unlikely to want to relinquish
that control. Also it did not lead to sufficient alternative livelihoods
for communities on the ground. The quid pro quo has got
to involve substantive alternatives, and this is not going to
happen in a year or two years. I think the DFID strategy on this
is the right one. Ultimately, the poppy is a low-risk crop in
a high-risk environment, and unless you start changing those incentives
at their different levels in the kind of combat economy which
Neil was talking about, the shadow economy in terms of the interdiction
of those who are trafficking and in terms of alternative livelihoods
for farmers, those things are not going to happen through a magic
bullet of eradication. Just to give you a sense of priorities
here, the US has committed eleven times more funding overall to
military operations than it has to humanitarian aid, reconstruction
and training of the security sector combined. That gives you a
sense of where priorities have been in relation to the overall
project of state-building in Afghanistan. If you are serious about
trying to address these incentives then serious resources have
to be committed to it.
Q224 Ann McKechin:
In the meantime, many of those resources are still in the hands
of warlords, so should we have tried simply to move on and actually
disarm the warlords and take them out of the equation? What you
are really saying is, in practice, we are going to have to negotiate
as the Americans are negotiating with them and you are complaining
about that, but, in effect, what you are saying, with a gradualist
approach, is that we would have to deal with the warlords in terms
of economic activity as well as their military capacity. Is that
the way forward or, basically, should we have sought to keep them
out of the equation?
Dr Goodhand: I think one can argue
there was an opportunity to do that in 2002, but that opportunity
was missed, and they have strengthened their position subsequently
and now it is a much more embedded, long-term problem which has
to be dealt with as such. Whoever we are talking about in terms
of "we", if we are talking about military forces on
the ground, what they should not do, in my opinion, is get directly
involved in eradication. What they can do is build up then and
support the training and institutional development of the security
forces, of the counter-narcotics agencies, to strengthen that
role of the state, as well as combining it with significant reconstruction
funding.
Q225 Ann McKechin:
It is a kind of parallel, carrot and stick approach?
Dr Goodhand: Yes; absolutely.
Q226 Ann McKechin:
Do they ever make any comments about the DRC?
Dr Cooper: Not particularly about
the DRC but about this idea of how you bring the shadow economy
into the legitimate economies so that you can start taxing and
getting benefits from these activities. It seems to me that actually
there are solutions out there, not perhaps in the case of Afghanistan,
but in a lot of cases what you have got is people engaging in
shadow economic activity, not because they are committed mafia
members or committed warlords, but for purely simple, instrumental,
practical reasons. It might be down to the kinship links, it might
be down to the fact that the transport infrastructure is so appalling
in your country and you are nearer to a border, so actually it
is far more convenient simply to ship your stuff over to a relative
on the other side of the border than it is to ship it all the
way to the capital or to a local port, or somewhere like that.
Similarly, a lot of the incentive for shadow economic activity
may be around exploiting these differences in currency regimes,
differences in tax regimes, differences in regulatory regimes.
Again, if you can look at that and harmonise things from a regional
perspective perhaps, but even a national perspective, look at
what you can do to shift the balance of economic interest so that
you create a set of incentives for people to make it more likely
for people to come into the formal economy. One could go on ad
infinitum, but one other thing which I think is worth mentioning,
in which I think DFID, certainly in Sierra Leone, deserves a tick,
is that a big factor, of course, is that, in post-conflict environments,
people are not necessarily convinced that the peace is going to
be durable. If you are not convinced that the peace is going to
be durable then there is an incentive to keep your monies and
your profits either out of the country altogether or well away
from the eyes of government. Actually doing things like providing
the "over the horizon" security guarantee, which DFID
has in Sierra Leone, that kind of thing, in a small way, can contribute
to promoting this longer-term perspective about the balance of
economic behaviour that you engage in.
