- ISSUES NOTE - Joint Special Event on the Food and Economic Crises in Post-Conflict Countries Organized by the Economic and Social Council, Peacebuilding Commission, in partnership with the World Food Programme ECOSOC Chamber 29 October 2009
I. Background 1. The international food price rises of 2007 and 2008 directly affected vulnerable households and net-food importing countries. Many countries emerging from conflict were affected. The global economic crisis has further tested the ability of vulnerable households to gain access to food and for the countries to strengthen social protection and maintain the social and economic investments which are essential components of long-term stability and growth. With the release of the Secretary-General s report on peacebuilding in the immediate aftermath of conflict (A/63/881-S/2009/304), the socio-economic dimensions of peacebuilding were also highlighted. The objective of this Special Event is to bring together key UN stakeholders to explore strategies to ensure that social and economic needs in post-conflict countries receive adequate attention and funding, especially in light of continuing high food prices and an uncertain global economic outlook. 2. The Secretary-General s report on peacebuilding aims to promote greater coherence among the different parts of the United Nations system and other relevant actors and to better support nations emerging from conflict. The report identifies recurring priority areas for which governments often request international assistance following a conflict, and underscores the importance of addressing these areas in an integrated manner. The purpose of this note is to reflect on challenges and opportunities within two of these priority areas: (i) the provision of basic services and (ii) support to economic revitalization and livelihoods. The report points to the benefits of utilizing the UN Country Team assets already on the ground, including the sometimes significant humanitarian presence. Humanitarian and early recovery assistance integral but at times underappreciated elements in peacebuilding can constitute timely and tangible peace dividends to war-affected populations and investments that will underpin sustainable peace and recovery. 3. The ongoing food and financial economic crises have underscored the susceptibility of vulnerable people and fragile states to food insecurity a susceptibility more deeply felt in countries emerging from conflict, where resilience to shocks is low and nascent governments are attempting to overcome the many challenges of rebuilding a state. II. Challenges in Delivering Peace Dividends and Social Investment 4. With a peace agreement come high expectations for the delivery of concrete political, social and economic dividends immediately, and certainly within the two-year time frame covered by the report. However, the capacity of national and local authorities (or communities) to deliver is often particularly weak at precisely this moment. At the same time, funding for humanitarian assistance often falls off sharply when a conflict is considered to be over, while longer-term development investments usually require significant lead time. As a number of studies have pointed out, countries moving towards peace are faced with both a capacity and a funding gap 1. 5. Among the social and economic needs that require attention are the delivery of basic services and transitional safety nets: food and nutrition, water and sanitation, health and primary education and support to the safe and sustainable return and reintegration of internally displaced persons and refugees. Equally important are safety nets that preserve the human assets necessary for a country s longer-term development. These transitional safety nets whether for water, 1 NYU Center on International Cooperation, Recovering from War: Gaps in Early Action. 2008.
basic food needs, nutrition, education, or health are often funded during the acute humanitarian phase under the term life-saving interventions. What is frequently not recognized is that these interventions not only save lives but also provide a necessary foundation for longer-term stability and economic growth. Estimates of GDP lost to malnutrition range from two to three percent 2 in many countries to eleven percent in some Central American countries 3. Maintaining the nutritional status of a generation of children directly after the signing of a peace treaty is just as important as during the war because even a few months of inadequate nutrition in young children can have irreversible, life-long negative effects on health, education and productivity. Achieving the MDGs, or halting reverses in MDG indicators, relies on such social investments, including transitional safety nets. The capacity of many states emerging from war to provide such services is rarely adequate in the first post-war years. 6. The funding for the timely delivery of basic social needs the quick delivery of tangible peace dividends attributable to national authorities often relies on ad hoc and unpredictable donations. Government budgets receive donor support for governance and security sector reform. UN Peacekeeping and UN political missions benefit from assessed contributions to cover other priority peacebuilding areas. But agencies such as the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Children s Fund (UNICEF), and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), already working on the ground usually with government, NGOs and local institutions must scramble for funds to try and help new governments maintain basic social coverage. The Secretary-General s report makes important recommendations on how the Peacebuilding Fund could be used to catalyse early priorities and bridge the funding gap before longer-term investments begin. 