Recovering from Armed Conflict: Lessons Learned and Next Steps for Improved International Assistance

Transcription

1 Recovering from Armed Conflict: Lessons Learned and Next Steps for Improved International Assistance Megan Burke 22 Working Paper / Documento de trabajo April 2006 Working Paper / Documento de trabajo

2 About FRIDE FRIDE is an independent think-tank based in Madrid, focused on issues related to democracy and human rights; peace and security; and humanitarian action and development. FRIDE attempts to influence policy-making and inform public opinion, through its research in these areas. Working Papers FRIDE s working papers seek to stimulate wider debate on these issues and present policy-relevant considerations.

3 Recovering from Armed Conflict: Lessons Learned and Next Steps for Improved International Assistance Megan Burke April 2006 Associate Researcher at FRIDE, Megan Burke is a Programme Manager at the United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA) where she works on a campaign that seeks to eliminate the impact of landmines in several post-conflict countries, and serves on the Steering Committee for the United States Campaign to Ban Landmines. She is also a consultant to the Governance and Civil Society Unit at the Ford Foundation. 22 Working Paper / Documento de trabajo April 2006 Working Paper / Documento de trabajo

4 Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior (FRIDE) Felipe IV, 9 1º Dcha Madrid SPAIN Tel.: Fax: fride@fride.org All FRIDE publications are available at the FRIDE website: This document is the property of FRIDE. If you would like to copy, reprint or in any way reproduce all or any part, you must request permission. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinion of FRIDE. If you have any comments on this document or any other suggestions, please us at comments@fride.org

5 Contents Introduction 1 International Context and Trends in Violent Conflict 3 The Task of Post-Conflict Reconstruction 5 Defining the Task 6 Essential Activities 8 International Responses 9 Critique of International Responses 9 Political Responses 10 Economic Responses 13 Role of Local Actors 18 Improving International Assistance to Post-Conflict Reconstruction 21 UN Peacebuilding Commission: Coordinating and Sustaining Donor Support and Ensuring Meaningful Local Participation 21 Building Credible and Legitimate Governments Via Transitional Administrations 22 Conflict Sensitive Democratisation 23 Appendix A: Countries Emerging From Conflict and Appendix B: Essential Post-Conflict Tasks 26 Bibliography 28

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7 1 Introduction Since 1988, 100 violent conflicts have ended and nearly that many countries have emerged from years of violent conflict, leaving behind a legacy of wounded societies and failed states. 1 The increase in the number of violent conflicts in the 1980s and the 1990s, followed by an increase in international attention to resolve conflicts in the mid-nineties, has resulted in a record number of countries that have ended conflicts and begun the arduous process of rebuilding. Over the same period, the nature of violent conflict changed. Interstate conflicts are increasingly rare and in the 1980s and 1990s nearly all new conflicts were intrastate conflicts, though not strictly without external involvement. Wars are, on average, longer and target the civilian population in devastating ways. State institutions are often targeted during civil conflicts. The duration of wars and their negative effects on civilians and state institutions have had serious consequences. Most countries emerging from conflict require emergency humanitarian relief and lack the fundamental ability to respond to the most basic needs of their citizenry. By and large, these countries overlap with states classified as failed or fragile. As a result, one of the most critical challenges facing the international community is post-conflict reconstruction. For the purposes of this paper, the process of postconflict reconstruction is defined to include the various stages of rehabilitation required to construct effective states in societies transitioning from armed conflict. 2 1 Monty G. Marshall and Teb Robert Gurr, Peace and Conflict 2005, Center for International Development and Conflict Management (College, MD: University of Maryland, May 2005), p A number of scholars have critiqued the phrase post-conflict reconstruction believing it should more properly be termed post-war rather than post-conflict and rehabilitation rather than reconstruction which, they believe, indicates a focus on physical reconstruction and not the more comprehensive rehabilitation. While these arguments are persuasive, post-conflict reconstruction is by far the most widely used and it is commonly understood to include all aspects of post-conflict/war recovery, humanitarian action, rehabilitation and reconstruction. Effective states are defined as those that are able to provide residents with basic services, create conditions for equitable and sustainable economic development and promote universal human rights and the rule of law. Post-conflict reconstruction is multi-dimensional and multi-sectoral, encompassing a continuum of activities and responses required following the end of an armed conflict, including immediate humanitarian relief, physical, institutional, political and economic recovery of a state and the establishment of a foundation for long-term development. These same efforts are also referred to as peacebuilding, or nation or state- building.3 An important component of nearly all post-conflict operations is a military presence, such as a United Nations peace-keeping force. However, this paper will focus on the activities undertaken by civilians, both local and external, whilst recognising that military and civilian actions are often closely linked and difficult to separate. Despite the importance of post-conflict reconstruction, the international community has failed to confront this challenge effectively. In a widely quoted statistic from a World Bank study, 44 per cent of all countries revert to violence within five years of a negotiated peace settlement. 4 Various explanations for these poor results have been proposed over the last decade and these will be discussed below. The events of 11 September 2001 have given the issue of post-conflict reconstruction a new prominence on the global agenda and an urgency to do better. Governments throughout the Global North and multilateral bodies such as the United Nations, the World Bank and regional security organisations recognise that post-conflict reconstruction is no longer just a priority in the developing world, where the vast majority of conflicts take place, but that in today s interconnected world, failure to rebuild war-torn 3 See Boutros Boutros Ghali, An Agenda for Peace: Preventative Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peace-Keeping, Report of the Secretary General to the United Nations Security Council, UN Doc A/47/277 - S/24111 (31 January 1992) and his supplement to the Agenda for Peace (3 January 1995). 4 Paul Collier et al., Breaking the Conflict Trap: Civil War and Development Policy (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2003), p. 7. Recovering from Armed Conflict: Lessons Learned and Next Steps for Improved International Assistance Megan Burke

