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CORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 923-v House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE international development committee
peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction
Wednesday 10 May 2006 DR NEIL COOPER, PROFESSOR MIKE PUGH and DR JONATHAN GOODHAND Evidence heard in Public Questions 209 - 262
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the International Development Committee on Wednesday 10 May 2006 Members present Malcolm Bruce, in the Chair John Barrett John Battle John Bercow Richard Burden Mr Jeremy Hunt Ann McKechin Mr Marsha Singh ________________ Witnesses: Dr Neil Cooper and Professor Mike Pugh, Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford; and Dr Jonathan Goodhand, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; gave evidence. Q209 Chairman: Good afternoon, gentlemen. Thank you very much for coming in and agreeing to give evidence to us. As you will be aware, the Committee is conducting an inquiry to produce a report on peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction. We have had a debate about conflict prevention, but that is where we are focusing. Obviously, we have had submissions from you and we have publications where you have given your views, which are very helpful to us. I think what we hope we can do at the end of this is make some constructive suggestions from the different strands as to how in a post-conflict situation we might prevent it from falling back and build a successful peace, which is easy to say and not so easy to bring about. Perhaps, just to start - and I am addressing this to Bradford University, but please all feel free to answer - one of the things that you stress, which seems perfectly reasonable and I think even from the evidence we have taken so far we are aware of, is the regional dimension to all this. There is a tendency to say that there is a problem in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) or there is a problem in Rwanda, or whatever it may be, when in reality the problem is in the region and there is a lot of cross-border activity. You are saying that really we need to have a regional approach, a regional solution, but how could you actually do this in practice; how can you take this forward, do you have some clear ideas? I have read your analysis but I am not entirely sure of the prescription. Professor Pugh: Each context is different, clearly, but in some contexts it may be possible to bring the various parties, including the neighbouring countries, to the table, as has been attempted with the DRC in the Sun City process, for example. This may be a very tall order in some circumstances because the hostilities between various parties may not make it possible. I think the main aim really is to get the external actors, in this case the British Government departments, involved, to think more regionally, actually to recognise that there are regional dimensions to many of these conflicts, and that it is a bit short-sighted to consider the conflicts as simply being contained within a particular state because, as you say, there is a lot of cross-border activity and we are seeing that in the DRC, we have seen it in the DRC. Thinking in a regional way is something which needs to be pursued. I would make a kind of not a model but a recommendation to look at how the EU operates in its particular circumstances, and obviously they are quite different, but in the circumstances of south-east Europe I think the EU has made some really quite interesting initiatives, but I can talk about that subsequently. Dr Cooper: Basically I think to reiterate the point that part of it is about having a mental map of a conflict, or a post-conflict society, which includes that regional dimension. Obviously, because we live in a very statist system and states operate in relation to other states a lot of the time, that mental map simply is not there. I think it is important to be sensitive to the regional dimensions of both the conflict and the post-conflict situations, so that you are in a position to take advantage of opportunities to develop regional levels of co-operation to address specific issues or a set of issues. For instance, if you look at Sierra Leone and the diamond sector in Sierra Leone, whilst there have been certain successes, post-conflict, in addressing governance issues in Sierra Leone, it seems to me that you cannot look at the diamond sector in Sierra Leone without taking a regional perspective and looking at what is happening at the moment in Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire and relationships with Guinea. To some extent, that is going on and I think certainly DFID on the ground is acutely aware of that, but I think also there are areas where you could argue that it would be pushed even further. Dr Goodhand: I want to talk about an experience I had recently, which was leading a conflict assessment in Sri Lanka, funded by the British, the Swedes, the Dutch and the World Bank. One of the key things which came out of that, and it was an analysis of the peace process over the last five years, was the over-internationalisation of that process and that internationalisation actually led to a kind of allergic reaction in Sri Lankan society, a reaction against the perception that sovereignty was being eroded, particularly from some of the spoilers, some of the national groups in the south. Based on that analysis, we argued that there was a need to think more about regionalising the peace process. In particular, the role of India comes out very critically and it has been a point of continuity for many years, it is not an introverted civil war, there is a strong regional dimension. The role of India as a potential peace-maker, with potentially quite a lot of leverage I think was something that we argued strongly for, and it had a comparative advantage because it did not lead to the same type of reaction within Sri Lankan society. For instance, Marxist groups in India could have a dialogue with the JVP[1], the Marxist nationalists in Sri Lanka, who were very much opposed to the peace process. There is a range of other things which could be explored, for instance, looking at regional models of governance and development, rather than pushing what was perceived, at least in Sri Lanka, as a very near-liberal kind of agenda. There are a number of practical things, in that particular case, which one could have done, if one looked at it in a more regional way. Q210 Chairman: You mentioned diamonds in the context of Sierra Leone but I was interested to see that the export of diamonds from Rwanda and Uganda rose as the conflict rose in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in spite of the fact that neither of those countries has any diamond production. Did not anybody ask any questions? You commented on the Balkans. I happened to be involved in a conference with Balkan parliamentarians a couple of week ago and a point being made was that before the collapse of the previous regime, effectively, there were two countries in the Balkans and now probably we are about to have ten. You mentioned the EU, and there was a sense of preparing for accession to the EU, but that created a negative response, "We're only doing this to please the EU," and many of us were trying to say, "Actually, I hope you're doing it for your own well-being." In other words, forget the EU is there. Kosovo can be independent tomorrow and yet it will also still be totally dependent on its neighbours. What concerns me is the extent to which external forces, whether it is, in that context, the EU or the African Union (AU) or DFID, which has an engagement in African countries, or Sri Lanka, can actually impose that sort of regional dimension, as opposed to it growing organically, and how we can help it to happen. The two questions are: were we not complicit and just accepted what was going on in DRC; secondly, how do we create a regional solution without appearing to be imposing external forces? Dr Cooper: On the first question, did not anybody ask any questions, certainly I have been asking exactly that question for quite some time and I think a number of NGOs, like Global Witness, have been raising these issues. It is not an issue which I think has just had traction with the Government and with key external actors. It has meant that in some ways now we have got quite an odd sanctions regime around conflict diamonds, in that you have a situation at the moment where Liberia is still under sanction, although it is still firmly at peace, but, as you say, Uganda and Rwanda have never experienced any sanctions whatsoever. Q211 Chairman: Is that because they are the aid community sweethearts, or at least the Government? Dr Cooper: That is the obvious explanation, that they are the aid community sweethearts, and I guess there is a difficult balancing act to be made here, to be fair, that you have got to look at not just one particular dimension of your relationships with a country, and DFID and the