Memorandum submitted by UNDP
1. How can the UK make its policies
more conflict-sensitive?
1. UNDP has been supporting the design
and implementation of development planning frameworks and programs
in a manner that does not further exacerbate conflict and helps
alleviate existing tensions: in other words, "mainstreaming"
conflict prevention, which includes both heightening conflict-sensitivity
and injecting specific conflict prevention/transformation elements
into development programs. Efforts at mainstreaming conflict prevention
into development programming have been undertaken globally, as
well as at the country level, on the basis of the UNDP-wide approach
to conflict analysis that was piloted in 2002-03 and culminated
with the development of the Conflict-related Development Analysis
(CDA).
2. The CDA has been integrated
into the post-conflict needs assessment methodology (PCNA), which
has been jointly applied with the World Bank in various countries,
such as Sudan, Somalia and Haiti. PCNA processes are nationally
led processes that have helped national stakeholders understand
the causes and implications of conflict as well as agree on joint
priorities for peacebuilding.
3. The CDA has been applied in various
national contexts. While some of the analytical processes primarily
focused on program review, others involved a broader participatory
and consensus-building process. For instance, in Nigeria,
UNDP, the UK, the World Bank and USAID undertook a multi-stakeholder
conflict analysis and strategic planning exercise with the government
of Nigeria. In Indonesia, in partnership with the government,
DFID and local research organizations, UNDP initiated a Peace
and Development Analysis (PDA) in three provinces of Indonesia
in order to identify common priorities for future programming.
The PDA also provided a critical forum for multi-stakeholder dialogue
(especially between government and civil society), in settings
traditionally characterised by polarisation and distrust.
4. Experience has showed that a multi-stakeholder
and joint approach (e.g., with government, civil society, key
donors, etc.) to conflict sensitive approaches has served to improve
coherence and coordination between agency strategies and actual
interventions. In this sense, UNDP's approach to conflict analysis
has therefore proved a critical entry point to build and/or strengthen
partnerships.
5. UNDP has also learned that successful
"mainstreaming" of conflict prevention takes places
when conflict prevention/analysis forms part of the regular tools
and approaches for program and strategy development. Strategic
entry points include: the Common Country Assessment (CCA), the
United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF), the National
Human Development Reports (NHDR), Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers
(PRSP), MDGs and national planning frameworks.
6. UNDP encourages the UK to actively
participate in future joint country analysis and post-conflict
joint needs assessments.
As was done in Nigeria and Indonesia, UNDP hopes that the UK
will continue promoting multi-stakeholder conflict analysis and
strategic planning with key national partners.
2. How can the UK improve its
peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction policies?
How to approach peacebuilding
7. The link between sustainable development
and peace-building is increasingly recognized as vital, given
the prerequisites for lasting peace rooted in longer-term issues
such as social reconciliation, institutional development and economic
recovery. In his 2005 report, "In Larger Freedom", the
United Nations Secretary-General articulated a vision of peacebuilding
focusing on the interlinkages between development, security and
human rights. Reflecting this vision, development partners are
increasingly looking for ways to ensure that development assistance
strengthens these foundations.
8. Definitions of what constitutes peacebuilding
vary. The Brahimi report of 2000[142]
asserts that while peacekeepers work to maintain a secure local
environment, peacebuilders work to make that environment sustainable.
In current UN practice, peace building is primarily defined
by a range of activities, from DDR to paying the salaries of transitional
governments to support for "truth and reconciliation commissions,"
that build on, and extend, peace-making or peace-keeping to consolidate
peace and security, address root causes of conflict, and establish
the basis for longer-term improvements in human well-being, economic
conditions and effective state institutions.
9. UNDP has learned that providing
effective peacebuilding support requires a holistic
and integrated strategy which recognizes the interdependence
between a range of political, security, humanitarian, social and
developmental processes, and provides a framework for prioritizing
potential thematic sectors and levels of interventions over the
short and longer-term.
UNDP encourages key development partners, including the UK, to
approach peacebuilding in a similar fashion. While there is no
standard prescription for peacebuilding, from UNDP's perspective,
relevant areas include justice and reconciliation, governance
and participation, social and economic wellbeing, and security
and public order. UNDP's decades of experience working in crisis
and post-crisis settings however has shown that peacebuilding
cannot be understood as the sum of these components, but rather
as an integrated strategy requiring careful sequencing and targeting
of activities on the basis of a shared vision of peacebuilding
objectives and the underlying causes of the conflict.
Therefore, for UNDP, peacebuilding can be described as an approach
applied to a range of activities and development initiatives.
