Memorandum submitted by One World Action
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. New approaches could be developed for
working in a difficult environment such as Angola. These would
require thought and planning by donor agencies and implementing
agencies in partnership, but would be worthwhile in terms of peace-building
and in developing knowledge of how to work in such contexts. Poverty
and vulnerability can lead to a scramble for resources as part
of survival strategies and thus create a risk of renewed conflict.
Institutions can be weak and have difficulty in mediating between
different groups with different interests.
2. We therefore support the priorities for
working in fragile states outlined in DFID's document "Why
we need to work more effectively in fragile states" of January
2005, in particular the efforts for an international framework
for the way in which donors and international organisations engage
with fragile states. As a DFID partner working in a post-conflict
fragile state, we would welcome a clearer framework for dialogue
with DFID about its policies and approach.
3. We would like to stress that it may take
a long time for the benefits from these programmes to trickle
down to the majority of citizens of these States, who are thus
likely to remain in extreme poverty for many years unless there
are programmes that provide them with more immediate opportunities
to rebuild their basic assets, develop their skills and provide
access to basic services. We would also like to stress that fragile
states are often a reflection of fragile societies. Weak State
institutions are often a reflection of local level institutional
weakness. Institutional capacity often needs to be developed at
a local level. Furthermore national level conflict can often be
a reflection of many local level tensions and conflicts.
4. Thus while we welcome the emphasis on
the capacity of States, we would like to stress that the local
level should not be neglected. We welcome DFID's work in studying
alternative methods of service delivery in fragile states. We
believe that it is possible for bilateral donors and international
organisations, in partnership with others, to work at a local
level in a way that
(i) reduces material, social and human vulnerability;
(ii) increases knowledge about a society,
in particular about the strengths and weaknesses of its institutions
and conflict risks;
(iii) helps to develop the capacity of local
level State institutions, building State capacity from the bottom;
(iv) recognises the centrality of developing
services sensitive to gender, age, disability and HIV/AIDS;
(v) helps to develop the capacity of other
local level institutions and builds linkages with State institutions;
and
(vi) helps to develop the capacity for conflict-resolution
and reconciliation at a local level.
5. The DFID-funded Luanda Urban Poverty
Programme fits into this category. It is supported by the Department
for International Development. The current phase, LUPP started
in April 2003 and runs until September 2006, building on the experiences
of the first phase. A future phase is yet to be agreed.
6. To ensure that sustainable change is
made to reduce poverty, the capacity of citizens to demand their
rights to basic services and to dialogue with local authorities
needs to be strengthened. Active citizens need to be supported
to participate in planning processes for local services and local
authorities provided with technical and managerial support to
create the conditions for effective service delivery. LUPP is
achieving real impact both in terms of policy influencing as well
as making a difference at a practical level in the lives of poor
women, children and men. LUPP is making a difference to building
more accountable local governance in a very difficult environment.
LUPP is becoming a ground-breaking example of policy influencing
in a fragile state.
7. LUPP has opened spaces for state/citizen
engagement and has provided exposure at different levels to participatory
approaches to development. This is providing an environment for
debate and collaboration and is laying the foundations for accountability
mechanisms to emerge. To date the LUPP has been a successful initiative
in a post-conflict, fragile state. It has stressed the need to
strengthen governance at all levels to ensure that all Angolans
benefit from the growing economy. This focus echoes the conclusions
of the Commission for Africa and much of DFID's recent analysis—even
with economic growth and peace, poverty will not be reduced without
good governance.
FULL SUBMISSION
BY ONE
WORLD ACTION
TO THE
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
COMMITTEE
8. One World Action very much welcomes the
opportunity to contribute to the International Development Committee's
inquiry on "Conflict and Development", and to comment
on the effectiveness and external coherence of British policies
for peace-building and post-conflict reconstruction. We very much
agree with the need to develop stronger policies in this area
and conflict-sensitive ways of working.