Government are involved in balancing a whole set of criteria. What it has meant, in this particular case at least, is that it has led to certain anomalies, in terms of the kind of overall sanctions regimes on conflict diamonds. Professor Pugh: On south-east Europe, I think that is an interesting point of view, because it challenges the apparent orthodoxy, which is that everybody politically, certainly in Bosnia, is in favour of signing up to the EU as soon as possible. Q212 Chairman: Not everybody I spoke to. Professor Pugh: This is interesting. Certainly the former Office of the High Representative (OHR) thinks that this is a vision which is dragging everybody along. I think one of the points to make is that the illicit economy, the shadow economy, in its various forms, is not statist and in fact is regional, and that operates often without regard to ethnic cleavages and state divisions and there is a lot of co-operation in the illicit economy, so you do have regional activity going on. There are politicians who think that, provided you do not recreate the old Yugoslav free trade area, actually a free trade area is going to come about eventually and all it needs is formalisation. Not only do they have free trade agreements with each other but also they are engaged with the Central European Free Trade Area. In some respects, you could argue that a local evolution towards a customs union, for example, is more achievable than the singularity of bilateral accession to the EU, which, in a way, is divisive anyway. One of the things which puzzle me is the extent to which the attempt by the EU to get the local actors to develop economically together is countering or an obstacle to bilateral accession, because it is not clear to me whether one is expected to proceed to the other, or indeed whether bilateral accession is supposed to be conditional on regional integration. I think that is something which the EU needs to work out in much greater detail. Q213 Richard Burden: Could we explore a little bit more perhaps what you mean when you talk about regional conflict complexes; to some extent that is what you have been talking about so far. I am still not entirely clear whether you are constructing that as a model or you are saying actually there is far too much preoccupation just to swap over to a statist model, or, in the case of Sri Lanka, an over-internationalist response, so whether it is a kind of warning shot, saying do not make assumptions, every situation is different and there is probably going to be a regional dimension to it. That is fine, if that is what it is saying; whether you are saying that plus and there are certain characteristics of regional dimensions which can be fairly common across different situations. Which of those is it, or is it a combination of the two? Professor Pugh: I think part of the answer is going to be a rather theoretical one, I am afraid, that in international relations theory there is a well-established methodology for looking at regional complexes. Certainly I think, and I do not know whether the other two would agree with me here, that you could apply that also to regional conflict complexes. In fact, I have got a student who is currently mapping regional conflict complexes to try to give it a stronger basis in theory and also to develop a typology. I suppose my end answer is going to be that it needs more research. There is a theoretical basis for regional political activity and there seems to me no reason why that could not also be applied to conflict complexes. Secondly, in answer to the other part of your question, there are elements which conflict complexes seem to have in common and these are economic interactions, political interactions, social interactions and military interactions. If I take just one of those, the military interactions can range from arms smuggling and armaments which circulate around a region from one hot spot to another, to mercenary activity, for instance, where mercenaries who have been engaged in one conflict, that conflict simmers down, for whatever reason, and they move on to the next one and it kind of perpetuates conflict within the region. Dr Cooper: Just to illustrate that point, West Africa and the Mano River Union sub-region is a perfect example of that mercenary activity. What you have had is that a group of mercenaries have moved around from conflict to conflict and have been part of the problem. It seems to me that simply launching nationally-based DDR[2] programmes does not address that problem totally. At some level you need a regional focus to think through the fact that you have got this group of actors who are moving across borders, and who are not the only reason which is bringing about conflicts but they are part of a set of factors which are facilitating the next conflict which is going to happen next-door. On this issue of regional conflict formations more generally, I do not think we are saying that the regional conflict formation perspective necessarily offers a superior level of explanation than, say, taking a state perspective, or indeed a global perspective. What I think we are arguing is that you need to do all three and I think, traditionally, that regional perspective has been underemphasised, at least, in the past. Q214 Richard Burden: I understand what you are saying there, but when to refer to region, this may be me just being a bit of a pedant about terminology, is there a danger, in what you are saying, that there it could actually lead to a fairly externally-imposed or oversimplified view of what a region is, that people decide, "Well, actually, we now need to have a regional perspective on this"? Whereas, actually, half the time there will not be a consensus on what the region actually is. Okay, Great Lakes, you could say there is an issue about that. If you looked up the situation in, say, Darfur, Sudan, and so on, certainly a purely statist view is not appropriate, but if you said you needed a regional perspective, what is the region? Is that fair? Dr Goodhand: This is a sort of classic problem in the area I am looking at now, which is the case of Afghanistan. There is theoretical literature which disagrees on this and what are the outer borders of this conflict system. In fact, it merges with two conflict systems, the South Caucuses and the Central Asia conflict systems actually touch on each other. It is a problem. Also, it is dynamic, it is changing constantly. Tajikistan, the conflict there has been addressed somewhat and so it is less part of that system now, that Pakistan is becoming much more of an issue, but I do not think because it is difficult to map. The three comparative studies we have been looking at show there are a number of common characteristics which are unique to regional, transnational flows and resources, and if you do not look at them in those terms you are going to miss something. Q215 John Battle: In your paper[3], I was incredibly struck by two phrases; was it, the narcissism of minor difference, that you have got almost like warring tribes or different faith groups and then you have to try to do intense work to get them to talk to each other. There was another phrase, the narcissism of gratuitous violence, and I am not quite sure whether it is the minor differences within a territory or it is gratuitous violence which is stronger. I am getting a slight impression; are there people, particularly in Africa, who inhabit the shadows of the borderlands, in gangs, I think one of the phrases in the paper was that there were dope fiends and pot heads, I think it was, "pot heads, dope fiends, the mad and the bad." Are we dealing with that; is that the majority of the problem, or is it minor differences which become built into such regional differences and nationalistic differences that we have much more work to do on the ground attending to the detail of that, rather than saying it is psychopaths really? Are the psychopaths a big problem? Dr Cooper: No, and in fact the paper, when it was using those terms, was using them to illustrate an argument which then we were trying to demolish, to a certain extent. I think our position is that this representation of war economies in conflict zones as zones of anarchy, populated by barbaric actors who are endemically criminal, is problematic, that now there is quite a lot of political economy literature which demonstrates that actually a lot of actors in conflict zones are acting fairly rationally. You have got different sets of actors as well within the political economy. The kind of topology that we come up with is one where, for instance, and it is not the only one you could come up with, you can distinguish between a sort of warlord economy, which directly fuels military activity, and then you have got a kind of mafia economy, which is one which is criminal and may well involve collaboration with the warlords but is geared more towards profit-making. Then you may have a coping economy where you have ordinary folk, who are simply trying to get by, in the middle of a conflict, but nevertheless engaging in some sort