Q227 Ann McKechin:
In terms of Afghanistan, how many warlords are directly controlling
what percentage of the economic activity in Afghanistan? It still
gets to this question about, at the end of the day, the amount
of heroin which is coming out and landing in the streets of constituencies
such as mine and other parts of this country and causing incredible
suffering and a lot of death, to be honest with you. It strikes
me, is it a quicker solution, would it be better, if there were
10 warlords, saying simply, "Here's the money: go,"
or taking them out, or taking them to an international tribunal
and calling them to account for their actions? Are they the key
players or do we have large-scale mafia-type operations going
on, that they will simply move from one activity to the next,
or is there any possibility of actually taking them over and persuading
them, the ones that are controlling interests of regions, to come
into legal activity and engage in negotiation about it?
Dr Goodhand: First of all, in
terms of facts and figures and how many warlords, however we define
that term, control what, we do not have that information. We know
that roughly 2.7 billion was generated through poppy last year
and that 52% of the GDP is from the opium economy. The problem
is, it is embedded. The idea that this is a kind of cartel economy
which is controlled by a few evil warlords is not what it is like;
it is highly decentralised, it is footloose, it moves as control
regimes change.
Q228 Ann McKechin:
If you take some out you get just more coming in?
Dr Goodhand: Absolutely. There
is not this notion of a good state, bad warlord, here. In some
ways, there are some power-holders in the regions who are providing
more public services, in terms of protection, and some public
goods than the Government itself. This economy, it is not just
warlords who would suffer if you took them out, so to speak, if
it were possible, and if you could turn off the tap; the population
relies very much on it. This goes back to the question of alternatives.
The economy and people's livelihoods depend on the poppy economy,
so you cannot just turn it off, because it is not possible, and
because ethically there is a question around doing that and what
effects it would have.
Q229 Ann McKechin:
The Taliban did it, I think?
Dr Goodhand: Yes, the Taliban
did it for one year, but it was not sustainable and it is not
sustainable now. There was a brief decline last year; now in 13
provinces it is increasing, in 16 it is stable and in three it
has gone down, so you are not going to get a sustainable decrease
through eradication.
Q230 Mr Singh:
First of all, as a Bradford MP, can I say what a pleasure it is
to have Bradford University down here and that the international
renown of your Department especially brings much kudos to Bradford,
so thank you for that. I have got a paper here by Dr Cooper, Peaceful
warriors and warring peacemakers, and in it there is a paragraph,
a crucial paragraph to me, where you say aid workers and peace
workers restore the local political economy, create shadow economies,
in terms of the sex trade, and in some cases promote conflict.
That sounds like a terrible indictment of what we are doing. Should
we be there at all?
Dr Cooper: Yes, I think we should
be there. What that is asking, I think, is that we are sensitive
to the local impact that we have when the externals go in. Obviously
I think now everybody is aware particularly of the issue of the
sex trade and the issues which have arisen in a number of conflict
zones, post-conflict zones, with peacekeeping forces and aid workers
going in and actually availing themselves of that sex trade and,
in a sense, almost creating a market in it, where it might not
even have existed before. Part of that is being sensitive to the
economic repercussions of what aid is doing in a post-conflict
society and to think through those actions. Obviously, in terms
of the sex trade, for instance, part of what you do is try to
educate the people who are going into those zones and try to put
into place policies which actually discourage people from engaging
in those kinds of practices.
Q231 Mr Singh:
When you say that in some cases intervention may even contribute
and promote conflict, what kind of example do you have?
Dr Cooper: In a sense that often
you can find that aid may be siphoned off by local warlords and
mafia groups, it may be taxed, for instance, so the aid itself
may become part and parcel of the political economy of war-making,
as opposed to peace-making. I think many aid agencies now are
pretty aware of this and a lot of them are involved daily in a
kind of balancing act between trying to assess how much of the
aid is getting siphoned off to the local warlord, or how much
of the aid being taxed is it worth to accept for the benefit of
actually getting aid through to people who need it and deserve
it. That is obviously a very difficult decision to make, but it
is one which the aid community needs constantly to bear in mind.