9. We will base our comments and recommendations
on the experience of our work in Angola, which is a country emerging
from more than 40 years of conflict. One World Action has supported
partner organisations in Angola since our founding in 1990. Since
1999 One World Action has been a key partner in the Luanda Urban
Poverty Programme working with the Angolan agency Development
Workshop, our partner since 1990, as well as CARE UK and Save
the Children UK. Our submission is based on consultations with
our partner Development Workshop and our experience of working
in Angola since 1990. Part of the submission has been drafted
by an expert in peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction,
Paul Robson.
10. The DFID supported Luanda Urban Poverty
Programme has become an important example of a peacebuilding and
post-conflict reconstruction programme which has its roots in
work established during the conflict. We present this initiative
as key input into the International Development Committee's reflections
as a successful intervention in a fragile state.
11. It is now widely agreed that post-conflict
states have a high risk of reverting to open conflict in future.
Post-conflict states are usually fragile states, meaning that
they have weak institutions: they may have historically weak institutions
or institutions may have weakened because of conflict. The deep-seated
conflicts that led to an open and violent conflict are not necessarily
resolved by a peace agreement, cease-fire or military victory
by one side that bring a violent conflict to an end. It is also
now widely agreed that open, violent conflict (or instability)
in one state has high spill-over costs to neighbours and other
countries. It is now widely accepted that the end of open and
violent conflict is the opening of another phase of peace-building
and reconstruction. It is also widely accepted that policies and
practices in this phase of peace-building and reconstruction still
require further development, and that they need to be tailored
to each situation.
12. Angola has known conflict since 1961.
The first phase, from 1961 to 1974, was a war for independence
against Portugal that affected only small parts of Angola along
the eastern and northern borders. Successive cycles of conflict
since Independence in 1975 have affected most areas of the country
in some way and at some time (apart from the south-west coastal
areas). Short periods of relative peace (such as 1991 to 1992
and 1994 to 1998) have been followed by even higher levels of
violence.
13. Previous to 1989, the conflict in Angola
was part of the Cold War. Angola was seen as part of the Soviet
Block, and received limited attention from donor countries and
international agencies. Angola then received a high level of attention
from donor countries and international agencies subsequently,
particularly in the form of humanitarian assistance after 1992
when the first national elections resulted in a return to conflict.
DFID was among the donor agencies that engaged with Angola during
this period and, like a number of donors, also began to explore
ways of addressing development problems during complex emergencies.
14. Peace was achieved in 2002 after the
death of Jonas Savimbi, the leader of the rebel movement UNITA.
Since 2002 the amount of humanitarian aid has dramatically decreased,
which is not unexpected. However this has not been replaced by
other forms of aid. Without making formal announcements, most
donor agencies appear to be reducing or ending their programmes
in Angola. It would appear that DFID is also scaling down its
programmes in Angola. Angola risks becoming an "aid orphan",
just as its crucial post-conflict transition gets under way: donor
agencies make uncoordinated decisions to scramble for the exit
(and conversely make uncoordinated decisions to all work somewhere
else). It would appear to be still true that "Aid delivery
is fragmented, volatile and poorly coordinated".[92]
15. This tendency is of great concern, especially
in the context of the clear recommendations from the Commission
for Africa. It has been difficult to understand clearly the rationale
for this apparent change in donor policy. We are concerned that
there are three lines of thinking:
(i) that Angola is a difficult environment
to work and that many of the normal aid instruments are inappropriate;
(ii) that the situation in Angola is normalising
rapidly; and
(iii) that the Government of Angola's access
to oil revenues should allow it to rebuild damaged infrastructure
and provide services to its citizens, and that it is only unwillingness
on its part that prevents this happening.
We would like to discuss each of these assumptions.
16. We are concerned that, when discussing
Angola, donor agencies are still making reference to normal aid
instruments such as humanitarian aid, direct budgetary support
and basket funding. It is quite clear that the relevance of humanitarian
aid is declining rapidly in Angola, though there are still some
pockets of extreme need where it might be appropriate. It is also
quite clear that the time when direct budgetary support and basket
funding is appropriate in Angola is a long time in the future.