of shadow economic activity, which in and of itself, in some way, may be supporting the war economy. I think it is important to make those conceptual distinctions and to try to think through - which is the harder task - how that might have implications for policy-making during conflict and after conflict. Q216 Mr Hunt: With the greatest respect to your scholarship, I wonder if I could challenge you just a little bit, because it does seem to me that Africa is full of people who are very good at analysing the problem, but what I am really interested in is alternative suggestions as to what could actually be done. It seems to me that you are saying one of two things. You are saying there is a regional element to conflicts, which at one level is so banal I do not think you would find anyone who would disagree with that, and certainly no-one in DFID, and certainly no-one in DFID for the last 20, 30 years would disagree with that, so I think we can all accept that. This business of the difference between the statist model and the regional conflict complex, the reason that we have a statist model, if we call it that, is because states are all we have to deal with; they are pretty fragile. There are no sub-regional organisations with any power or influence that one could deal with as an alternative to that. To take an example, for instance, Rwanda 1994, the Congo has clearly suffered from the Interahamwe, who went across the border, and that has caused huge instability in the Congo. There is very little differently, it seems to me, that DFID or the UK Government could have done except to deal with Rwanda in the way we did; we did not have a state to deal with in the Congo, we still hardly have a state to deal with in the Congo. I understand you saying, although, I must admit, it does not give me great enthusiasm, that we need to think differently about the problems, but what do we need to do differently about the problems? Dr Cooper: You are absolutely right, this is a statist system that we are living and working in and so, at some level, inevitably one gets into a position where policy has to be directed at state actors and through statist institutions. Nevertheless, it seems to me that there are opportunities there for promoting regional-level initiatives, where it is possible, and actually having that regional dimension informing both the policy that you are pursuing at the state level and at the global level. Q217 Mr Hunt: With respect, is not that exactly what Hilary Benn has just been doing in Abuja? I think he spends his whole time trying to get countries to talk to each other. I have absolutely no doubt that he will be talking to Rwanda to tell them that they need to help attract back the Interahamwe, so that becomes a Rwandan problem, not a Congolese problem. I am just not really sure what he should be doing differently, on the basis of your analysis? Dr Cooper: If I concretise it, in terms of Sierra Leone and Kimberley, which is the issue with which I am more familiar. One of the things which I think it is important to do at the moment, with respect to the Mano River sub-region, is that you have a situation where Liberia is currently under sanction on diamonds and what is holding up the lifting of those sanctions is the preparation to get it compliant with the Kimberley system. At the moment in Sierra Leone, at the same time what you have is a lot of people lauding the success of the Kimberley certification system and how it has been operating in Sierra Leone, and you have got these statistics showing the rise and rise and rise of official exports from Sierra Leone. It seems to me that actually there are a number of factors which explain that rise in official export statistics which are not down just to the operation of Kimberley, and one of those factors is the operation of the regional political economy. What you have is a regional political economy at the moment which is actually conducive to the import of diamonds into Sierra Leone. You have an embargo on Liberia, so there is incentive for actors in Liberia to put diamonds through to Sierra Leone. You have an embargo in Côte d'Ivoire, so most of the diamonds probably are not going into Sierra Leone from Côte d'Ivoire but some of them will leak in there as well. This raises a question, therefore, about what you do now with Liberia. You have an opportunity here to address the political economy dynamics, which are going to change when the Liberian embargo gets lifted, how that is going to change the political economy, the incentives for people to move diamonds through the official export system in Sierra Leone. It seems to me that what the externals should be doing is using this opportunity to push through a regional dimension on the regulation and taxation of diamond exports, so that you do not get into a sort of beggar thy neighbour situation, which is a potential risk at the moment. To give you just one example, a short while ago in Sierra Leone the Government threatened to raise export taxes on local exporters, and they did not actually do it but even the mere threat of the fact that they were going to do it led to a significant rise in official exports from Guinea. That is the kind of regional perspective which needs to be operated and those are the kinds of ways in which, in practical terms, you need to think through how you can make a difference. Professor Pugh: Given that one of the main problems about this kind of regional conflict phenomenon is displacement, in fact you may stop illicit resource exploitation in one area and it just gets displaced to somewhere else. It seems to me that one of the things which needs to be looked at is how one can create incentives to restructure the trafficking and either eliminate it and regulate it or replace it with something legal. To give you a concrete example, again it seems to me, and I agree with Neil's response to your question about the thugs and drugs idea being very problematic, that the opportunists who take advantage of these situations often make use of differential tax and duty rates, and so building some kind of attempt to harmonise tax rates and duties, and that kind of thing, would be a positive step. Dr Cooper: Just to pick up on the displacement point as well, I think another thing which comes from taking a regional analysis is that it can encourage you to think through the consequences of a state-based policy. I think sometimes there is a tendency on the part of externals to think through, "Right, we've initiated one policy, and that's the policy and that's it," and not think through how local actors on the ground are going to react to that policy and adapt to that policy. One needs to be thinking ahead of the game and thinking, "Well, what is going to happen if we adopt policy X in state Y?" and very often the answer will be that it may produce some form of displacement within the broader region, and so you need to be ahead of the game and thinking about that all the time. Dr Goodhand: Just to back that up, there is this thing about the opportunity costs of not thinking and acting regionally and developing policy in those terms. One can argue, for instance, the Bonn Agreement, there was not enough consideration of regional factors. Just one example was refugee return to Afghanistan and there were two million refugees returned in the first year, which caused all sorts of issues around money being diverted for humanitarian rather than for reconstruction needs. Not thinking sufficiently about what was happening in one country and how incentives lead to effects in another country. There is a long history of this, in terms of drugs; eradication of drugs in Pakistan in the 1980s was one of the driving factors which led to the growth of the opium economy in Afghanistan. My observation of development donors working in and on Afghanistan is that they do not talk enough of what their country does in Pakistan; they really are very country-centric in the way they develop policies. Q218 John Barrett: To follow up that point, is one of the reasons why the actions they are taking can be so country-centric, rather than regional-centric, that the donors actually have long-term, post-colonial links to individual countries and that what is needed in fact is better co-ordination between donors, whether it is Liberia and Sierra Leone or the Sudan and Chad? We have got to think from a donor's perspective, and maybe through DFID, that rather than concentrating on that country with which we have had the long-established link let us look on a regional basis and get together with donors who maybe have stronger links with other countries in that same region and make sure that developments do not happen on a state basis, that they can be then co-ordinated? Professor Pugh: Yes, I could not agree more. I think that is a really important point. Q219 John Barrett: Do you think there are actions that DFID or the Government here should be taking with other donors, to make sure that we can learn from mistakes in the past and move things on in the future? Professor Pugh: I think that is