10. UNDP encourages the UK to support
comprehensive national peacebuilding strategies that 1) are nationally
owned, that 2) prioritize sectoral activities in a conflict sensitive
manner and that 3) ensure sustainable and resilient capacity-building
institutional processes.
Ensuring sustainable post-conflict
reconstruction
11. Drawing from its extensive country
experience, UNDP recommends further attention at a number of key
areas that are instrumental in making peacebuilding work:
a. Including a conflict sensitive/prevention
lens in programmes to reduce the risk of relapse into violent
conflict over the short to medium term
b. translating international support
into sustainable national capacities for peace
c. supporting the emergence of national
stakeholders in highly divided post conflict societies where,
in many cases, institutional corruption is high and civil society
weak
d. creating basic tools for economic
and political governance that are conflict sensitive and that
can enable national institutions to function in a sustainable
manner over the long-term
12. The issue of economic and political
governance in the aftermath of prolonged violent conflict remains
one of the most serious challenges of development. Some countries
have emerged from prolonged conflict and succeeded within a few
years to position themselves on a reasonably robust development
trajectory.[143]
Others, perhaps a larger number have had great difficulty jumpstarting
the economy. For example, Sierra Leone, a once viable economy,
is still largely dependent on international assistance after the
expenditure of nearly 3 billion dollars in six years of UN peacekeeping.
Haiti presents another example. Instability fuelled in part by
a failure to catalyze economic recovery has meant that over the
past ten years the international community has been called in
ten times to assist in peace-keeping operations. While a degree
of political stability seems to have been achieved in Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Timor Leste and Kosovo, they have not yet successfully established
themselves as viable self-sustaining economies.
13. It is now widely recognised that
countries recovering from violent conflict urgently need to mobilise
domestic and external financial resources for relief, recovery
and economic reconstruction in the face of exceptional constraints.
Often critically short of almost all expertise, newly established
authorities have to deal simultaneously with preserving peace
and stability, rehabilitating essential infrastructure, reforming
public institutions, jump-starting the economy, creating employment
opportunities, and eliciting or restoring private investors' confidence.
14. Experience has showed that success
will depend on an appropriate overall strategy that recognizes
the distinct but overlapping phases of post conflict transition,
provides for the continuing transfer of effective decision
making to national actors, and ensures effective coordination
among the external players. The relative abundance of external
resources carries a risk of eliciting dependency that must be
resolutely resisted. Indeed, perhaps the highest service that
international assistance can provide to a post conflict country
is to help reconstitute national capacities as quickly as possible.[144]
This process of capacity building should begin as early as possible
and certainly once it seems that hostilities are likely to end.
Several concrete steps can be taken to ensure that a viable decision-making
framework for sustained economic recovery measures emerges. UNDP
encourages the UK to take the following components into account
when designing post-conflict recovery policies.
15. Supporting National Dialogue
Processes: Irrespective
of the genesis of a conflict, an immediate challenge within a
post-conflict situation is to create the space for, and to facilitate,
a process of national dialogue.[145]
The challenge is to build consensus on the parameters of a new
system of governance,[146]
either through a new constitution or through a broader agreement
than an initial pact or a truce among the warring parties. Such
a process can take many forms, both modern and traditional. South
Africa's national constitutional dialogue and the Afghan constitutional
loya jirga that led to the first elected government in
decades are good examples.
16. Letting National Actors
Lead, Even in the Short Term:
While a "national constituting
process" is being facilitated, national actors should play
a central role and lead where feasible, even the short-to-medium-term
"needs assessments" and transition plans that lead to
donor pledging conferences.
17. Supporting "Facilitation"
Skills: The reality
of drawn out violence is the protagonists acquire a tendency to
address issues in an aggressive, exclusionary, and authoritarian
manner. It would be unrealistic to expect them to abandon these
tendencies immediately after a conflict ends. Accordingly, former
antagonists have to learn new process skills: negotiation, mediation,
reaching consensus. The success of South Africa's Mont Fleurs
scenario exercise in the early 1990s, of the national dialogue
processes in Panama and Guatemala in Latin America, and the recent
efforts among participants in the Burundi peace process to reacquire
skills of constructive engagement provide pointers towards addressing
this gap.
18. Supporting innovative dispute
resolution mechanisms:
The erosion of skills for constructive mutual engagement also
applies to society at large. Given residual tensions, post-conflict
countries require, at all levels, an infrastructure of mechanisms,
systems and processes for the resolution of day-to-day disputes
before violent conflict re-emerges. Appropriately equipped, religious
and civic leaders, local authorities, and traditional leaders
can all play constructive roles in creating a resilient environment
for the peaceful settlement of disputes and longer-term reconciliation.