We are concerned that the difficulty in applying these normal
aid instruments to Angola may contribute to a decision to cease
work in Angola. We had understood that the recognition of the
need to develop policies for fragile and post-conflict states
was leading to efforts to develop new instruments and approaches,
but it is unclear how this is being applied in the case of Angola.
We are of the opinion that new approaches could be developed for
working in a difficult environment such as Angola. These would
require thought and planning by donor agencies and implementing
agencies in partnership, but would be worthwhile in terms of peace-building
and in developing knowledge of how to work in such contexts.
17. There has always been a dearth of social
research about Angola, both in the colonial and the post-Independence
periods. The humanitarian aid agencies developed a considerable
amount of knowledge about conditions in the country, but with
emphasis on information about numbers of refugees and internally
displaced people (as humanitarian agencies were expected to feed
these people). The winding down of the operations of agencies
such as OCHA and UNHCR means that there is now a scarcity of information
about conditions in parts of the country that were severely affected
by the war.
18. The fact that information collected
previously was about numbers of people who were displaced by war
has tended to lead to an assumption that when the war ends these
people can go back home and take up their lives where they left
off. It is often said, for example, that in 2003-04 four million
displaced people in Angola returned to their areas of origin.[93]
It is then assumed that these people have successfully "re-integrated",
that is that they have successfully re-established their economic
and social lives again. Detailed research reports that we have
seen about various areas of Angola suggest that only small proportion
of formerly displaced people have returned to their "areas
of origin". They also show that those who do return to war-affected
rural areas have great difficulty in re-establishing their livelihoods
as they lack tools, seeds and draft animals to re-establish agricultural
production. They also suffer from an absolute lack of other assets,
so that they have no assets on which to live while they are attempting
to re-establish an income from farming. In many areas small-scale
farmers have only succeeded in clearing a small proportion of
the land necessary for supporting a family and are producing much
less than a family's food needs. Refugees who have returned from
Zambia, assisted by UNHCR, have not been able to return to their
rural "areas of origin" in Moxico Province because there
is a large number of land-mines and the infrastructure has been
destroyed by 40 years of warfare. We would like to stress again
that the emphasis on the movements of population in much of the
data about Angola can lead to misleading assumptions: refugees
have returned from Zambia to Angola but they are often living
in difficult conditions in safe areas around towns and it is unclear
when they will be able to return to rural areas of origin and
rebuild a satisfactory livelihood.
19. Large numbers of people who have been
affected by war and have not returned to rural areas of origin
live in Angola by odd-jobs for other people (such as carrying
sacks in market-places or weeding fields) for a pay of about one
dollar per day. Those who have access to a small amount of capital
survive by retail trading in markets or the street, in both towns
and in rural areas. These are survival strategies and not livelihoods:
they barely provide sufficient for survival and certainly do not
permit any accumulation of capital. One survey in Huambo Province
showed that almost half of children eat only one meal per day.
This extreme poverty and vulnerability could lead to a scramble
for resources as part of survival strategies and thus create a
risk of renewed conflict. Areas where woodland is available for
charcoal making, or where there is the possibility of small-scale
diamond mining, already attract people from various areas and
there are signs of conflict between local people and those who
migrate to seek work. Institutions are weak and have difficulty
in mediating between these different groups with different interests.
The highly militarised situation in Cabinda and the diamond areas
is a reflection of conflicts between national and local interests
about access to resource rents in a situation where the majority
of the population are poor and vulnerable.
20. While it is true that the Government
of Angola does have access to oil revenues, and that these are
likely to increase in future, this does not necessarily mean that
its failure to re-establish services since the end of the war
is due to an "unwillingness" to provide services. The
Government of Angola lacks many of the other capacities that are
required to provide basic services, and this is hardly surprising
at the end of a long period of conflict: there is no experience,
in the colonial period or post-Independence, in community-level
reconstruction or development programmes. Nor is it clear that
the withdrawal of donor support, or the threat to do so, will
work as a form of conditionality that will spur the Government
of Angola to a greater willingness to provide basic services.