Q232 Mr Singh:
This particular paragraph certainly has punctured my impression
of how worthy we are when we know that actually we might be doing
more harm than good sometimes. A more general question: you argue
that regional borderlands are crucial in sustaining conflict;
can they play a role in promoting peace? Presumably, borderlands
are important in the shadow economy as well; in what context could
they play a role in promoting peace?
Professor Pugh: A good proportion
of the world's production actually comes from offshore and tax
haven type economies and it seems to me, for example, that in
some circumstances, in some places, you could have entrepo®t
zones where production is encouraged which would bring two neighbouring
countries together, or a trading system which created a free trade
zone in that area; there are some half-dozen already in Bosnia,
for example. That kind of role might be possible in some circumstances.
I am not suggesting in all. The trading links which are developed
in these borderlands could be harnessed by the state, or states,
if there was a borderlands policy. I think the problem is that
the international economic institutions, financial institutions
and the donors have this tendency to centralise the donations
and economic policy, which actually further marginalises the borderlands,
because if it is in the case of loans they want loans repaid,
therefore they want a central bank, and so on and so forth. There
is that happening. At the same time, economic policies are being
introduced which actually will weaken people's identity with the
state and weaken social cohesion, and that impacts particularly
on the borderlands, I think. It is reaching towards a profound
issue which relates not only to your question but to the previous
question, and that is the nature of economic policy which is introduced
from outside. If the economic policy which is introduced from
outside actually makes things worse for poor people, because poor
people are dependent on public provision, or public space, and
that public space and provision are privatised, for example, then
they are more likely to suffer as a consequence and therefore
are not going to get weaned away from survival in the shadow economy.
There was a riot, a couple of years ago, in Banja Luka, when the
authorities tried to close down the black market which was engaged
in trading, because people depended on that so heavily. If the
state is not performing functions to displace the warlords in
the shadow economic activity then the shadow economic activity
will persist, and so one has to think perhaps a bit more creatively
about how the state can replace a survival economy. That may mean,
for example, actually allowing a bit more deficit spending than
the international financial institutions would like. There is
the tendency on the part of the external economic actors to have
a very disciplinary approach—regulation, control, tight
budgets, reducing government expenditure, perhaps even withdrawing
the state from its role in economic activity—but perhaps
we need to think more creatively and think could there be, for
example, public works which might employ a lot of people and contribute
towards income generation, increasing purchasing power. I am not
suggesting that the Tennessee Valley Authority of the 1930's could
be recreated in DRC but we do need to think more creatively about
the economic role of the state.
Q233 Mr Singh:
For DFID it is easier to talk to a state, even if it is a weak
state government. To whom do you talk in these borderland areas
to promote peace or distribute aid? It does not seem to me a realistic
possibility to talk to somebody, or some organisations, or a grouping,
which might have the policy to be able to do something?
Dr Cooper: It may be the case,
in some circumstances, but very often there will be regional political
leaders or any other kinds of actors within a borderland that
one can connect up with; so you have got paramount chiefs in Sierra
Leone, for instance, that one could envisage connecting up to,
and to some extent the externals have pursued that kind of policy.
Generally, I think there are actors there that one can connect
up to and also one can conceptualise the borderland and think
about how one can construct policy which will promote the borderland
as an agent of peace, rather than as an agent of conflict.
Q234 John Bercow:
Which of you gentlemen is a professional economist?
Professor Pugh: None of us.
Q235 John Bercow:
None of you is a professional economist; well I am grateful for
that. I did listen to what might be described as a succinct encapsulation
of the thesis advanced in your book, entitled War Economies
in a Regional Context, and I think, Professor Pugh, I heard
that succinct encapsulation a moment ago in response to Mr Singh's
question. The reason why I asked is simply that it is true enough
that you can encounter three economists and still find at least
five opinions, but one perhaps might start, or some of us might
be inclined to start, from a working premise that people with
academic experience of economics and a professional discipline
in that field would be, relatively speaking, well qualified to
talk about the applicable economic policies in a particular area.