certainly the case and I am sure Jonathan has got good examples from Afghanistan of how this competition between donors on this is counterproductive. Also, if I can come back to the EU, which is perhaps the most advanced regionalisation policy available to us, the CARDS system which applies to south-east Europe, of that money which is spent on post-conflict reconstruction, or has been spent, only 10% goes towards fostering regional co-operation and interregional economic activity. The rest, the other 90 %, goes to each specific country, individually. I think that the emphasis could be adjusted so that there is more weight in the donor community towards funding, for example, transport or infrastructure projects, which would tie them closer together. There is also an issue to do with borderlands, which we think are really important. One of the things about borderlands is that often they are dismissed as being beyond the scope of central government and therefore out of control, they are the site of illegal activity, it is where refugees are, it is marginalised, and so on. If one could try to think of ways in which those borderlands could be more productive, ways in which border-lands could actually open up opportunities for more legal activity between countries then that would be thinking in a much more positive way than we do at the moment about borderlands. Dr Goodhand: One should not forget that regional donors are actually quite significant, as well as international donors, and the role of Iran in Pakistan and Turkey, they are significant actors economically in Afghanistan. There are two practical things one could think about, to bring in this regional perspective. One is regional conflict assessments, to try to do assessments which are regionally informed; secondly, developing regional specialisms. My observation of aid donors in Afghanistan is that they are around for six months to one year, the individuals, and they are recycling all the time, so there is not really any deep, regional expertise being developed. One of the implications of taking regional perspective seriously, unless you are doing something about it, is developing the expertise in-house, so, if you are transferring people, transfer them within the region so they develop a level of expertise and engagement within the region. 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 ten 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 entrepôt 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, à la Von Mises or Alfred Marshall, or pure socialism, à 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. Q240 John Bercow: I am very glad, Dr Cooper, that you did refer to a follow-on initiative; in other words, one is making the point not that such an initiative should not be undertaken but that it is perhaps a necessary rather than a sufficient condition for progress. Dr Cooper: Absolutely. Q241 John Bercow: Mr Barrett, Mr Battle and I went to Sierra Leone recently and they must speak for themselves but for my part I felt uplifted but only very modestly and my feeling was really that the country had gone from being violent, poor and corrupt to being non-violent, poor and corrupt. There is an anti-corruption commission there but it has got a lot of work still to do. On the assumption, which I think I can now take as read, that you accept that private sector development is pretty important to the promotion of progress in these countries, and taking the example of Sierra Leone, can you think when or why a significant external financial investor would plough money into Sierra Leone? Dr Cooper: I have to say, I think that is a very depressing question. I have been out to Sierra Leone recently as well and I think I would have arrived at exactly the same conclusion over the situation in Sierra Leone that you have outlined. I have to say, it is very difficult to think that a disinterested, external investor, without any form of guarantee or any form of external support, certainly would want to risk their shirt on investing a huge amount of money in Sierra Leone, not least, of course, because Sierra Leone itself, however successful reform in Sierra Leone has been, is in the middle of a regional conflict formation, where there are conflicts breaking out all the time. There is this perennial risk that, however good reforms are inside the state, conflict may be imported from outside at any time, so you have got all those kinds of risks. Therefore, I think it means that if you are looking at encouraging people to invest you need to look at how you are going to facilitate that, how you are going to give them a kind of infrastructure of incentives to invest. Q242 John Battle: Can I say, I think it has been one of the best discussions we have had for a long time. I think sometimes perhaps we should have a discussion ourselves, as a Committee, with the spark of our witnesses. I am tempted to add two things. One to Jeremy. I think that you do need to think differently in order to do differently. I think that is what the debate in our Party is about this week, actually. Just to John, and it is just a reflection and I will quickly get out of the way, when I was working in the Foreign Office, I spent some time once in an airport with members of the FARC and had an informal meeting with the members of the FARC, one of whom was a trained economist. When I pressed him on his strategy for liberating the poor, he told me he would rely on the economic trickle-down from the profits of the drugs trade, which they were very keen to protect, and I have always remembered that as a measure of how we deal with the free market economy. I just want to say that dealing with the informal economy, which you have raised a lot actually, is as difficult in my inner-city constituency in Leeds as it is in Africa, there are incredible challenges around the whole of that agenda really and I think we should not minimise it. What I am learning, as I grow slightly older, is that the world never ever works out according to the plan, anybody's plan, it is different all the time and we are back at that point. One of the things which was in the plan ten, 20 years ago was regional governance, so in Latin America Mercasol would be the key to break us out of the great terrible times of dictatorship; in Africa ECOWAS[5] was the great hope of being not just a nation state, but economic planning, organisation, regulation, on a regional basis. Has ECOWAS got any power or clout at all to do anything at all about this, interstate, the bikers that we met in Sierra Leone who made the mods and rockers look tame, who were carrying the diamonds backwards and forwards across the trails? Is there any clout in ECOWAS, should we support it, encourage it, enhance it: any role for ECOWAS in the future? Dr Cooper: Can I add just one supplementary to your point [John Bercow], before I get on to that: diasporas. I think they are a really important network to tap into, and because they have got links, identity links and maybe family links, with the home country they may be more inclined to take that risk and invest, and I think the active promotion of diaspora investment is something which could be promoted. You [John Battle] had a number of points: difficult challenges, first of all. You are absolutely right; dealing with shadow economies and dealing with post-conflict societies in general is a hugely difficult challenge. I think sometimes therefore you do fall into this trap of judging progress against too high a benchmark. I think it is important to be realistic about what can be achieved in post-conflict societies and really to think through to benchmark activity and post-conflict reconstruction against realistic expectations of what is achievable. It is highly unlikely that you are going to eliminate totally shadow economic activity, and certainly not overnight, it is highly unlikely that you are going to completely eliminate corruption; my goodness, we have not managed it even in the Western developed societies let alone in post-conflict societies, so part of it is about definitely being realistic. In terms of regional organisations, yes, I think there is an important role that regional entities, like ECOWAS, can play. I think, to some extent, this is mitigated of course in these regions because often there are profound security tensions which exist between the individual states, so the aspiration is often proceeding further along than the actual real ability, but they are an important vehicle. One of the reasons why I think they are an important vehicle is that actually a lot of the kinds of issues that these regional conflict formations suffer from is the import of problems from outside, whether it be arms proliferation, mafia groups coming in to exploit the conflict trade, and stuff like that, or the regional role of mercenary groups and stuff like that. Regional entities like ECOWAS sometimes, I think, can provide a forum for pursuing initiatives which are of particular interest to them, which may go further than you can get at a global level. To some extent, one