The Government of Angola is more likely to draw the conclusion
that donor agencies are unreliable. This conditionality approach
(of rewarding countries with relatively effective governments
and thus neglecting fragile states) is no longer supposed to be
policy, though does appear to be still being applied in the case
of Angola. We are concerned that donor agencies, including DFID
may be missing a vital opportunity for post-conflict peace-building
in Angola.
21. We therefore support the priorities
for working in fragile states outlined in DFID's document "Why
we need to work more effectively in fragile states" of January
2005, in particular the efforts for an international framework
for the way in which donors and international organisations engage
with fragile states. We welcome efforts to reach agreement among
bilateral donors about who does what, and where, with respect
to fragile states. We would welcome greater clarity from the British
Government about the outcome of the Senior Level Forum on Effectiveness
in Fragile States (in London in January 2005) and the Millennium
Review Summit (of September 2005) in working towards such a framework
and agreement. We would welcome further information from the British
Government about what further steps are proposed towards such
a framework and agreement following the Senior Level Forum on
Effectiveness in Fragile States and the Millennium Review Summit.
22. We welcome the commitment of DFID, in
the above document, to work with partners to meet the challenge
of fragile states. As a DFID partner working in a post-conflict
fragile state, we would welcome a clearer framework for dialogue
with DFID about its policies and approach.
23. We welcome the commitment of DFID, in
the above document, to provide more DFID staff to work on fragile
states and to deepen understanding of such states. We would welcome
further information from DFID about how this commitment has been
taken forward for each post-conflict fragile state.
24. We agree with the view of DFID (outlined
in "Why we need to work more effectively in fragile states")
that not every donor can work in every post-conflict or fragile
state. Where DFID has decided not to give priority to a particular
post-conflict fragile state, we would welcome a statement about
why this decision has been taken and what expectation there is
of other bilateral donors or international organisations taking
the lead in each case.
25. We welcome the fact that bilateral donors
and international organisations increasingly follow an approach
that emphasises the capacity of States in Low-Income Countries,
and emphasises the ability of the State to provide what citizens
need to lead decent lives. We welcome programmes by international
organisations to assist States to develop their capacity to manage
the economy and, in particular, resource flows from extractive
industries.[94]
However we would like to stress that it may take a long time for
the benefits from these programmes to trickle down to the majority
of citizens of these States, who are thus likely to remain in
extreme poverty for many years unless there are programmes that
provide them with more immediate opportunities to rebuild their
basic assets, develop their skills and provide access to basic
services.
26. We would also like to stress that fragile
states are often a reflection of fragile societies. Weak State
institutions are often a reflection of local level institutional
weakness: for example, weak local government, or customary institutions
that have failed to adapt to changing circumstances or develop
relationships with formal institutions. Institutional capacity
often needs to be developed at a local level. Furthermore national
level conflict can often be a reflection of many local level tensions
and conflicts: reconciliation in post-conflict states needs to
occur at a local level as well as at the national level, and causes
of conflict (such as competition for access to resources and weak
institutional capacity to manage it) need to be dealt with at
a local level as well as at a national level. War (and particularly
a prolonged war) is likely to have further weakened institutional
capacity and created new causes of conflict (for example where
population movements and destruction of former employment opportunities
have created new foci of competition for scarce resources).
27. Thus while we welcome the emphasis on
the capacity of States, we would like to stress that the local
level should not be neglected. Working at a local level in a fragile
state implies to some extent bypassing central government and
working through other channels, and we welcome DFID's work in
studying alternative methods of service delivery in fragile states.
We recognise that there is a risk that donors and international
organisations working directly at a local level will simply relieve
the national government of its responsibilities: however this
should be balanced against the risk that capacity-building and
reconciliation at a national level may be undermined by neglect
of the local level.
