Memorandum submitted by Centre
for International Peacebuilding
Summary: Comments address the
specific questions posed by the inquiry about the effectiveness
and external coherence of the UK's peacebuilding and post-conflict
reconstruction policies with a particular, though not exclusive,
focus on conflict in Africa. There is a good deal of overlap,
as the questions could be seen as forming a matrix where each
answer impacts on and involves all others.
It is important to note
that the Center considers " peacebuilding" to focus
in the first instance on pro-active and preventive activities
which serve to increase stability, human and environmental security,
i.e. "peace" by helping to develop vulnerable communities
and regions which might otherwise become sites of violent conflict.
It is assumed that conflict as such is normal and inevitable.
However, unless proper governance mechanisms which open up civil
society space for dialogue and the negotiation of needs are strengthened
or put in place, such conflicts can readily reach a flashpoint
and become violent. Proactive development and post conflict reconstruction
should have in common a thorough understanding of the history
and culturally mediated management or transformation of ordinary
and inevitable conflicts between communities, especially in view
of some of borders drawn by colonial powers without sensitive
understanding of geographic, climactic and demographic factors.
(Background papers are available on request).
The submission is informed
by discussions both in Africa and elsewhere with government officials,
the business community, educators, civil society and religious
leaders, NGO leaders, especially of grass roots African organisations,
many of whom are now organized into national or regional associations
with a focus on governance, leadership and effective coordination
and cooperation with governments and international bodies, in
order best to deliver outcomes (see appendix 1: further information
about similar activities in other countries is available on request).
1. How can the UK make its policies
more conflict-sensitive?
1.1. Addressing the Sources of
Conflict through Conflict-Sensitive Aid and Trade Policies:
Discussions with grassroots NGOs in
variety African countries suggest that poverty is perceived to
be a major contributor to instability. Because relevant volume,
durability, and quality are more likely to be achievable, opening
up or securing trade routes between African countries in ways
that benefit local farmers or trades people is, in general, thought
to be a more realistic option than pushing for fair trade agreements
with Western investors targeting foreign markets where competition
may be too great. Also a general awareness of the deleterious
effects of airlifting large volumes of perishable goods on climate
change should not be ignored.
Of course it is understood that the
role of any HMG mission in foreign countries will legitimately
be alert to opportunities for furthering national interests where
this does not undermine the welfare of the people in the target
country. Unethical arms trading, pharmaceutics dumping, the encouragement
of smoking and the dumping of substandard consumer goods, or Western
style practices that are inconsistent with people's culture, values
and beliefs, and which do not add value to people's lives, should
not be (and are surely not) encouraged. HMG should exert its moral
authority more powerfully and visibly in lines with its commitment
to ethical foreign policy, culturally sensitive development initiatives
and a principled stand regarding human rights and good governance.
(See also 1.3).
1.2 Improving Peaceful Resource
Management:
See also 1.4, and especially 2.7 ( putting
in place basic services must be primary, but this can be done
more effectively by informing and involving local communities
themselves and strengthening indigenous coping mechanisms in cooperation
with national and regional disaster and contingency
management plans, which should be ready to be invoked and implemented
at short notice): Local NGOs, provided they can demonstrate good
enough governance and effective working practices, may be better
able to mobilize local infrastructure and social systems to distribute
resources and deliver services fairly, especially in areas where
the military which might otherwise be best equipped to carry out
such tasks is perceived to be implicated in the conflict. Where
food security is concerned, many places are inaccessible to foreign
donors and therefore certain goods are inappropriately packaged
for local transport by mule or other local means. Medecins
Sans Frontieres are widely perceived as sensitive, courageous,
reliable and effective providers of healthcare. Also the Rotary
Club appears to have excellent public health interventions
for communicable disease management. Such efforts could and should
be better integrated in the health policies of local governments
and could and should be supported more extensively by DH and other
UK players.
Consultation with local leaders can
yield answers to what communities need most and what they need
first and how best to make it accessible. Indigenous approaches
to conflict transformation often do work well enough if their
function is understood and supported. Women can and should be
encouraged to play a significant role (see also the recent UN
report). The importance of local languages, cultural customs and
religious beliefs needs to be heeded.
1.3 Encouraging Conflict-Sensitive
Business Practice:
Pyramid training and mentoring schemes
can work well to gear up skills in a community especially if it
goes hand in hand with appropriate and relevant vocational training
schemes in areas where there are recognized knowledge and skills
gaps. Conflicts are exacerbated when educational provision leaves
people with qualifications for which there is no outlet or market,
fuelling disappointment and unrest in frustrated young people.