8 2 societies threatens everyone s security. Fears of terrorism and other transnational threats emerging from failed or fragile states have put the international community on notice. This reprioritisation is evident through the development of new policy initiatives and mechanisms for addressing post-conflict challenges such as the Conflict Prevention and Reconstruction Unit at the World Bank, the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery within the United Nations Development Programme, and post-conflict funds within the international development agencies or foreign ministries of Germany, Canada, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States, among others. Experts of post-conflict reconstruction have presented various lists of the essential post-conflict activities, grouping these activities into anywhere from three to seven major categories. These categories typically include security, governance and administration, social and economic well-being, justice and reconciliation and recently, the re-introduction of post-conflict countries into the international political and economic system. Within each of these categories, the essential tasks include activities such as refugee repatriation, disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of former soldiers, reconciliation and transitional justice, reconstruction of governing infrastructure, macroeconomic stabilisation, democratisation and civil participation, and the establishment of the rule of law. While most experts agree on the activities necessary in post-conflict reconstruction, there is considerably less agreement on how, when and by whom they should be implemented. This debate is mainly focused on the international responses to post-conflict and the relationship between local actors and the international community, and can be divided into two major and interconnected areas: political and economic responses. Political responses are mainly peace or stabilisation operations carried out by the United Nations, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), other regional bodies or unilateral governments such as the United States or the United Kingdom. While all such operations assume some degree of responsibility for the activities that would normally be undertaken by the state, the increased use of comprehensive transitional administrations that assume the role of the state, such as in East Timor and Kosovo, has resulted in heightened scrutiny and appeals for clearer guidelines regarding such operations. Economic responses include the provision of aid and foreign assistance and the economic policy prescriptions that often accompany this aid and have been widely criticised, by mainly Southern voices but also by many Northern scholars, who assert that many economic policy prescriptions have exacerbated economic inequalities, i.e. one of the root causes of many conflicts. Criticism, specifically on the provision of aid, is widespread and covers a range of issues including the slow response and failure of donors to cooperate or ensure consistency across bilateral and multilateral aid packages, as well as the substance, timing and prioritisation of what is funded, and the level of funding made available. Key to this debate is the so-called relief to development gap. Foreign assistance has traditionally been available for either emergency relief or long-term development without special consideration for the transitional period of recovery and reconstruction that post-conflict societies face. As should always be the case, these criticisms provide a basis for developing strategies that are more effective. This paper will consolidate many of the lessons that have been recorded, outline some areas that call for further policy-oriented research and suggest ways that this research can better reflect the perspectives from both donor countries and from postconflict societies. In the area of post-conflict reconstruction, the international community has learned by doing; accordingly, there has been an ever-growing number of opportunities to learn over the past decade. This collective experience has positioned the international community to address future post-conflict situations in a new way, i.e. by building on these experiences rather than addressing each new situation as if it were both the first and the last. The events of 11 September Working Paper 22