19. Supporting skills for planning
and economic management:
The importance of competency in economic policy design, management
and implementation is also obvious. The "donor coordination
office" in Afghanistan in the immediate post-conflict period
is an example of such support. Created under the leadership of
the transitional authorities, and staffed by qualified international
and national professionals (including from the Diaspora because
of the specific circumstances of Afghanistan) and led by a national,
this office established implementation benchmarks for short-term
assistance and fostered the acquisition of the required capacity
by other departments. It also harmonized guidelines for the submission
of requests, and reporting on implementation, among donors. As
a start in other post-conflict countries, such an entity could
constitute the core of an autonomous, national policy planning
and implementation capacity once the international presence is
drawn down.
3. Where does the UK fit in with
a 'global' peacebuilding effort?
The United Nations peacebuilding
reforms
20. The Peacebuilding Commission (PBC)
could play an important role in ensuring that peace-building strategies
are comprehensive and include a long-term perspective, especially
in the context of peace missions, whose short term mandates vary
from 6 to 12 months. The PBC could also advocate for more predictable
and consistent funding, aligned with the timeline of longer-term
peacebuilding strategies (5 to 10 years). Since the UK is a
member of the PBC, it can play a key role in promoting the importance
of long-term comprehensive national strategies and the need to
sustain the attention of the international community on the countries
considered by the PBC.
21. The Peacebuilding Support Office
(PBSO) should play the role of a convener and facilitator for
coordinated UN planning in support of integrated peacebuilding
strategies. The leadership around the definition of strategic
priorities and options should be country based. The coordination
role for the design and implementation of such comprehensive national
peacebuilding strategies should lie with the UN representative
in the field, either the Special Representative of the Secretary
General if a peacekeeping mission has been deployed in the country,
or the United Nations Resident Coordinator in the rest of the
cases. The PBSO should be staffed with expert planners and process
facilitators who can assist in the consolidation of inputs from
all relevant actors.
22. The Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) could
serve as the provider of immediate funding after a crisis to cover
the costs of early recovery activities. This would help fill an
existing gap in funding. In order for the PBF to play this role,
however, the decision-making process for allocating funds will
have to be transparent and driven by priorities established by
actors in the field, especially national actors. Once allocated,
funding will have to be transmitted to the countries in a transparent
and rapid manner. Should the situation warrant it, the PBF may
need to ensure the availability of funds in a reliable manner
over a period of time.
23. The European Union, the international
financial institutions and the regional organizations all have
an important role to play within the context of the peacebuilding
reforms. The PBC represents an opportunity for the international
community to elaborate, in a coordinated fashion, national peacebuilding
strategies that serve the interests of countries as a whole. The
various financial mechanisms currently or soon to be available
(UN trust funds, EU Stability Instrument, World Bank Post-Conflict
Fund, CERF, PBF…) would need to serve the agreed national
strategy and be coordinated in a manner that maximizes the chances
of a country to get on the road to sustainable peace.
February 2006
142 http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/afrec/subjindx/143peac2.htm Back
143 A "normal development situation" does
not mean that all development challenges have been overcome. Rather,
it is a return to so-called "normal state", where a
country has re-established the capability to make and implement
economic decisions and priorities as part of a largely self-sustaining
process of economic governance. Back
144
A study by the UN Department of Social and Economic Affairs, drawn
from the deliberations of an "expert group" meeting
in Yaounde, Cameroon, in 2003, highlights the centrality of reconstructing
governance and public administration as the key to sustaining
peace and development in the aftermath of violent conflict. See
"Reconstructing Governance and Public Administration for
Peaceful, Sustainable Development" (DESA, New York, 2004) Back
145
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington
DC has used the term "national constituting processes"
to describe post-conflict efforts to build multi-stakeholder consensus.
CSIS white paper "Meeting the Challenges of Governance and
Participation in Post-Conflict Settings," August 2002. Also
see, Orr, Robert, "Governing When Chaos Rules: Enhancing
Governance and Participation," The Washington Quarterly -
Volume 25, Number 4, Autumn 2002, pp. 139-152 Back
146
OECD's DAC Guidelines on "Helping Prevent Violent Conflict"
(OECD, Paris 2001) lay emphasis on the strengthening pf peace
processes, including through the building of partnerships between
donors, the state, and civil society actors. Back
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