example would be the ECOWAS small arms moratorium. I am not suggesting at all that has worked particularly well but what is interesting about it is that I think, for all its flaws, it has established something of a norm against elicit arms proliferation into the country. There are attempts to build on that, to institutionalise that, and one could see maybe further down the line that something like that could actually be made more meaningful, and certainly it should be supported. Professor Pugh: I think it is just worth remembering that it has taken the EU 50 years to get to where it is today, and even now there is disagreement about it and its desirability, and so on. I think that there is this assumption that things can be changed significantly, transformed, in a very short space of time. You have got now people like Paddy Ashdown, for instance, arguing that this is a long drawn-out process, that it may be 15 years before you get any significant integration going on. Q243 Mr Hunt: If I could just riposte to John Battle, very briefly. I think the only point of thinking differently is if actually you do something differently afterwards, and I think that was the point really I was trying to make. A very quick question, on a totally distinct topic, if I may, which is gender policy and sexual violence; there is a huge explosion of it in conflict areas. We have got the issue in Liberia of the aid workers, we have got the huge explosion of rape in places like DRC; do you think that we need a different, more systematic approach to how we deal with that in conflict countries? Dr Cooper: I have to say, I would make no claims to be an expert on the gender aspects of post-conflict societies so probably I am not going to answer your question directly, but there are a couple of points that I would like to make on gender issues. One is that I think, certainly compared with, say, ten or 15 years ago, the international community, the aid community, is very acutely aware now of these issues around sexual violence towards women, during conflict and after conflict, and gender issues more generally around equity in terms of numbers of women in particular institutions, and so on and so forth. I do think still what I have a question-mark about is the extent to which the gender lens is applied beyond that. I think sometimes there is a tendency to apply the lens of gender to what you might call women's issues spelt with an I and a Z, but actually there is a whole raft of what appear to be gender-neutral areas, which may well have gendered impacts. If you are proposing a particular regulatory reform or a particular privatisation initiative, or whatever it might be, it may well have particular gendered effects because it may be you are impacting on an area where it is predominantly women that are employed. This comes through on the conflict diamond issue, for instance, because in Sierra Leone it is mainly men that are employed in the diamond sector and what you have is predominantly women in the gold sector. You have a lot of attention on conflict diamonds and you have a diamond development initiative, which is about trying to raise the pay and the training for the men in the diamond fields, because everybody is obsessed with diamonds, but actually the gold-mining side of things just gets completely ignored because the discourse is all about diamonds and not about gold. There is an unintended gender impact there. That is one point. The second point, and again this is about Sierra Leone, is that gender, of course, is not just about women, it is about how men interpret their gender roles as well. I think sometimes it is important to think through the gender lens on those issues as well. Again, on the diamond issue, one of the things which I think is really striking about the diamond-diggers in Sierra Leone is that there is this almost celebration of the risk culture involved in diamond-digging. There is almost a kind of macho thing which is associated with taking the risk of doing the diamond-digging because it is a high-risk, high-reward activity, whereas the gold-mining is much more low risk, more secure, and so there is a kind of gendered aspect to the diamond-mining activity that is going on now. If you talk to some of the diggers and they say, "No matter what development initiatives you put in place, we would still want to do this, because it's in our blood and it's the nature of the risk," and so on and so forth, to some extent, you can say that is a kind of self-legitimisation of their situation. Nevertheless, I think having those kinds of gender lenses is quite important and I am not sure how widespread the application of the gender lens is on those kinds of issues. Professor Pugh: I think there is also quite often a lack of awareness of the role that women played in peace-making activities. You can find, for example, situations where women have been really quite influential in getting men to give up their weapons. I think Mali was one of them; certainly Bougainville was another one, in the Pacific. There is a degree of mobilisation in favour of peace in which, in fact, women are influential, but then, because there is a lack of awareness of this on the part of the outside community, peace-keepers, or whoever, who come in, they are not encouraged to take up roles in the post-conflict reconstruction period, and women often get side-lined and marginalised. Certainly that happened in Kosovo, where I think, of all the parallel administrative posts that were established there, only three went to women, and one resigned in disgust, eventually. I think being aware that women have often played a part in mobilising for peace should be a platform for encouraging women to play a more central role in post-conflict reconstruction, even in things like security sector reform, traditionally a male activity. Q244 Chairman: Obviously, there is a UN Resolution to that effect but it is not always being honoured in the observance. Can I thank you all. We have gone way past our brief, also we are somewhat under pressure of a potential vote in the House and there is more evidence to take. There may be one or two things which we did not quite complete, which we could write to you about, if that is alright, just to complete the exchange; if you would co-operate with that, it would be very helpful. Thank you very much indeed, all of you. Professor Pugh: Thank you for the opportunity. Chairman: Thank you. Examination of Witness
Witness: Mr John Abuya, Director of ActionAid International's Great Lakes Programme, gave evidence. Q245 Chairman: Mr Abuya, thank you for your patience in waiting but I guess you got the flavour of the previous exchanges, and at least you are one witness, not three, so you might find it a little easier to deal with the Committee. We took evidence recently, in fact, from Professor Collier and we had a good exchange. One of the things which also came out of that discussion was the need for long-term commitments in a post-conflict situation, which is difficult, of course, because governments change and it is difficult to commit policies far in the future or the international community could do better. If the argument is that at least ten years should be the commitment, do you agree with that and do you think that should be the norm and that we should get away from the idea that you can do quick fixes? Mr Abuya: Thank you very much. Yes, I tend to agree with that because peacebuilding and post-conflict rehabilitation is actually a process. It is a process that requires dialogue, building confidence among the warring parties and one another. For example, if you look at quick fix, immediate emergency response programmes, take food relief, for example; food relief without linking it to long-term agricultural production, is short-lived. If you take Rwanda, for example, it is 12 years since the genocide, and within the Great Lakes countries Rwanda is considered stable and on the path to stability and development, but there is still tension simmering and there are fears in certain quarters that the events of 1994 could recur. For example, over the Easter week, when Rwanda was commemorating the genocide week, a gentleman telephoned the radio station and said "it will come again". This is an indication that unless we put in place long-term processes to link, one, the immediate response after conflict, two, the next phase of the rehabilitation, and the longer-term processes, then I think we might have slid back to where we started from. I concur that we need such processes and I think such processes need to be linked to long-term government development plans. For example, all the countries, the three Great Lakes countries, are developing poverty reduction strategy papers. Rwanda, for example, is just developing the second generation poverty reduction strategy paper, and the involvement of civil society in the process will help to provide checks and balance and monitoring the implementation of commitments. So I tend to concur with that. Q246 Richard Burden: I understand what you are saying there and it makes