9 have created a political imperative to find a new approach and the establishment of the UN Peacebuilding Commission provides a new opportunity for coordination. These facts, coupled with the growing number of post-conflict societies in need of urgent assistance, make this a key moment to improve postconflict strategies to build sustainable peace and solid foundations for long-term development. International Context and Trends in Violent Conflicts While many hoped that the end of the Cold War would bring a much anticipated, peace dividend, in fact, the first few years following the collapse of the former Soviet Union saw a continued upward trend in the number of armed conflicts or ongoing wars throughout the world. Between 1989 and 1996, 90 new armed conflicts began bringing the number of countries impacted by violence to record levels. 5 These conflicts, and others that had begun in the 1980s, had three main differences from more traditional interstate conflicts. They were and are almost exclusively intrastate conflicts where the opposing sides represent different sectors of the same state, though not without external involvement or support. In 2003, just one ongoing conflict involved more than one country, whereas 29 others were civil conflicts. The Human Security Report 2005, produced by the Human Security Centre at the University of British Columbia, 6 highlights two new features of prevailing civil wars: their extended duration and their increasing impact on the civilian population. The report states that, on average, civil conflicts are longer 5 Shepard Forman, Stewart Patrick and Dirk Salomons, Recovering from Conflict: Strategy for an International Response, Center on International Cooperation, Human Security Report 2005, Human Security Centre, University of British Columbia (Oxford University Press, October, 2005), than interstate conflicts, averaging seven years in duration while interstate conflicts average just six months. Additionally, in recent decades, the length of civil conflicts has increased, with conflicts from 1980 to 1999 doubling in length as compared to conflicts that took place between 1960 and The Human Security Report 2005 notes that, in modern armed conflicts, indirect deaths account for some 90 per cent of war-related deaths. 7 The authors reach this figure using data from various recent efforts to measure the impact of armed conflict on civilians and society as a whole, including a study undertaken by Bethany Lacina and Nils Petter Gliditch in 2004 and research by Monty G. Marshall at the University of Maryland. While they caution that the dearth of reliable data has led researchers to make educated guesstimates, both studies clearly point to an alarming trend. Lacina and Gliditch compared battledeaths with an estimate of total war deaths in ten conflicts in sub-saharan Africa that began after In all cases, they concluded that battle-deaths made up less than 30 per cent of all deaths and in the cases of Ethiopia, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, battle-deaths amounted to fewer than 10 per cent of the total. Marshall has developed a more inclusive measure for the societal impact of war, which attempts to examine war deaths, impact to infrastructure, the environment and the dislocation of populations, among other factors. He has concluded that civil conflicts have a much greater societal impact and that, in line with the trend of violent conflict, as the number of civil conflicts peaked in the early 1990s, so too did the global societal impact of war overall. 8 Since most recent and ongoing wars take place in the world s poorest countries, where citizens are already vulnerable to disease and malnutrition and health systems are often fragile and under-resourced, the greatest causes of indirect deaths from armed conflicts are disease and malnutrition. This reality is then exacerbated by the large number of refugees and 7 Human Security Report 2005, p Marshall, Recovering from Armed Conflict: Lessons Learned and Next Steps for Improved International Assistance Megan Burke

10 4 displaced persons who are forced from their homes during conflict. The Human Development Report 2005 notes that currently there are approximately 25 million displaced persons throughout the world. 9 A third critical characteristic of modern, civil conflicts is their debilitating impact on a country s governance capacity. In 1995, in his Supplement to An Agenda for Peace, Boutros Boutros Ghali noted this feature of intrastate conflict as a serious challenge for United Nations peace-keepers since it causes the collapse of state institutions, especially the police and judiciary, with resulting paralysis of governance, a break-down of law and order and general banditry and chaos. 10 In most civil conflicts, opposition forces target government infrastructure in their attempt to weaken the government and seize power. In many cases, once the conflict has ended, both sides realise that very little remains both in terms of economic and governing infrastructure. Whilst the growing body of literature on failed and fragile states is not specific to postconflict societies, it is clear why the overlap of failing states with those states that are emerging from violent conflict is nearly complete. Armed conflict is one of the most important causes of state failure. While the immediate post-cold War increase in the number of violent conflicts and the devastating impact of these conflicts are unequivocally bad news, more recent trends demonstrate a sustained decrease in the number of armed conflicts globally and in the level of intensity of these conflicts. The Human Security Report notes a decline of more than 40 per cent in the number of conflicts since 1988, with the resolution of more than 100 armed conflicts. 11 However, this report did detect a small increase in what it terms low intensity conflicts, a result of the incomplete resolution of some former conflicts of higher intensity. Marshall and Gurr s Peace and Conflict 2005 states that, The global trend in major armed conflict has 9 UNDP, Human Development Report, Boutros Boutros Ghali, Supplement to An Agenda For Peace: Position Paper Of The Secretary-General On The Occasion Of The Fiftieth Anniversary Of The United Nations, UN Doc A/50/60-S/1995/1 (3 January 1995). 11 Human Security Report 2005 continued to decrease markedly in the post-cold War era, both in terms of the number of states affected by major armed conflicts and in general magnitude, for instance, major armed conflicts are down 60 per cent since the peak in the mid-1980s and by mid 2004 they had fallen to the lowest level since the late 1950s. 12 The most recent data available from the Uppsala Conflict Data Programme also found a steady decline with just 29 conflicts in 22 countries in 2003; researchers Mikael Eriksson and Peter Wallensteen reported that the probability that any particular country was involved in a conflict [in 2003] has never been lower since the early 1950s. 13 Explanations for this positive trend over the last decade are many and an in-depth analysis of this is outside the main focus of this paper. However, in brief, most scholars believe that the more frequent engagement of the international community both multilateral bodies such as the United Nations and bilateral interventions alongside a growing international norm for the negotiated settlement of violent conflict has resulted in this somewhat delayed peace dividend. As a result, over the last decade, a growing number of countries have emerged from major societal wars and now face the daunting task of rebuilding their devastated countries. Shepard Forman and Dirk Salomons listed a total of 40 countries emerging from protracted violence since Tobias Debiel and Ulf Terlinden found 37 countries in 2003 that had been involved in conflict within the previous ten years and lists an additional 24 countries that were at war in Six of these had a very active peace process and likely de-escalation of violence. 14 By combining the information provided by these two sources and updating the list to near present using data available from Marshall and Gurr s Peace and Conflict 2005, 48 countries are found to have 12 Marshall, 2005, p Mikael Eriksson and Peter Wallensteen, Armed Conflict , Journal of Peace Research, (Vol. 41 No. 5, Oslo, September 2004) p Tobias Debiel and Ulf Terlinden, Promoting Good Governance in Post-Conflict Societies: A Discussion Paper, commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, State and Democracy Division, Berlin, Working Paper 22