7. In the 2008 Accra Agenda for Action, donors acknowledged that more consolidated and coherent international actions were required on priority peacebuilding objectives and committed themselves to working on flexible, rapid and long term funding modalities to bridge humanitarian, recovery and longer term development phases and to support peace building. This built on the Paris Declaration for Aid Effectiveness, which agreed that aid effectiveness principles applied equally to development cooperation in countries emerging from conflict. OECD/DAC s International Network on Conflict and Fragility (INCAF) is helping to improve donor responses to the challenges of state fragility and conflict. III. Opportunities for Delivering Immediate Peace Dividends and Social Investment 8. Experience has shown that the basic service delivery and livelihood opportunities are among the top priorities sought by governments in most post-conflict situations. Without them, the achievements of the humanitarian phase can be quickly lost and the trajectory towards longerterm growth irreparably slowed. UN planning and assessment instruments now being formulated such as through the Integrated Mission Planning Process increasingly recognize the importance of social interventions alongside political and security priorities, although the intergovernmental agreements authorizing the establishment of missions rarely refer in detail to the socio-economic status and vulnerabilities of war-affected populations. 9. During and in the immediate aftermath of a conflict, humanitarian actors often already have a presence on the ground, are working with local and national authorities, and have important 2 World Bank, Repositioning Nutrition as Central to Development: A Strategy for Large-Scale Action. 2006. 3 ; World Food Programme and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. 2007. 3
knowledge about affected people and regions. Their programmes include transitional safety nets that protect human assets and investments in livelihood opportunities, shelter, and transport and market infrastructure. 10. The deep field presence of many operational agencies and their ability to deliver quickly through government-endorsed and tested mechanisms are major assets to the overall peacebuilding effort. As pointed out in the Secretary-General s report, the UN and its partners typically have considerable country expertise and humanitarian capacities on the ground, some of which can be transitioned towards early peacebuilding priorities, particularly through those entities that have a dual humanitarian and development mandate, such as UNICEF, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), WFP and the World Health Organization (WHO). These agencies also work with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the Early Recovery Cluster/Network to support recovery at the earliest opportunity. Dual-mandated agencies are often well- placed to begin the longer-term investments necessary so that national actors can eventually provide services directly to populations. 11. The Secretary-General s report recognizes that incoming missions and development actors need to study the existing capacities and efforts being undertaken during the humanitarian phase, and build future assessments and activities from those platforms. As the report states, Scaling up these capacities and operations, where relevant, can yield the fastest and most effective results in the initial months. IV. The Food Price and Economic Crisis and its Effect in Post-Conflict and Fragile Settings 12. The risks to stability and peace posed by economic and food price shocks for states emerging from conflict can not be over-estimated. Food and fuel price riots during 2007 and 2008 were examples of the kind of civil unrest and threats to stability that can result from economic shocks. The impact of food insecurity occurs at various levels: short-term triggers of unrest or violence; negative effects on livelihoods and the health, educational attainment and productivity of individuals; long-term erosion of state institutions; and depression of economic development. Rapid food price increases last year triggered protests or riots in a range of countries. This kind of insecurity and social instability felt in people s homes is often mirrored by broader instability at the national and even regional level. This is particularly true in fragile states and those emerging from conflict. By definition these states are already struggling to provide basic goods, the rule of law and protection to their citizens. 13. Not surprisingly, when it comes to countries vulnerable to the current global financial slowdown, the picture is similar. WFP s Economic Shock and Hunger Index (ESHI) uses economic variables to identify which countries will be hardest hit by the global economic and financial crisis and food insecurity variables to identify where that hit will most likely translate to an increase in the incidence and/or severity of hunger. About half of the Index s at-risk countries have in recent years experienced significant violent conflict or civil unrest. Past research has pointed to reducing a country s exposure to price shocks such as those experienced during the recent food price emergency as a practical policy measure to reduce the risk or persistence of a conflict 4. Many of the priority interventions undertaken through the HLTF s Comprehensive Framework for Action demonstrate how the UN s operational agencies, 4 Paul Collier et al., Breaking the Conflict Trap: Civil War and Development Policy, OUP, 2003. 4