a good deal of sense, but at the same time there are other things which may be going on which may require some pressure to be brought to bear. You have mentioned the need for long-term assistance as far as Rwanda is concerned and some of the milestones you have been measuring in terms of what they are doing and how you improve things there. Just over the border you have got the DRC and some of the involvement that Rwanda may have had in terms of some of the things that are going on in the DRC. What is the balance, what is the trade-off between having the right long-term perspectives and programmes and applying some kind of conditionality that can achieve change, even if it is not change within a particular state but in terms of an impact of something next-door? Mr Abuya: I think there needs to be a balance here and I see the watch-dog role of civil society prominently in this respect in playing the watchdog role. If you take Rwanda and DRC as one example, I think also there needs to be co-ordination between the donors in checking cross-border tensions between governments. For example, it is commonly said that even when Rwanda withdraws its troops from the DRC, as was the case some time back, the common man says "they are withdrawn by day but they come back by night". I think there needs to be donor co-ordination to look at the relationships between these countries sharing different borders. I also see a key role for the sub-regional and regional institutions, for example the AU, and the peer review mechanisms to come into this. In 2004, I think he AU initiative to have the Great Lakes international conference on peace in Tanzania. I think such initiatives should be supported, because it drew out actually present commitments to look at, one, the peace and security across the borders, the economic integration, and, two, how to provide the checks and balances, and I think the conference did provide the civil society organisations with a key agenda in this respect. Unfortunately, the civil society organisations are handicapped by a lack of resources to enable them to play this role meaningfully, so I think, one of the recommendations, this is a balance in determining how much support goes to civil society to play this watchdog role. Q247 Richard Burden: As well as building up those accountability mechanisms, either in a state or within the region, or in the sub-region, what are your feelings though, in terms of donor countries in the international community, about making the support it gives, whether it be budget support or whatever, actually conditional? Things can only be conditional if you are prepared to apply the sanction and if you apply the sanction you are in danger of actually disrupting the very long-term programme that you are talking about. It may be justified to do it, it may not be justified, but from this end of things how are those judgments made and what are the kinds of things you think should inform those judgments? Mr Abuya: I think the balance with the conditionality is important. The challenge is how to provide this balance so that the poor and disadvantaged, do not suffer. I spent five years working in Burundi from 1998 at a time the international community and AU had applied sanctions on Burundi, but because of the regional dynamics the sanctions were busted at every stage. For example, there was only one flight, Kenya Airways flight, that was the sole flight allowed to carry humanitarian personnel to Burundi, because all other flights were stopped. Despite this, there was a second unofficial flight that continued to operate defying all the sanctions with impunity. Goods would find their way through Rwanda and other neighbouring countries, through the same countries that were meant to implement the sanctions. I think what I am trying to say is that, whatever conditionality on sanctions, they need to be targeted. I think better sanctions are what you call "smart sanctions" that effectively deals with the perpetrators of injustice and at the same time protects the poor communities or the communities which are faced with injustices. I think the challenge is to create that balance, so that at the end of the day the people we need to reach benefit at the same time. I do agree that some elements of sanctions would be necessary but this should be carefully worked out. Q248 Mr Singh: In your paper to us[6], actually it is quite critical of the focus of the UK role on development, you say, for example: "The current focus on outputs and immediate impact is inimical to successful conflict resolution..." In the past we have had a focus maybe more on process and we are criticised for that, and now maybe that we have a focus on outputs and outcomes we are being criticised for that. Is it not reasonable for this Committee, the British taxpayer, actually to expect to see outcomes and outputs, because we can see the money being well spent? My second question is linked entirely into that, because one of your recommendations, across the page, is: "Process-oriented project and programme assessments should be encouraged." I do not know what that means so I would be grateful if you could help to clarify that for me? Mr Abuya: I think the issue of outputs and outcomes comes back to my earlier statement, about peace-building and post-conflict reconstruction is a long term process. The issue is that focus on outposts/outcomes should not be at the expense of the process, because peace-building takes time within ever changing contexts. For example, in Rwanda, with the Gacaca trials (traditional courts) which could have been seen as a straightforward administration of justice opened up a new set of issues around peace and security with the release of prisoners some of whom threatened revenge on their accusers and witnesses. Innocent people, for example, fled to neighbouring countries for fear of being incriminated in the genocide. I am saying this to highlight underlying factors I think we need to continually understand even when we talk about the long-term processes. We are advocating for involvement of the local communities and the local institutions in generating this understanding. In ActionAid we have used vulnerability analysis techniques; really we need to understand the fears and aspirations of the people. The previous group raised the issue about sexual violence. In one of these exercises in DRC women have been able to raise these issues through the vulnerability analysis processes, which they had previously reported but the perpetrators of sexual violence would be arrested but would next day be walking the streets scot-free and threatening the very lives of these people. So when we talk about the long-term processes we need continually to do analysis to understand and talk to the people to understand their fears associated with some of the peace processes. For example, the national peace process does not translate into human security at the grass-roots level, it does not translate to freedom from fear in the communities at grass-roots level. Q249 Mr Singh: I understand that. It is self-evident that peace is a long-term process. Are you suggesting that DFID does not understand that, it has missed the point somewhere along the line, and, if they have, what are we doing that we should not be doing and what should we be doing? Mr Abuya: I don't think so. We just need to understand each conflict its own right. I think we need to accompany our interventions with ongoing conflict analysis at all levels, because the situation keeps on changing and dynamics keep on changing, but if unchecked can blow up into more large-scale conflict. The important thing to me is really to bring people to be able to relate, to be able to start to build trust, to be able to impress this trust before we can really accommodate one another and this takes time. In fact, I will give an example in Burundi, where I have more experience in managing grass-roots peacebuilding processes, where we started by bringing the different warring groups that fled to different countries or in the IDP camps, because normally the pattern was they would flee by ethnicity. You would find that people in the internally displaced camps were Hutus, or rather Tutsis, that people who had fled from Tanzania were Hutus. Part of the process was to bring them to discuss and agree on modalities or formulas for return. We did discover that the aspirations of peoples really were to get back home and live with their neighbours as they used to live before the war, but the fears were inherent because, if you participated in killing my brother, or if I was involved in the death of your family, what came out was that people were not sure whether they would be accepted back by their neighbours. I am giving this example because we provided incentives for resettlement, shelter and even rehabilitating basic social services. Despite that, people sent emissaries to go and test out whether this would really run. But through this process people got back; yes, if it is going to work we need to define the return back to the village formulas. It