11 5 emerged from violent conflict since 1989 and an additional 14 countries were at war as of early While each country among the 62 listed has its own unique circumstances and not all have seen the same magnitude of devastation and loss of life, with few exceptions, these countries have been left impoverished with minimal to no capacity to provide emergency relief or undertake the long-term rehabilitation needed following the end of a protracted conflict. The Task of Post- Conflict Reconstruction With such a large number of countries facing such serious challenges, it is clear that a cooperative effort on the part of the countries emerging from conflict along with the donor community is needed to stabilise and rebuild these countries. The task of stabilising and rebuilding following armed conflict is not new and has been referred to by many terms overtime, but currently post-conflict reconstruction is most commonly accepted, which is defined here as (re)establishing an effective and just state that is capable of addressing the basic needs of its populace. In 1992, in the Agenda for Peace, Boutros Boutros Ghali coined the term peacebuilding, which he described as an effort to consolidate peace and advance a sense of confidence and well-being among people to avoid the reoccurrence of war. He listed specific peacebuilding activities including disarmament, refugee repatriation, election monitoring, human rights protection and the reform or strengthening of governmental institutions. 16 The World Bank has used the term post-conflict reconstruction since 1995 to mean the rebuilding of the socio-economic framework of society and the reconstruction of the enabling conditions for a functioning peacetime society [to include] the framework of governance and rule of law. 17 In the discourse on failed and fragile states, the most commonly used terms are nation- or state-building, also referring to efforts to (re)establish an effective and just state. However, since not all states with weak or collapsed governments have recently emerged from armed conflicts, the essential activities needed to achieve this outcome vary based on the cause of the state s collapse or failure. Post-conflict reconstruction is a critical imperative for the entire global community for two closely related reasons: armed conflict and failed states are obstacles to long-term development efforts and poverty reduction, which both threaten local, national and international security. While there is no automatic link between poverty and armed conflict, the Human Development Report 2005 noted that violent outcomes are more likely in societies marked by deep polarisation, weak institutions and chronic poverty and that violent conflict is one of the surest and fastest routes to the bottom of the HDI [Human Development Index] table and one of the strongest indicators for a protracted stay there. 18 In short, poor countries are more likely to experience violent conflict and countries that have experienced violent conflict are more likely to be poor. Extensive research has been done, led in large part by Paul Collier, former Director of the Development Research group at the World Bank, to refine the connection between poverty and the outbreak of civil war. In his article with Anke Hoeffler, Greed and Grievance, Collier argues that economic and political inequality (grievances) coupled with economic viability (greed) such as access to natural resources or external financial support provide the most robust economic explanation for the outbreak of civil conflict Please see Appendix A for the list of post-conflict countries and countries at war as of early Boutros Boutros Ghali, An Agenda for Peace: Preventative Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peace-Keeping, Report of the Secretary General to the United Nations Security Council, UN Doc A/47/277 - S/24111 (31 January 1992), para World Bank, Post-Conflict Reconstruction: The Role of the World Bank (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1998). 18 Human Development Report 2005, pp. 152 & Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, Greed and Grievance in Civil War, Policy Working Paper 28126, Washington, D.C.: World Bank, October Recovering from Armed Conflict: Lessons Learned and Next Steps for Improved International Assistance Megan Burke