28. We would like to stress that alternative
methods of service delivery should not be seen in a humanitarian
framework simply because they are working to some extent outside
state structures. We would like to stress that working at a local
level should not mean uncoordinated projects that are not part
of a broader development strategy. We believe that it is possible
for bilateral donors and international organisations, in partnership
with others, to work at a local level in a way that
(i) reduces material, social and human vulnerability;
(ii) increases knowledge about a society,
in particular about the strengths and weaknesses of its institutions
and conflict risks;
(iii) helps to develop the capacity of local
level State institutions, building State capacity from the bottom;
(iv) recognises the centrality of developing
services sensitive to gender, age, disability and HIV/AIDS;
(v) helps to develop the capacity of other
local level institutions and builds linkages with State institutions;
and
(vi) helps to develop the capacity for conflict-resolution
and reconciliation at a local level.
29. The DFID-funded Luanda Urban Poverty
Programme fits into this category. The Luanda Urban Poverty
Programme (LUPP) has been ongoing since 1999, implemented by four
international NGOs—CARE International, Development Workshop
(DW), Save the Children UK and One World Action. It is supported
by the Department for International Development. The current phase,
LUPP2, started in April 2003 and runs until September 2006, building
on the experiences of the first phase. It is uncertain if there
will be support for the next important phase of work. LUPP2 is
implemented in four of nine municipalities in Luanda.
30. To ensure that sustainable change is
made to reduce poverty, the capacity of citizens to demand their
rights to basic services and to dialogue with local authorities
needs to be strengthened. Active citizens need to be supported
to participate in planning processes for local services and local
authorities provided with technical and managerial support to
create the conditions for effective service delivery. In short,
there must be a focus on the interface of effective state institutions
with active citizenship.
31. Civil society needs to grow in capacity
to articulate demands for poverty reduction and to enhance dialogue
and engagement with local government. Poverty reduction cannot
be achieved without significant changes in the profound inequalities
that exist in Angola and without bringing in the many groups that
are currently socially excluded.
32. Implementation of the decentralisation
process and inclusion of key Millennium Development Goals (ie
health and education) in the Government of Angola's own programmes
provide great opportunities and entry points to continue to promote
pro-poor policies and good governance in Angola. To support the
Government of Angola's own plan to reduce poverty will require
a great deal of drive and commitment and the allocation of funds
at the lower administrative levels. Most importantly it will require
active citizens to be organised, able to articulate demands and
to plan and dialogue with local government. It is essential that
countries which benefit from Angola's oil wealth also invest in
more effective systems to ensure that economic growth is inclusive
and narrows the increasing gap between rich and poor.
33. LUPP partners work in collaboration
with the Government of Angola to support the government to meet
its declared goal of halving poverty levels by 2015. The programme
is implemented in partnership with civil society organisations,
NGOs, service providers and government departments/ministries.
LUPP engages to promote pro-poor policies, especially in seeking
to guarantee the provision of basic services to Angolan citizens.
34. The purpose of LUPP2 is to influence
equitable, inclusive, pro-poor policies and best practices for
Angola for poverty reduction in urban Luanda. The policy influencing
agenda is the overarching framework of the programme. LUPP seeks
to influence poverty reduction in Luanda by:
— Demonstrating effective, sustainable,
inclusive and replicable best practice strategies (models, methods
and approaches) for basic service delivery (water, sanitation,
rubbish collection, community créches), livelihood support
(micro-credit, savings, Business Development Services (BDS) and
consumer cooperatives), social capital, governance and poverty
reduction more generally which can be effectively replicated in
poor urban areas to bring about positive change in the lives of
poor urban families;
— Facilitating active learning and
understanding on urban poverty issues and policies by key stakeholders
and producing strategic information on the lessons, messages and
methods emerging from the models and approaches, adapted to demands
for policy relevant information;
— Strengthening the commitment and
capacity of local authorities and civil society to promote and
implement inclusive and participatory local development;
— Promoting greater engagement, inclusion
and accountability between government and civil society on urban
issues, largely through the creation of spaces in which different
actors can come into contact with the lessons, messages and methods,
absorb their implications and take forward the work of integrating
them into policy and practice.