My understanding, from what you have just said and from the book,
is that your thesis, if one—forgive me—strips it of
the jargon, the externally-derived paradigm, the free market element,
I think what you are really saying is that free enterprise in
other countries is not necessarily the best model to follow. Liberal
economics is inappropriate in its purist form. Is what you are
saying that a bit of deficit spending on public works projects
is a good idea, which are, frankly, entirely compatible with capitalist
enterprise though not with the pure model of markets, or is it
something more than that which you are suggesting, and, if so,
upon what evidence base?
Professor Pugh: One of the things
which struck me, in the course of our research, is that nobody
has been able to define a free market. Economists point to a variety
of economic systems which can fit into that label, and the Cambridge
economist John Kay has written a book called The Truth About
Markets: Why some nations are rich but most remain poor,
and the main idea to come out of that book is that there is no
such thing as an absolutely free market, there is regulation in
some form in most countries, for example, in this country we subsidise
certain industries, and so on, and we guarantee railway companies,
and so on, against losses. I think it is important, when international
financial institutions and organisations, such as the EU, talk
about a free market economy, and it was actually in the Rambouillet
Agreement of 1999 that Kosovo should have a free market economy,
so you could argue that the coalition went to war partly to establish
a free market economy, without defining what it would be. I think
that certainly it would be a mistake to say that we are looking
at the previous command economy models which were operating in
the Soviet Union, or even in the former Yugoslavia.
John Bercow: Right; that is helpful.
I had not actually suggested that, but I am most grateful for
your acknowledgement that it might be a concern people will have
about those who are particularly stern and acerbic critics of
the free enterprise capitalist model. I do not think one needs
unduly to preoccupy oneself, if I may politely suggest it, Professor
Pugh, with the question of the definition of a free market. I
think it was Clement Atlee who was once asked to define an elephant
and he said that personally he found it difficult, if not impossible,
to define an elephant, but on the whole he rested content because
he felt that if he saw an elephant he would be aware that he had
seen it, so I do not think we should be too hung-up on this question
of abstract models and what is pure. What I was trying to get
at and what I am seeking to establish is the overall view, of
all three of you, on the basis of your study of conflict-ridden
parts of the world, as to the sorts of broad policies which should
be put in place. If we accept that in scarcely any country in
the world is either pure capitalism, a" la Von Mises
or Alfred Marshall, or pure socialism, a" la Louis
Althusser, Nicos Poulantzas, Joseph Stalin or Leon Trotsky, applied.
Ann McKechin: Or none of them.
John Bercow: Or none of them.
John Battle: Or reformists?
Q236 John Bercow:
Or even the reformist position of others, or even Antonio Gramsci,
writing in his prison notebooks, then I think that we are acknowledging
that you are not applying a pure model, you are working instead
at a broad idea. What I am intrigued by is that you think it worth
telling us that there is a case for deficit spending and public
works projects. It may be a perfectly valid view, I am bound to
say it is not, if I may say so, a great discovery, it is not a
particularly original view, there is nothing exceptional about
it and I do not think that you would find, on the whole, even
within the IMF and the World Bank, that there is a sort of resolute
opposition to such a notion. I think those organisations often
are pilloried for things they have not actually said, do not really
believe and are not planning to do. What I would like to establish
is this. If you talk about the twilight economy, if you like,
you did not use the expression "a black market economy"
but the informal economy, call it what you like, do you not think
that, aside from cultural considerations, or considerations in
some cases of transport infrastructure or distances to destination,
or whatever, one motive force behind the conduct of such practices
conceivably might be that it is the rational economic behaviour
of individuals concerned? Might it not be the rational economic
behaviour of the individuals or companies or areas concerned because
there is not a broadly free enterprise model applied? You talked
a moment ago about regulation and you thought we ought to get
away from a sort of didactic regulation point, but insofar as
there is didacticism on the part of the World Bank and the IMF
it is didacticism in favour of less regulation, of greater market
opportunity, of lower taxes, of recognition of the merits of property
rights. Is this all objectionable to the Department of Peace Studies
at Bradford University, and, if not, can we be told so?