12 6 The cost of armed conflict, both in terms of human life and economic infrastructure, has also been widely documented. In the example of Mozambique, over one million people out of a population of approximately 15 million were killed as a direct result of their internal conflict. Over 40 per cent of the remaining population, or more than 6.8 million people, were displaced, either internally or as refugees. Vital infrastructure such as schools, wells, health centres and roads were destroyed or rendered unusable throughout the country, but especially in rural areas, at rates ranging between 30 and 50 per cent. 20 Similar losses in numerous war-torn societies demonstrate why poverty is so pervasive in countries that have recently emerged from war and why many of these countries fail to develop and thrive. Critics posit that this argument has also been used to justify foreign military interventions in failing states, a phenomenon that has been labelled the securitisation of development. The concept of securitisation of development refers to the trend to use overseas development aid as a foreign policy instrument in the war against terrorism rather than a means to reduce poverty worldwide. 22 Linked to this concept and in the wake of the so called integrated missions for postconflict reconstruction efforts, greater attention has been focused on the increasing use of military forces from donor countries to provide humanitarian relief on the one hand and the receipt of development aid by military forces in recipient countries on the other. 23 The devastating impact that armed conflict has on human beings and their quality of life has long been clear. Unfortunately, this has failed to motivate sufficiently many donor countries to commit the resources needed, both financial and human, to address effectively the problems facing post-conflict societies. Since 11 September 2001, the challenge of reconstructing post-conflict societies, as a sub-group of failed or fragile states, has emerged as a new priority on the international agenda. These countries are seen as breeding grounds for international terrorism, which in turn poses a threat to global security. This link has been made by many governments in the developed world and by multilateral organisations as a justification for increased resources and more effective international responses to post-conflict countries. Robert Orr summed up this view clearly: Lawless and unstable post-conflict environments that are lacking institutional means to address their internal problems provide almost perfect laboratory conditions for those who would hatch terror plots and recruit and train terrorists, as well as finance and manage global terror operations from a safe distance Luisa Diogo, Peace and the Economy, in Mozambique: 10 Years of Peace, edited by Brazao Mazula, (Maputo: Center for Democracy and Development, 2004), p Robert Orr (ed.), Winning the Peace: An American Strategy for Post-Conflict Reconstruction (Washington D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2004), p. 3. Defining the Task The ever-increasing number of countries emerging from prolonged armed conflict combined with the growing sense of urgency to reconstruct these countries has encouraged many scholars and donor governments to clarify the essential elements of postconflict reconstruction and when and how they should occur. It is widely recognised that the situation will vary in each post-conflict setting and the post-conflict needs assessment (PCNA) has emerged as a key tool to address recovery needs on a case-by-case basis. Typically, PCNAs are carried out jointly by the United Nations and the World Bank and are seen as the entry point for conceptualising, negotiating and financing post-conflict recovery strategies in a given country See both Jorg Faust and Dirk Messener, Europe s New Security Strategy- Challenges for Development Policy (German Institute for Development, 3/2004) and Europe in the World: Essays on EU foreign, Security and Development Policies, (London: BOND, 2004), for analyses of this explicit trend among European governments. 23 In its latest report on the Democratic Republic of Congo, the International Crisis Group (ICG) calls on OECD Development Assistance Committee to review conditions that might restrict donors from using ODA to engage more proactively in security sector reform. See Security Sector Reform in Congo, Africa Report No 104, ICG Nairobi/Brussels, 13 February For an example of European aid used to strengthen military capacity in conflict regions, see Securing Peace and Stability for Africa:The EU-Funded African Peace Facility, European Commission, July Uwe Kievelitz et al., Practical Guide to Multilateral Needs Assessments in Post-conflict Situations (United Nations Development Group, UNDP and World Bank commissioned study, 2004), p. 1. Working Paper 22