35. Achievements to date
LUPP is achieving real impact both in terms
of policy influencing at a strategic level as well as making a
difference at a practical level in the lives of poor women, children
and men. LUPP has a proven track record of making a difference
to building more accountable local governance in a very difficult
environment. LUPP is becoming a ground-breaking example of policy
influencing in an extremely difficult environment in a fragile
state. LUPP has brought together methodologies and approaches
in micro finance, water and sanitation, business development services,
participatory urban governance and early childhood development
that have become models for the Government of Angola, non-government
and private sector actors and are being replicated in Luanda and
beyond.
36. LUPP has opened spaces for state/citizen
engagement and has provided exposure at different levels to participatory
approaches to development. This is providing an environment for
debate and collaboration and is laying the foundations for accountability
mechanisms to emerge. At the same time it is creating opportunities
to change existing power relations and the formal and informal
rules of the game. In some cases local government is listening
and taking action based on concerns raised.
37. LUPP's development of best practice,
community-managed approaches to basic service provision and livelihood
support is providing practical solutions for poverty reduction
and is having a real impact at the household and community level.
38. LUPP is empowering ordinary people.
It is successfully building up alliances and networks from the
various community based organisations. These are leading to increased
participation and giving voice to poor people so that they can
start to claim their rights. There is evidence of increased confidence,
rights awareness & information sharing, and working to find
solutions independently from LUPP.
39. To date the LUPP has been a successful
initiative in a post-conflict, fragile state. It has stressed
the need to strengthen governance at all levels to ensure that
all Angolans benefit from the growing economy. This focus echoes
the conclusions of the Commission for Africa and much of DFID's
recent analysis—even with economic growth and peace, poverty
will not be reduced without good governance.
40. Notwithstanding the challenging context,
LUPP's experiences over the past six years have identified entry
points that could help to have an impact on reducing poverty as
measured by the MDGs. The Campaign Against Poverty is one of the
two top goals for the Government of Angola in its medium term
plan. However, how the Angolan Government can address poverty
is not as clear. LUPP is a goldmine of practical approaches to
reducing poverty and fills a gap for the Government of Angola
in understanding how to address complex issues of urban poverty.
Various levels of government have already shown interest in replicating
LUPP approaches.
41. LUPP's experiences over the past six
years have been impressive and in particular in their capacity
to bring citizens closer to Municipal authorities for joint planning.
The Programme has shown that it is possible, even in the difficult
environment of a fragile state, to enhance dialogue at the interface
between citizens and state. LUPP has had considerable success
in helping citizens to organise into representative groups and
work together with Municipal Administrations to plan for services.
As Municipal Administrations have become more confident about
these methodologies, their enthusiasm has grown and LUPP has provided
technical support to Municipal Administrations from 17 of the
18 Provinces of the country.
42. Over the next three years, if support
can be agreed, LUPP will build on existing gains with a focus
on promoting pro-poor policies and service delivery through active
citizenship and more accountable governance. The Programme will
shift emphasis towards creating sustainable capacity within Municipal
Administrations and the Provincial Government. At the same time,
it will reinforce the capacity of citizens' organisations to negotiate
for their rights to basic services and participation in democratic
processes.
43. There will be many new elements to the
Programme for the next three years, including:
— Reinforcing the capacity of Municipal
Administrations to monitor poverty as well as of and the Provincial
Government to consolidate data and monitor this against the MDGs.
This should increase the motivation of the Luanda Provincial Government
(GPL) to impact on poverty.
— Strengthening active citizens' organisations
to analyse and monitor budgets at local level.
— Building new alliances with the private
as well as public sector and community managers in scaling up
the provision of basic services drawing on LUPP models.