is a process, like, for example, in Burundi, it is a process that to get the initial people now to return confidently home together did not take less than three years. This is an example, I think we were intimating that the process will be quite long-term because even the experience of people who have gone, who have lost their relatives, it takes time to really build up trust again, it really takes time. Q250 Ann McKechin: You talked in your submission about the need for grass-roots involvement in conflict resolution and you have pioneered - a slightly awkward title - a Participatory Vulnerability Analysis, I will call it PVA for short. I would be grateful if you could tell me just where these analyses have been used in the Great Lakes Region and, in your view, what has been the main advantage? A more specific issue is about the political situation in Rwanda. In your opinion, how frankly are people being able to speak out in this analysis, because I think there has been a lot of comment that it is very difficult actually to find out what people really are thinking and feeling in Rwanda because of the cultural imperative about unity? Mr Abuya: We have used the PVA, as it is called in the booklet; there are very, very important lessons. One, the way we have approached it has involved communities at the grass-roots level, but in the same exercises we brought in local authorities from village level up to district and provincial level. The process has enabled, opened debate and arguments between groups, raising their aspirations and fears and actions and to address them. Q251 Ann McKechin: Where have you used this in the Great Lakes? Mr Abuya: We have used it in DRC. We have invited representatives, civil society organisations, the committee members, from the three countries, Burundi, Rwanda and DRC, but the venue was in the DRC. Already we have also started some processes in Rwanda, in itself. I think one of the advantages of it is that it instils the confidence for people to discuss together and by invitation of the local authorities, they are able to articulate their issues directly to the leaders. My experience is that PVA has enabled very frank articulation of issues. I was talking about the sexual violence in DRC. Through the PVA exercises it came out that the issue of impunity, the issue of the corruption of the judicial system, the police, where suspects are arrested and released the next day, came out very squarely in front of the provincial authorities. In the Rwanda traditional justice courts, the Gacaca, this exercise helped to bring out the fear experienced by the people giving witness. For example, Rwanda released quite a number of genocide suspects, which in itself opened up a new set of security issues through threats of revenge. A released prisoner would say: "You reported me, you gave witness against me; now it's time for the reckoning." Through the PVA process these underlying tensions have come out quite frankly. One of the lessons we have learned is that some of the action points developed through the PVA exercise need to be followed up, and once it is followed up and the people come up with their own actions to address some of the concerns, then confidence grows for people to discuss more honestly. Q252 Ann McKechin: It has to be sustained rather than being a short-term project? Mr Abuya: Yes, it has to be sustained and that is our strategy. Q253 John Barrett: Mr Abuya, the ActionAid paper gives a number of examples of where internal markets, if their linkages had been improved, would have made a huge difference, examples of blacksmiths producing agricultural tools where there is no market. One thing which my colleagues and I saw when we were in Sierra Leone was local businessmen who had been very successful; they had been in business before the conflict and then they were back in business. I am wondering, is the summary of what you are saying in here that donors actually have had too much influence in trying to develop the business without having the market experience and without having the business experience, and what really was needed, it would be like us training blacksmiths now to produce horse-shoes rather than dealing with the modern realities of business life? Is this a problem which can be summed up as the businessmen actually were running successful businesses but what the donors have managed to do, to a certain degree, is be over-involved in areas where they have not had that expertise? Is that what you are saying? Mr Abuya: Could you please restate the last bit? Q254 John Barrett: Yes, certainly. You have given examples; you say, market linkages, donors need to make sure the market linkages are right, that commonsense would say you do not produce goods when you cannot sell them. What I am wondering is have the donors actually been involved in areas where business commonsense would have delivered success? Is it a case of, in some areas, donors having been involved in areas where they would have been better leaving it to businessmen with that business experience? Mr Abuya: I suppose, in any post-conflict situation, sometimes we are in the situation were there is a lot of donor money ploughing into the economy. One of the examples in Sierra Leone was youth training in certain skills and then their products were not finding markets. I think in such situations there needs to be a role to develop skills and make a demand for services. If it is not demand-led, I think we need to build the demand, because after the war people have lost their social capital, and if one part particularly floods then I think the market becomes a problem. If I give an example in Burundi where I was concerned, because there was some massive resettlement and, in fact, aid agencies preferring to import materials from outside at the expense of local production, I think that is an example of killing the local market. We are proposing that we need to look in-house and look at how we meet the needs internally and therefore boost the local economy in terms of business. I think there is a need to develop also market studies, build skills for markets assessment within a post-conflict environment, where people have again lost their own social capital, and also the 'plane flights out of the country. I think that is what we are trying to do. Q255 John Bercow: I have a related question, Chairman, but as you referred to genocide, Mr Abuya, amongst other things, a few moments ago, I wonder, with the forbearance of the Chairman, if I can ask you, just opportunistically, whether you have a view about the resident of Bedford, Mr Charles Munyaneza, in relation to alleged genocide activity in Rwanda? Mr Abuya: I have not followed that very closely, I must admit. Q256 John Bercow: Fair enough; okay. He is a notorious figure and he says he is innocent and other people say he is not, but if it is not your area we will leave that. Pursuant to what colleagues have been raising, can I get a feeling from you not only about the role of donor governments in the creation of post-conflict employment but about the role of the domestic state in the generation of that employment? Do you have a sense as to the balance between private and public sector activity, assuming that it must be desirable, if we are interested in creating some wealth of a fairly significant proportion, that activity should be private, but how is it to happen? If one reflects also on acts already undertaken and mistakes made, what do you learn, if you look, for example, at Sierra Leone? You will be aware, I feel sure, that the UK Government has itself funded projects there which have included the training of ex-soldiers, with the rather notable disadvantage that at the end of the expenditure and the training of the soldiers, sadly, employment for the people so trained has not been available. Whether that could, or should, have been foreseen by the UK Government before the expenditure is a matter upon which your opinion would be welcome? Mr Abuya: I think I agree with you that the recipient government has a role to play in employment creation, and I think it is a question of looking at available opportunities for a country undergoing a lot of reconstruction; for example, Rwanda has introduced 'cash for work' and 'food for work' programmes around infrastructure and environment programmes to generate this. I would see that in three stages. One, to address the immediate needs of employment but I think there needs to be another phase of skills-building linking to development needs of the country, because the war normally has eroded skilled people, some have fled the country, and all that. I think then this case should be matched to the long-term reconstruction plans for the country, in terms of skills, and to put in place some skills-building mechanisms which match those needs. I think that is one area; and, of course, creating a conducive environment for private sector growth to create employment opportunities for the youth, and, as you say, ex-combatants, who are reintegrating into society. Q257 John Bercow: One of the phenomena that