13 7 Despite varying country contexts, there are also commonalities that can be found across various postconflict settings and it is commonly held that there are three phases of activity, roughly in the following sequential order but with significant overlap between and among the phases. These three phases are: Post-crisis stabilisation; Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Institution- Building; and Consolidation and Long-term Development. First, immediately following the end of the conflict, is the post-crisis phase where the focus is on emergency relief, security and stabilisation of the government and the economy. Very little reconstruction and development can take place in a highly insecure environment where a reasonable fear of renewed violence remains. In this first phase, often defined as the first one to three years, there is typically both an external military and a civilian emergency presence. The military presence, albeit a United Nations Peacekeeping force, a regional peacekeeping force such as the African Union in the Sudan, a bilateral force such as the U.S. or British military or a coalition of interested donor countries, is designed to prevent a return to large-scale violence. Humanitarian aid workers relieve basic human needs, theoretically working independently from the military presence though often coordinated through the UN Special Representative of the Secretary General (that is, when there is a SRSG in place). In practice, in many highly insecure post-conflict environments, humanitarian relief workers increasingly rely on peace-keepers for security and are no longer seen to be independent from the foreign military presence. This reliance threatens the long-held notion of humanitarian neutrality and has increased the danger for many relief workers. It is during the second phase, usually defined as year four to year seven, when physical reconstruction, the (re)establishment of public institutions, reconciliation and economic stabilisation and reform can begin. With greater levels of security, refugees can return and elections are held so that new government policies are established under a freely elected government that has received a majority of public support. In cases of complete government collapse and where the international community has assumed full governing responsibility through a transitional administration, governing authority is typically handed back to the local population during this phase. In the third phase, theoretically year eight to year ten, a foundation has been laid to begin longer term development plans. Public and security reform programmes are often implemented during this phase and there is greater attention paid to securing foreign investment and encouraging local investment while also securing greater access to export markets for local production. Throughout both the second and third phases, efforts are made to address the root causes of war so that the society is not rebuilt with the same flaws and injustices that led to armed conflict in the first place. Many scholars have criticised this framework, arguing that such sequencing is too rigid, or that political or economic reform that is delayed until the security situation has been stabilised reinforces unequal policies that may have been at the root of the armed conflict. Tony Addison argues that economic reform that encourages a broad-based recovery must be a priority from the moment a peace agreement is signed and not something that is left until political reform has been completed. Well-designed economic reform can strengthen the political settlement while poorlydesigned reform [or no reform whatsoever] can undermine it. 25 Susan Woodward similarly asserts that, while the economic aspects of peace agreement implementation are obvious, these economic aspects tend to take a backseat to security concerns. 26 Additionally, some scholars believe that phases two and three should be seen as a single phase or a continuum 25 Tony Addison, Africa s Recovery from Conflict: Making Peace Work for the Poor, UNU World Institute for Development and Economics Research Susan Woodward, Economic Priorities for Successful Peace Implementation in Stephen John Stedman, Donald Rothchild and Elizabeth M. Cousens (eds), Ending Civil Wars: The Implementation of Peace Agreements (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002), p Recovering from Armed Conflict: Lessons Learned and Next Steps for Improved International Assistance Megan Burke

14 8 so that there is greater synchronisation between reconstruction and recovery programmes and development programmes from the outset. Essential Activities Essential post-conflict reconstruction activities are varied and multi-sectoral and most require continued attention throughout the three phases listed above. Forman and Salomons identified the following eight elements of essential activities: Repatriation, reintegration and reconciliation; 2. Human rights, including property and identity; 3. Public safety and security, including demobilisation, policing and human rights; 4. Infrastructure recovery, including water, sanitation, shelter and transportation; 5. Food security and agricultural rehabilitation, including land tenure designation and registration; 6. Urgent health, education and basic social welfare requirements, including employment and income generation; 7. Operative governance structures, including rule of law and civil society institutions; and 8. Elections, including voter education. Robert Orr outlined four pillars: security, governance and participation, social and economic well-being and justice and reconciliation. 28 Debiel and Terlinden, focusing specifically on promoting good governance in post-conflict societies, introduced the concept of three dimensions of governance: security governance, political-administrative governance and socioeconomic governance. 29 Raul Romeva i Rueda described five tasks: resettlement and demilitarisation, physical reconstruction and the reinstatement of basic institutional services, political and economic reform to address the root causes of war, reconciliation and the 27 Shepard Forman and Dirk Salomons, Meeting Essential Needs in Societies Emerging from Conflict, Center on International Cooperation Working Paper (1999), p Orr, p Debiel and Terlinden, 2005, p. 3. rule of law and regional normalisation and reinsertion into international fora. 30 While each author listed above has approached the issue of post-conflict reconstruction from a different perspective, the similarities among these frameworks are more striking than the differences. As can be seen in Appendix B, of 42 distinct post-conflict tasks drawn from the lists developed by each of the authors named above, all but 14 can be matched to the same or similar task on each list. The most notable exceptions are employment and skills training, which are only included in two of the four sources, the reinsertion of post-conflict countries into regional and international fora, also only included by two of four, and finally, the transformation of economies of violence or illegal economies, mentioned only by Debiel and Terlinden. Also, it is noteworthy that all four studies included in this review have been generated by Northern scholars with the explicit intention of advising the response of the donor community in post-conflict situations. Such lists developed by actors within postconflict societies are not currently available. It is important to note that the categorisation or pillarisation of essential tasks can lead to the exclusion of key cross-cutting issues that affect a number of sectors that are important for post-conflict recovery. Typical cross-cutting issues, as identified by Uwe et al., that must be considered include: 31 Gender: it has been clearly demonstrated in numerous studies that armed conflicts impact men and women differently and that, in many cases, traditional gender roles are altered over the course of prolonged conflict. 32 Many post-conflict societies see a high proportion of female-led households while 30 Raul Romeva i Rueda, Guerra, posguerra y paz: Pautas para el análisis y la intervención en contextos posbélicos o postacuerdo (Barcelona: Icaria Editorial, 2003), p Uwe et al., 2004, p In 2002, the Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael published a comprehensive literature review and analysis on the role of women in conflict prevention, conflict resolution and postconflict reconstruction. Tsjeard Bouta and Georg Frerks, Women s Roles in Conflict Prevention, Conflict Resolution and Post-Conflict Reconstruction: Literature Review and Institutional Analysis Conflict Resolution Unit Occasional Paper, The Hague, Clingendael Institute, November Working Paper 22