Dr Cooper: Can I make just a couple
of comments here, first of all to defend my colleague, in terms
of his complaint about the absence of a definition of free markets.
It seems to me that actually there is a point to this, and one
of the things that we were trying to highlight in the book was
precisely the fact that I think, maybe because there is an absence
of a definition, what you have had, particularly in weak and post-conflict
societies, is almost like the application of an ideology of the
free market, which often is a kind of bastardised child of the
reality which is applied in the developed world. In the developed
world actually deficit financing is not uncommon, protectionist
trade policies are not uncommon, proactive employment policies
are not uncommon, etc., etc. Certainly in the past, I think
our critique was that, when you looked at past policy in a lot
of post-conflict zones, what you found was more of a kind of application
of a distorted ideology of the free market, the privatisation,
deregulation, low taxation side of the free market, if you like,
rather than protectionism, promotion of employment, promotion
of the welfare state, deficit financing side of the free market,
if you like. You get a kind of partial application. That is one
thing. The other thing that I would also question you on slightly,
I think, is that, yes, you get this kind of mantra of deregulation
within post-conflict societies, but one of the ironies that I
find, one of the things that I am interested in, is the whole
approach, the global approach to issues to do with conflict trade
and ethical trading. One of the anomalies that one finds when
one looks at this is that there is an awful lot of regulation,
quite punitive regulation, to prevent companies breaching the
tenets of a free market, so if you breach EU competition laws,
for instance, you can get fined quite substantial amounts of money.
I think my favourite one, just to give you one example, a few
years ago, British Airways got fined, I think it was £4 million[4];
they had provided incentives to travel agents to encourage them
to book people on their flights rather than competitors' flights.
In comparison, if you look at the level of regulation, certainly
at the global level, around conflict trade issues and issues of
ethical trade, you find a relative absence of regulation. The
only example really that is pure, proper regulation is Kimberley,
and even that is at a formal level a voluntary agreement, and
other kinds of commodities are not covered. You can trade in coltan
from the DRC and the only cost that you incur, potentially, is
possibly a bit of bad publicity; you can give incentives to a
travel agent to book some people on your flights and you can incur
quite significant financial penalties. I would argue that there
needs to be a kind of rebalancing out of regulatory priorities.
I am not suggesting necessarily that British Airways, or Philip
Morris, or whoever, should go unpunished for engaging in anti-competitive
practices, but the other side of the equation at the moment is
not being properly pursued, and what you have got instead is a
whole raft of voluntary initiatives and transparency initiatives.
You have got this kind of weak level of regulation at the global
level and then you have quite disciplinary intervention, sanctions
which are applied against a few pariah states that we have decided
we do not like, but it is an arbitrary approach.
Q237 John Bercow:
I think, if I may say so, it is a perfectly legitimate view but
I think we ought to be clear about what the view is. What you
are really saying is there is too much of the regulation that
you do not like and too little of the regulation that you do like;
that is the central thesis. You talk about prohibitions on state
aids and you refer to that as though it is regulation. In a manner
of speaking it is, but essentially it is intended to be a liberating
regulation, because it applies the principle that, as a state,
you should not be able to operate in a discriminatory fashion
such as to buck the market and, artificially, through the use
of state funds, damage the prospects of the company which might
be operating without them. Actually, when you reflect on it, that
does not seem quite such a remarkable or unreasonable proposition.