we often encounter, in visiting developing countries, is that of the dislocating effect, or the likelihood of there being in future a dislocating effect, of an eventual withdrawal of subsidy. In other words, while the money is there, notably in Malawi a couple of months ago, supporting the key cadres of health service workers, it is very useful, because you have got better-paid staff and more of them starting to bolster the health infrastructure of a very poor country. Of course, if DFID pulls the plug at some stage what happens then; and that leads me to ask you do you have any thoughts about the need not only to train people but to train the future trainers? Mr Abuya: I think you have said it. We need to look at after withdrawal what happens, and I think there is a need to create frameworks to continue this skills-building in future. I agree with you entirely on that. Q258 Mr Hunt: Mr Abuya, one of the things that ActionAid has talked about is having a flexible assistance programme which would cover the DRC, Burundi and Rwanda, and I am trying to understand a little bit more about how that would work in practice. On the one hand, I can entirely understand the idea that, for example, the UK should use the leverage that it has from being, for example, a very generous donor to Rwanda, to encourage Rwanda to take a more responsible attitude towards encouraging the return of the Interahamwe from the DRC. In practice, with an aid programme, you have an agreement with the host country over a ten-year period, one of the other things we have discussed, that in return for giving certain amounts of money certain objectives will be achieved. I just wonder how you could have a big aid pot for three countries and vary it around between the three in practice? Mr Abuya: I think this is an area which has been discussed a lot. One of the suggestions is probably to have a regional or a sub-regional basket, since DFID has a presence in Rwanda, and in Burundi, for co-ordination of these purposes. I think also there is the opportunity around sub-regional institutions which address issues which are common to the three Great Lakes countries. I know, for example, the Great Lakes Initiative for Peace, which I think has been flailing due to lack of resources. Quite a number of organisations are now taking a Great Lakes approach, they are looking at the three countries in a more holistic way. The Great Lakes Peace conference that was launched in Tanzania in 2004 offers an opportunity for sub-regional support in line with the commonly agreed commitments. Such initiatives offer DFID opportunity to build a sub-regional basket which co-ordinates activities between these three countries. For example, when we have Rwandese soldiers in DRC, they are probably disarmed in DRC, but how do you ensure that we follow them through when they are repatriated back into their country. We have refugee movements, for example, we have Burundi refugees across the border in DRC. We could be supporting them through channelling the money to the DRC Government, but again when they move how do we ensure that the processes we have started with DRC are followed through to their conclusion. I think there is an opportunity for DFID to create a regional basket fund to look at this regional dynamic, because any event in one of the countries has ripple effects in the others, movements of refugees, rebels being harboured across the borders, so that is one of the opportunities. Of course, involving civil society and their networks to look at the Great Lakes issues in that holistic manner I think is another opportunity. Q259 Mr Hunt: Can I make sure I understand that. Do you think that DFID does not co-ordinate its aid between those three countries? Do you think there are examples when DFID is giving money to Rwanda to do one thing and actually to the DRC to do something else which might be contradictory? Is that what you are saying, or do you think that this would be just a better way of looking at the problem? Mr Abuya: I think just better co-ordination, so that, for example, if we are working with a group of Rwandan refugees in Burundi, and we are setting in place some programmes, including peacebuilding programmes, and the time comes when they are repatriated back, I think we need to have a mechanism to ensure that these processes started spill across the others. Also, if you give an example of the war in DRC which on the ground was commonly referred to as the scramble for the Congo, you would find that the south and eastern parts were supported by, for example, Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe, then the north-eastern part, Uganda, had an interest, supporting the fighters there, and then Rwanda had an interest in the eastern parts. I think again, to address these cross-border dynamics, we need to co-ordinate the funding at the Great Lakes level, for example, look at the relationship issues between the countries across the borders, and I think DFID had an opportunity really to better co-ordinate that aspect of the work. Q260 Chairman: On the back of that, ActionAid's Justice for Peace project, which is trying to draw together all the threads of good governance, leadership and involvement, all the things you are talking about, do you think that you are learning from that something which could inform DFID, effectively? Are you learning anything from that, or are you able to say anything that suggests either DFID could do things differently or could add things that it is not doing? Mr Abuya: I think one of the biggest lessons we are having is really the role of civil society's actors in embracing the Great Lakes issues. If I compare the three countries, if you take eastern Congo, for example, where the central Government has had a very minimal presence, the civil society organisations have demonstrated a lot of activities and being active to get on with life in the absence of government support. In ActionAid, as part of our Justice for Peace programme, we have brought together civil society organisations from DRC, Burundi and Rwanda, actually around a conflict analysis workshop. It came out clearly from the civil society themselves that they need to be networked and co-ordinated and they need to be supported. It came out also that the CSOs could not compete fairly with international organisations for donor resources and therefore need special attention. Q261 Chairman: Do think that will have to, given the discussion we had before, actually provide a home-grown demand for regional co-ordination and for the donors to co-ordinate, because that was actually what we were hoping for; giving coming from the bottom up rather than top down? Mr Abuya: Really for donor co-ordination, the technical committees, for example, that were set up by the Great Lakes conference, and the civil society would play a crucial role in supporting regional co-ordination. There will be need however for conductive environments and technical and funding support for the regional co-ordination. Civil society is more advanced and experienced in the grass-roots processes that I described, with the true fears and aspirations in the community groups, and I think they have a role and they are more capable of highlighting gaps in co-ordination and implementation processes. I think they understand the community much better and I think the whole area, they belong to the affected communities themselves and I think they have a certain credibility to harness all the issues together to be brought to the regional governments and linked to the commitment the regional governments made, for example, at the Great Lakes international conference. Q262 Chairman: Given the discussion we had about process and outcomes, does this have an end point or are you going to publish something; in other words, is there going to be an outcome, in terms of copy, which would summarise some of the findings? I appreciate it has only started, because I think the Committee would be interested to see it. Mr Abuya: I think this will be the initial learning; the programme is it is at the initial stages, things have come in just over one year or two, but the emerging lessons of that are also the need for continuance of conflict analysis, at both a local and a national level, because I think the dynamics that have come out are quite different. These are all being documented as we go along. There are many, many dynamics at the local level, if you go and check the value and question the national processes. I think that is one key outcome that is coming out there. Chairman: Thank you very much indeed; thank you for coming and giving evidence. It has been extremely helpful; and if you do have any follow-up on that we will be very pleased to have it. Thank you. [1] Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) (People's Liberation Front) [2] Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration [3] Peaceful warriors and warring peacemakers, The Economics of Peace and Security Journal, Vol.1, No.1 (2006) [4] See table, page xx [5] Economic Community of West African States [6] Ev |