15 9 many post-conflict reconstruction projects have primarily targeted men, especially those focused on the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of former soldiers. Additionally, many post-conflict societies see higher than average levels of violence against women and children, something that must be addressed through reconciliation and post-traumatic psychological support programmes. The Environment: armed conflict often causes widespread damage to the environment from landmines and other explosives and the absence of government attention to environmental issues during a prolonged conflict. The rebuilding of infrastructure can do further damage to an already fragile environment unless there is systematic attention paid to environmental impact. Human Rights: human rights abuses are often a cause of conflict as well as a result of conflict. Applying a rights-based framework to all post-conflict activities is an important method for building respect for human rights and addressing the root causes of conflicts. International Responses To promote both human development and international security, it is critical to reconstruct post-conflict societies and there is in fact consensus on the activities involved in this task. Additionally, it is recognised that most countries emerging from conflict are not in the position to undertake these tasks without some outside support or involvement. Despite this consensus, thus far, the international community as a whole has achieved mediocre results in its attempts to consolidate peace and promote economic growth following armed conflict. Paul Collier found that 44 per cent of all conflicts resumed within five years of their official end. After ten years, more than 50 per cent of peace agreements had failed. 33 In 2003, Michael Lund reviewed outcomes in 17 different countries with conflicts that ended through peace agreements to determine whether these agreements and subsequent peacebuilding efforts resulted in the absence of widespread violence. Using empirical evidence drawn from six researchers, he found that eleven of these were failures or only partial successes and that while postconflict peacebuilding efforts have had some successes as many or more have been failures. 34 Other scholars, such as Jenny Pearce and Alejandro Bendaña, argue that the success rate, particularly for post-conflict reconstruction efforts in the 1980s and early 1990s in Central America, is in fact much lower. They argue that a definition that only considers the return to armed conflict as a failure undercounts situations in which the root causes of conflict remain unresolved, which in turn leads to economic and criminal violence that has a similar negative impact on human security and equitable economic growth. 35 One exception to this generally dim view of the results of post-conflict reconstruction is the recent RAND study The UN s Role in Nation-Building by James Dobbin, et al. This study analysed United Nations humanitarian, political and economic activities in eight post-conflict situations since World War II. The outcomes of these eight cases were compared with outcomes in eight cases in which the United States led nation-building efforts over the same period. The study determined that the UN-led operations successfully achieved sustained peace in seven of eight cases and democratisation in six of eight. The U.S.-led operations achieved sustained peace in only four of eight cases and democratisation in two of eight cases. While conceding that they could have reached differing 33 Collier et al., 2003, p Michael Lund, What Kind of Peace is Being Built? Taking Stock of Post-Conflict Peacebuilding and Charting Future Directions, Discussion Paper for North-South Institute, January, 2003, p See Alejandro Bendaña, What Kind of Peace is Being Built: Critical Assessments from the South, Discussion Paper for the International Development Research Centre, January 2003 for an explanation of organised civil violence versus economic and criminal violence. Recovering from Armed Conflict: Lessons Learned and Next Steps for Improved International Assistance Megan Burke

16 10 conclusions depending on the cases selected, 36 the authors of the study conclude that the United Nations provides the most suitable institutional framework for most nation-building missions, one at a comparatively high success rate and the greatest degree of international legitimacy. 37 While it may be correct to say that the United Nations is best suited to lead postconflict reconstruction exercises, and perhaps also to conclude that recent post-conflict missions have benefited from its experience to achieve greater success, the study s limited survey sample does not allow one to generalise that the United Nations has achieved an 87 per cent success rate across all postconflict situations. Critique of International Responses The importance of the post-conflict reconstruction effort and the lack of success to date have inspired many scholars and practitioners, occasionally at the request of donor governments or multilateral organisations themselves, to critique international responses so that lessons learned can be applied in future efforts. These critiques fit within three broad and interrelated fields: 1. Political Responses: Peace or stabilisation operations, carried out by the United Nations, NATO, other regional bodies or unilateral governments such as the United States or the United Kingdom, that assume some degree of responsibility for the activities, which would be undertaken normally by the state. 36 Country case studies selected for UN operations were Belgian Congo, Namibia, El Salvador, Cambodia, Mozambique, Eastern Slavonia, Sierra Leone and East Timor. US cases were Germany, Japan, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. 37 James Dobbins, Seth G. Jones et al. The UN s Role in Nation Building: From the Congo to Iraq (Rand Corporation, February 2005), p. xxxvii. 2. Economic Responses: The provision of aid and foreign assistance and the economic policy prescriptions and technical assistance for macroeconomic stabilisation, economic reform and economic development. 3. International Engagement of Local Actors: The selection and involvement (or lack thereof) of local actors in post-conflict reconstruction and their relationship with the international donor community in implementing political, economic and social reconstruction. Political Responses As discussed above, modern prolonged civil wars weaken and/or destroy the governing capacity of the state. Once a peace agreement is put in place, some level of external support is required to assist countries in the transition from war to peace. In some cases, governments have collapsed or human resources have been diminished so completely that there are few formal structures or capacities on which to build. Beginning in the late 1980s, as UN peace-keeping missions took on an increasing number of political post-conflict reconstruction tasks, such as electoral assistance, police reform, DDR (demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration), refugee resettlement and human rights monitoring, these missions came to be known as expanded or multidimensional missions. Nevertheless, these expanded missions did not attempt to take the place of the government, however fragile it might have been. The end of the Cold War and a related shift in thinking about national sovereignty dramatically changed the prevailing blanket reluctance to intervene in sovereign states. 38 As a result of this paradigm shift, since the 38 A related and mutually reinforcing trend can be seen in the success of the International Commission on the Responsibility to Protect, led by the government of Canada, which justifies international interventions in sovereign states that are unable or unwilling to prevent human rights abuse within their territory. This concept received widespread support in the 2005 Summit on UN Reform. Working Paper 22