— A greater focus on the extremely
poor (the poorest 25%) and socially excluded, including appropriate
micro finance products and social safety nets.
— A stronger emphasis on those infected
and affected by HIV/AIDS with a focus on youth-friendly Reproductive
Health and HIV related services, as young people are the group
most at-risk.
— Active research and advocacy on decentralisation
as new legislation and elected local authorities will be established
during the next five years. LUPP is in a very strong position
to lobby to enshrine participation in new legislation and approaches.
44. A World Bank document[95]
gives other examples of local level programmes that fit into a
broader development strategy. The design and sequencing of such
programmes will need to take into account the particular circumstances
of each country, in particular how and when local level activities
will interact with national level activities. However we believe
that the effort of designing and implementing such programmes
will produce benefits in stabilising post-conflict situations.
45. We would like to draw attention to the
fact that there is a gap in the mandates of international organisations
for working in post-conflict states. The tendency is for agencies
such as UNHCR, OCHA and WFP to withdraw soon after the end of
conflict but long before refugees, displaced people and the demobilised
have effectively resettled and rebuilt satisfactory livelihoods.
These agencies have a capacity for working in difficult environments:
they have, for example, a logistical capacity and a pool of staff
with willingness and experience to work in remote areas where
services have not been re-established, which is usually the case
for prolonged periods in areas where refugees and displaced people
are resettling. International agencies such as UNDP and the World
Bank have a development perspective but do not have this capacity
for working in difficult environments. We would strongly recommend
that the British Government work with other donor countries to
find ways to bridge this gap in the mandates of international
organisations. In the meantime we would urge DFID, in coordination
with other donors, to ensure that international agencies with
a capacity for difficult environments, such as UNHCR, OCHA and
WFP, have adequate funding to accompany the resettlement and re-integration
of returning refugees, the demobilised and displaced people.
46. We would like to recommend that DFID
analyse more carefully the question of State willingness and capacity.
States with resource rents, and thus apparently financial capacity,
may lack the many other capacities that are required to develop,
manage and supervise effective public services, such as schools
and health posts and agricultural extension, that have to be delivered
in small units spread over vast areas. In fact the difficulties
for states that apparently have financial capacity, because of
resource rents, can be greater than for other states because of
the high expectations.[96]
We would therefore like to recommend that care be taken with the
concept of unwilling states. We would also like to warn against
the risk of a "dialogue of the deaf" between the British
Government and a post-conflict fragile state: many post-conflict
fragile states believe that they have often received bad advice
from the international community and are reluctant to receive
advice from the international community if it is delivered in
the form of criticism and unless it is based on good evidence
and fully-developed arguments. We recommend that the British Government
continue to deepen their local knowledge of post-conflict fragile
states and their analysis of how their capacities can be strengthened.
47. We would like to draw attention to the
fact that certain post-conflict states have important extractive
industries and thus potentially important resource rents. We would
also like to draw attention to the extensive academic literature
that shows the challenges that extractive industries pose for
fragile states: the difficulties that fragile institutions have
in managing the expectations of local people for immediate benefits
the risk that local people come to place demands directly on foreign-owned
extractive industries and the risks of conflict that can result
(as in the Niger Delta). We would recommend that DFID work with
British-owned extractive industries working in such areas so as
to develop a clearer vision and commitment for how they will work
in such situations, where government lacks the capacity to meet
the expectations of local people in providing benefits from large-scale
extractive industry projects.
January 2006
92 As is stated in "Why we need to work more
effectively in fragile states" Published by the Department
for International Development, January 2005. Back
93
For example, in the World Bank "Interim strategy note for
Angola" of January 2005. Back
94
Such as the Extractive Industries Initiative and World Bank programmes
to build national capacity. Back
95
World Bank "Making aid work in fragile states: cases studies
of effective aid-financed programmes". 2004. Back
96
Myers, K (2005). Petroleum, poverty and security. London, Chatham
House. Back
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