Also in many places foreign donations of books or equipment become
effectively unusable through lack of trained teachers, IT skills
and often affordable or sustainable electricity. Local farmers
need capacity building through revolving loan schemes (loans passed
on to other borrowers rather than returned to lenders). Sensitivity
to local language communities and issues of marginalization need
to be born in mind- and again relevant local partners can be of
help here.
Conflicts often arise because borrowers
pass on funds/resources to family members - which is expected
within many communities- either leaving them open to charges of
corruption or leaving them unable to repay the loan. There are
both indigenous and foreign NGOs ready to provide both new microfinance
and mentoring schemes and cooperation with the UN and World Bank
is being sought to bypass abuses by local moneylenders.
Cooperatives using scaled down
appropriate technologies ( many are pioneered in India via government
support schemes and available for export to Africa) to process
local produce or raw materials so that the added value goes to
the local people rather than to ( often ruthless) middlemen can
work well.
1.4 Coherence with other Actors:
This is vital: using government
mechanisms for delivering government policy, assisted by funds
from international investors (via budget support or equivalent
mechanisms where donors need to preserve leverage to get governments
to improve their human record or to tackle endemic corruption,
international institutions (UN, EU, WB, etc), HMG, foreign donors
(large NGOs) is often the most effective route to stabilizing
conflict and post violent conflict regions. Provided that good
enough governance can be demonstrated, support is needed from
foreign governments and international organizations to open up
civil society and local NGO space. Existing HMG mechanisms for
constructing co-ordinated strategic plan for service delivery
in which all stakeholders (e.g. foreign missions, the military,
government departments, NGOs and donors, local NGOs and civil
society and religious leaders, educational institutions, business
partners, international organisations, and the UN) work together
in consultation with pan African organizations (AU, IGAD, ECOWAS
etc) could be made more widely known and shared with non European
partners.
2. How Can The UK Improve Its Peacebuilding
And Post-Conflict Reconstruction Policies?
2.1. How Is The UK Supporting
Peace Processes And Peacebuilding Initiatives?
It would seem vital to distinguish UK
policies from the US Department of Defense Directives (DOD stability
operations) which still put their emphasis on advancing the interests
of the US government in their approaches to peacebuilding and
post ( violent) conflict reconstruction). Genuine concern for
the welfare of African people and their needs as articulate by
them, combined with respect for and knowledge of indigenous methods,
traditional or innovative, for rebuilding a war torn community
would seem to be a vital precondition for introducing foreign
approaches to conflict transformation and peace building by non
African actors.
It would seem important to first
and foremost focus on what is needed and wanted by local governments
and the people themselves and to be clear and firm about encouraging
governments to listen to and communicate effectively and openly
with its people.
These skills can be enhanced by further
high quality training in conflict transformation methods which
is now widely available on an international level. A qualification
in conflict management should perhaps be mandatory for all staff
working with conflicts or in conflict zones. Further information
is available on request.
2.2 Governance Issues in Post-Conflict
Environments - Building Legitimate Institutions and the Rule of
Law:
There needs to be respect and support
for ongoing discussion and debate about what might be considered
to be legitimate institutions via pan African platforms (AU, IGAD,
ECOWAS etc). This can be enhanced by strong links to other Southern
hemisphere countries which have been or are struggling with similar
issues, both regarding the transformation of violent conflict
and development needs impeded by the poor governance structures
of previous administrations. Many peace focused organization have
collected best practice examples which are available on the web
or by request (further information is available) and there is
also increasingly and exchange of mediators and other skilled
personnel across borders and continents for which financial support
would be needed and appreciated. Sensitive issues such as the
introduction of say Shariah law in Christian areas may require
concerted international discussion and intervention in consultation
with fair-minded religious leaders.
There would obviously need to
be very well protected and effective mechanisms for ensuring that
methods of governance are evaluated, funds are used appropriately,
equitably, transparently and effectively by setting up international
and local mechanisms for monitoring, scrutinizing and auditing
performance.
2.3 Employment Creation Policy
- Reintegrating Combatants:
It
would seem important to learn from and apply successful methods
developed elsewhere in Africa ( cf. Mozambique), and also outside
Africa by treatment centers for victims of trauma and torture,
paying attention to new approaches to recognizing and relieving
post traumatic stress ( PTSD) in child soldiers, adult combatants
and women and girls ( cf. recent NICE guideline in PTSD. This
could be supported by WHO, UNICEF etc. More 'barefoot' medical
support workers could be trained by departments of health and
medical schools provided these activities are properly supported
by foreign finance and skilled personnel able to teach and train
local people. Psychological and medical anthropological knowledge
would seem vital. In addition community focused interventions
for healing the wounds of war such as the very successful truth
commission established in post apartheid South Africa would seem
important. Providing ex combatants with a reasonably fulfilling
and respected role in society is vital for their mental health
as well as for preventing drift into destitution or crime.