17 11 mid-1990s, the United Nations, other multilateral bodies and even occupying forces have been entrusted or have assumed high levels of authority in assuming the responsibilities of the government in post-conflict societies. These interventions come in two distinct forms: military occupation and international trusteeships or transitional administrations. While military occupations and international administrations may look similar to many people within the host country, they differ in that an international administration is authorised by and is answerable to the United Nations. 39 Simon Chesterman defines a transitional administration as a sub-set of UN statebuilding activities where these activities are implemented by having the international community assume some or all of the powers of the state on a temporary basis. 40 Richard Caplan lists the following functions of transitional administrations: making and enforcing local laws, exercising total fiscal management, creating a central bank, appointing and removing local officials, adjudicating property claims, establishing customs services, regulating local media and local businesses and running schools. 41 He also distinguishes these governing structures from past UN peace-keeping missions by their political nature, making decisions about issues such as the role of women and the reintegration of ethnic communities. There have been just three modern international administrations that have taken this form of direct governance: the UN Transitional Administration for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium; the UN Interim Administration in Kosovo; and the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor. this degree in international intervention. Opinions range from wholehearted endorsements, to conditional endorsements and to outright rejection as a new form of imperialism on the part of donor nations. Stephen Krasner argues that the problems in poorly governed and collapsed states are so severe that solutions require the transcendence of accepted rules that currently restrict international intervention to government assistance or fixed term transitional administrations. 42 He believes that the international community must go further to establish more openended trusteeships and systems of shared sovereignty that eliminate the international legal sovereignty of an entity for an indefinite period of time. 43 Another voice in support of transitional administrations comes from Stephen Ellis, the former Director of the Africa Programme at the International Crisis Group. Ellis advocates for what he refers to as international trusteeships for one continent that has yet to see such an international intervention and that arguably could use it the most: Africa. He believes that many failed or fragile states in Africa lack a historical foundation of good governance making the reestablishment of effective governments impossible. He believes that cases such as Liberia, Somalia, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo require a more comprehensive, longer term approach that if done properly, could result in a healthier, more stable and more secure Africa. 44 James Fearon and David Laitin accept the concept of neotrusteeships or postmodern imperialism and call for a system to implement international collective action. 45 Alongside the increasing acceptance and prevalence of transitional administrations has come a growing body of literature debating the legitimacy and necessity of 39 While all transitional administrations to date have had both a military and a civil component, as mentioned in the introduction, this analysis will focus on the civilian aspects of these operations noting that much of the critique of such operations does apply to both the civil and military presence. 40 Simon Chesterman, You, the People: The United Nations, Transitional Administration and Statebuilding (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p Richard Caplan, International Governance of War-Torn Territories: Rule and Reconstruction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). Richard Caplan takes a much more cautious approach and while he concludes that transitional administrations have made a positive contribution to the mitigation of conflicts, he credits this success to 42 Stephen D. Krasner, Shared Sovereignty: New Institutions for Collapsed and Failing States, International Security (Vol. 29, No. 2, Fall 2004), p Ibid., p Stephen Ellis, How to Rebuild Africa, Foreign Affairs, (Vol. 84, No. 5, September/October, 2005). 45 James Fearon and David Laitin, Neotrusteeship and the Problem of Weak States, International Security (Vol. 28, No. 4, Spring 2004), pp Recovering from Armed Conflict: Lessons Learned and Next Steps for Improved International Assistance Megan Burke