I understand also the point that you make, which I do not snuff
out, about areas in which there is an argument for stronger regulation
than actually exists, for example, in relation to ethical trading,
and that is only one case in point but I accept there are others
where the toss can be argued. I suppose what I am keen to ask
you to do is to consider whether the biggest picture item of all,
in terms of regulation/obstacles to development in the trading
environment, is the massive trade-distorting behaviour of the
richest countries in the world in the form of protectionism. There
is protectionism which says we shall build up our domestic bases,
develop in-country and be allowed a period in which to do so,
and we should be able to put up barriers and resist products from
other parts of the world. There is an argument for that and there
is an argument against that, there are dangers in it but there
are advantages in it on a time-limited basis. Surely there is
a compelling argument against Western trade policies which distort
trade and impede the prospects of recovery, growth and improved
living standards by developing countries as a consequence of the
use of state power, be it by the United States or the European
Union, and yet this does not seem to be writ all that large in
what you are saying to us today? Perhaps it is because I have
not yet given you an adequate opportunity to do so.
Dr Cooper: I agree.
John Bercow: Success.
Dr Cooper: I agree with you that
those trade protection policies are distorting, and I guess my
line would be that, as you were saying, you object to the regulation
you do not like and the regulation that you do like, it is not
an objection to regulation per se, or indeed an argument
for no regulation per se, it is an argument for actually
looking at what kind of regulation is effective and what kind
of regulation is not effective, and where particular kinds of
regulation can be applied and where they cannot. Take the issue
of protectionism, for instance. It seems to me wholly correct
to argue for the elimination of trade protectionism on the part
of big, powerful, economically-developed trading entities like
the EU, the US, etc. On the other hand, I think also that
there is a fairly strong argument for looking at particular post-conflict
societies and looking at the extent to which actually some form
of trade protectionism for key industries may well be relevant
for those kinds of societies. It is about looking at where the
regulatory approach and where the free market is relevant and
where actually other approaches may be more appropriate.
Q238 John Bercow:
Do you think, on the whole, the UK Government's policies are tailored,
and therefore, by implication, calculated and applied differentially
to the particular circumstances of individual countries that we
have studied, or do you think that, in practice, whether deliberately
or by default, the British Government really applies a "one
size fits all" approach? When I say by default I mean to
some extent, because, in trading matters, Chairman, as colleagues
all know, we are, let us face it, I am not making a partisan point
here, I am simply making what I think is a statement of fact,
not entirely a free agent, we are part of the EU commercial policy.
Dr Cooper: You are not going to
like this answer because it is yes and no.
John Bercow: As long as there are reasons
helpful to our inquiry.
Q239 Chairman:
You must have studied economics at some time?
Dr Cooper: I am an academic; it
comes with the territory. I think there is a kind of differentiation
which we are seeing almost at a global level, and particularly,
of course, post-9/11, and so you have got differentiation which
states make and the developed world in general is making between
different kinds of conflicts that are occurring in different areas.
On the one hand, you have got the emphasis on Iraq and a particular
kind of approach to Iraq which is highly militaristic and lots
of money being spent there, to some extent Afghanistan, and then
you have got other conflicts which are not deemed to be economically
important enough, or not strategically important enough, in terms
of the war on terror, or whatever it might be, which are more
likely either to drop off the radar screen altogether or at least
not get the same level of attention. In that sense, I think there
is a differentiation which goes on, which is perhaps less about
what is happening in the individual countries and more about national
priorities. I think there is also a sense in which aid distributors,
and this is not just a criticism of DFID, do have a set of tools
that they want to come into a country and apply, and these change
over time so there is a set of aid tools which are fashionable
at one time and then new things arise. At the moment, it is democracy,
good governance, economic reform, anti-corruption and transparency
initiatives, a bit of tokenistic gender initiatives thrown in
as well, and so on and so forth. I think that kind of panoply
of tick-box reforms does get applied automatically in each situation.
For instance, a specific example which comes to mind is anti-corruption
initiatives. There is this kind of fetish now for anti-corruption
initiatives, anti-corruption commissions, which is good; nobody
is in favour of corruption. I just wonder how far that fetish
gets thought through, because, inevitably, in a lot of societies,
what happens is that you set up an anti-corruption commission
and it becomes simply a vehicle for political patronage and for
the exercise of political power. You need to go beyond ticking
that box and applying the model and thinking through what is the
follow-on impact of setting up an anti-corruption commission in
that particular society.
4 See table, Ev 136 Back
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