Combatants (as well as, alas,
peace keepers, truckers and other members of a mobile workforce
driven to the cities by rampant urban poverty) are major sources
of HIV/AIDS infection and spread. Reintegration needs to interface
with greatly strengthened and targeted national and regional
HIV/AIDS prevention programmes and health programme platforms.
2.4 Undermining Economies of
War:
This
is a very sore and delicate issue in that arms industry contracts
with African governments may on occasion be underwritten by HMG
without, it would appear, adequate safeguards that arms are used
entirely as part of a national security net, rather than in an
uncontrolled fashion by warlords to terrorize local populations.
Existing sophisticated consultations within the JDCC, the Cabinet
Office and with the Africa Pool as well the general Conflict Prevention
Pool are sure to be addressing these issues in collaboration with
international partners. There is some feeling that there could
be more coordination between HMG functions under strong strategic
direction and leadership to ensure that all HMG resources are
optimized by all parties already working together on conflict
analysis, prevention, and transformation through diplomacy, military
intervention and development aid.
Perhaps there also needs to be radical
rethink about the disparity between current levels of budget allocation
for conflict prevention peacebuilding efforts on the one hand
and investment in, and support for, the arms industry on the other,
whether unilaterally by HMG as a world leader or world wide…
2.5 Financing Post-Conflict Recovery
- How to Invest the 'Peace Dividend'; Reinvigorating Trade Flows;
Promoting Economic Diversification:
Private investment in agricultural products
which serve a niche export market in developed countries (specialty
commodities such as organic unusual teas, coffees and cocoas,
flowers, fruit and vegetables, handicrafts, textile and leather
work) assembly of semi-fabricated components and so on can be
combined with company supported partnerships with governments,
ECOWAS and NGOs to deliver better (or any!) education, heath care
sanitation, housing and basic infrastructure (roads, electricity.
IT and telecommunication), uplifting an entire community. This
would then also open up avenues for responsible (eco) tourism
bringing revenue and jobs to areas which are increasingly marginal
for any agricultural cultivation but otherwise areas of great
scenic beauty offering rare flora and fauna. In addition, this
could discourage disastrous indigenous land management practices
which exacerbate environmental despoliation and desertification.
In many post violent conflict areas the ravages of pollution,
contamination, munitions and decimated wildlife present with real
challenges for environmental scientists to work together with
local people to restore habitats or radically rethink land use.
Forced migration due to unsustainable habitats creates enormous
physical, cultural, economic and psychological distress for displaced
people, in addition to putting severe pressures on the habitat
and economy to the area to which they have been moved, inflaming
new conflicts.
Universities, as well as vocational
colleges in partnership with foreign institutions can be encouraged
to provide relevant qualifications in human and environmental
sciences as well as tourism and business management (and indeed
there already are good alliances between UK schools universities
and educational establishment in developing countries).
2.6 Reducing Small Arms:
Different
factors underlie the patterns of demand and supply and both need
to be understood and addressed.
Further thoughtful analysis of the psychology,
sociology and anthropology of how small arms are used in developing
countries to exercise power and demonstrate status, to provide
a sense of security (self defense), or to express aggression in
response to perceived injustice should shed light on the cultural
and psychological factors which shape demand. Steps need to be
taken to provide other business outlets for small arms dealers
and educate the people to resist for the ruthless exploitation
by arms dealers of existing fear, greed or and vulnerability in
those who currently purchase arms (see also the well made film
The Lord of War). Much can be learned from projects in countries
where the government and the clergy have worked together to promote
small arms amnesties and guns for cash projects with startling
success.
2.7 Sequencing of Aid and Trade Policies:
See also 1.4. All stakeholders need
to work together to form and follow a co-ordinated strategic plan
about what is needed overall and what is a pre requisite for what.
Infrastructure building, water management, food security, information
technology, education, and health are clearly priorities without
which trade and agriculture cannot thrive. In order to allow for
flow of goods between related communities inhabiting different
national borders, reliable and relevant trader arrangement need
to be made, sensitive to issues of competition with relevant subsidies
as need be. Local people need to be helped to become significant
and well informed actors in the implementation and delivery process
of such coordinated strategic plans so that aid can gradually
be replaced by trade, giving people a much greater sense of self
efficacy and self determination. Money and education, especially
in marketable skills (see above) may be a better vehicle for capacity
building than aid. This is being piloted in some areas.
Where an aid and food security
dependency already exists, and where young children as well as
the destitute are being encouraged to beg, much psychological
work will be needed to instill a sense of self worth and to generate
hope that a community can become sustainable by its own efforts.
The encouragement of small scale private enterprise through appropriate
microfinance mechanisms, especially among women may be one step
towards tackling poverty and its impact on instability.
2.8 Coherence with Other Actors:
This is absolutely vital to avoid
perpetuating or generating gross inequalities by discouraging
donors to concentrate supply led activities in regions where they
have historical links or prior investments, which do not match
the priorities of the locality. Also governments need to be prevented
from misusing capacity building activities or the allocation of
resources in order to secure votes. The international community
and its institutions, grassroots civil society actors, government
departments, educators, and investors must work closely together
in the interest of the people of the country. HMG already is playing
a vital role in coordinating stakeholders through various platforms,
getting heads of missions, major foreign NGOs, the AU and other
pan African institutions, international organizations within and
without the EU, and potential trade partners and educational partnerships
to work together to provide safety nets and capacity building
initiatives in the most vulnerable areas. This could and should
be much better publicized, as many civil society organizations
in the UK seem to be very poorly informed about all the good work
that is already being carried out.
3. Where Does The UK Fit In With
A 'Global' Peacebuilding Effort?
3.1. The Role of the UN - And
the Prospects for the UN Peace Building Commission
3.2. The Role of the European Union
3.3. The Role of International Financial Institutions
3.4. The Role of Regional Organisations - The AU, Regional Economic
Communities (Such As ECOWAS and IGAD)
3.5. Coherence within the International System in Addressing Post-Conflict
Needs
(See also 2.8). These are all very important
areas. Legal and governance mechanisms involved in the regulation
of programmes for post violent conflict reconstruction are too
complex to be addressed in any meaningful way in a brief response
such as this. It is obviously vital that all players find ways
of formulating coherent strategic plans for working together to
serve the people they want to help, that they put pressure by
whatever legitimate means on governments who abuse their powers,
and that they do so visibly in a clear, firm and principled way
in the public arena. This might mean creating international accords
between foreign missions about how to address contingencies, human
rights violations or mismanagement of funds on the spot, in consultation
where possible, but supported by agreed guidelines in cases of
emergency. A coherent rethinking by the international community
as a whole of budget support type mechanisms seems to be indicated.
HMG should not want to be misinterpreted as condoning poor governance
and it needs to be empowered to continue to provide vital safety
nets for distressed populations. Again, a capable partnership
between government , national, international organisations across
all three sectors which includes responsible local NGOs may provide
a way ahead.
High quality trainings are available
which combine theoretical knowledge and practical skills to foster
a culture of informed and principled partnership working with
all parties to a conflict as well as with all partners in post
violent conflict reconstruction. These should be used more widely
and in addition to existing excellent in house trainings.
3.6. Where Might UK Involvement
Bring An Added-Benefit?
Involvement will be helpful wherever
UK partners can bring resources, skills and knowledge to gear
up local capacity. This could be through educational partnerships,
provided this does not become a vehicle for UK students to have
field experience without bringing significant benefits to the
university or school they visit.
In many areas where land is marginal
but scenery is beautiful, UK partners can help generate revenue
streams by supporting tourism through helping local partners with
quality assurance, marketing skills and infrastructure improvements
as well as encouraging and supporting UK and/ or EU investment.
HMG can play a leading role in strengthening
inter-African cooperation by making best use of existing good
will derived from the Commonwealth, and through using our recent
EU presidency to continue to exert moral as well as political
leadership in focusing foreign governments and civil society partners
on the needs of African people by promoting a 'win-win-win' scenario
whereby all parties gain something that is meaningful and useful
to them while at the same time having an eye on global sustainable
development.
Especially following the work
of the Commission for Africa, the EU Presidency, and the role
this conferred on FCO in Africa, as well as the work of the Africa
Pool, HMG could and should continue to play a strong regional
co-ordinating role and it should do so visibly by acting as a
role model, advocating strongly within the international community
for equality, justice and the peaceful development of the potential
of countries and peoples who have been disadvantages for far too
long because of accidents of geography or history.
January 2006
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