funds and programmes are equipped to support stability and peace with timely, flexible assistance. 14. Of particular concern in both post-conflict settings and in responding to shocks such as the food price and economic crises is ensuring that the needs and potential of women are understood. A recent study on gender vulnerabilities within the food price emergency confirms that women are bearing a disproportionate share of the burden. both as producers and consumers 5. The Secretary-General s report likewise points to women as important drivers of recovery and development in post-conflict settings and warns of the serious costs of neglecting their needs. VI. Opportunities for Lowering the Risk of Set-backs, or Return to Conflict 15. The causes of violent conflict are complex. Some have argued that poor economic performance, high (income) inequalities, low average income and over-reliance on the export of primary commodities have all been associated with the causes and duration of conflict in lowincome countries. 6 Recent studies have attempted to understand the relationship between food insecurity and conflict. Breaking down the socioeconomic status of populations prior to the outbreak of conflict, one study concluded that income poverty and poor health and nutritional status are more significantly associated with the eruption of conflict than per capita GDP, annual GDP growth and the ratio of primary commodity exports over GDP. 7 16. Low-income countries typically face a high likelihood of reverting to conflict within five years of the ending of a prior conflict (the probability is doubled, to fifty percent, within ten years). 8 Reducing this risk means investment in socio-economic areas as part of an overall peacebuilding strategy that is simultaneously tackling the crucial political and security issues that sometimes receive a greater degree of attention (and resources). Investment in socio-economic development is a long-term process, but needs to start as early as possible as an integral part of peacebuilding. As emphasized in the Secretary-General s report, this kind of investment can have a multiplier effect: Visible peace dividends that are attributable to the national authorities, including early employment generation and supporting returnees, are also critical to build the confidence in the government and the peace process. Jump-starting economic recovery can be one of the greatest bolsters of security, and provides the engine for future recovery. 17. More specifically, achieving adequate access to food and nutrition for people in a peacebuilding context whether through cash or in-kind safety nets or through livelihood activities that ensure access to adequate food is central to maintaining stability and to protecting and developing a country s human assets for the longer-term growth needed to sustain peace. It is sometimes possible to link such safety nets to national government efforts to develop or expand long-term safety nets for vulnerable groups. 5 Holmes, Rebecca; Jones, Nicola and Marsden, Hannah. Gender Vulnerabilities, food price shocks and social protection responses. Overseas Development Institutue, August 2009. 6 See, for example, Paul Collier et al., 2003; E. Wayne Nafziger, Frances Stewart and Raimo Väyrunen, War, Hunger, and Displacement: The Origins of humanitarian Emergencies, OUP, 2000. 7 Per Pinstrup-Andersen and Satoru Shimokawa. Do poverty and poor health and nutrition increase the risk of armed conflict on-set? Food Policy 2008, 33, pg 513. 8 Astri Surkrke and Ingrid Samset, What s in a figure? Estimating Recurrence of Civil War, International Peacekeeping 14, No. 2, 195-203. 5
18. Most of the world s fragile and conflict-affected countries are also among the world s poorest, and heavily reliant on agriculture. A study commissioned by FAO in 2003 determined that during a conflict the agriculture sector falls by about 1.5 per year 9 ; a tremendous loss. When it comes to restoring food security in these countries, post-conflict investments must consider the cumulative loss of rural infrastructure, livestock, natural resources and productive land. VII. Conclusion 19. We know that effective peacebuilding requires patience, flexibility, prolonged commitment and realism; it must allow for possible shocks and setbacks. Predictable social investments, for example, through transitional safety nets and investments in livelihoods, can play a dual role: constituting a tangible peace dividend that meets immediate needs; and an investment in human and productive assets for longer-term growth. Questions for consideration 1. How might the UN Organs, departments, funds and programmes better combine their efforts to address socio-economic issues including food security that have an impact on stability and peacebuilding? 2. What are immediate quick win activities in the socio-economic area that provide basic social services and contribute to long-term development? 3. How can predictable, longer-term funding be assured for the provision of basic social services that contribute to peacebuilding? 4. How can the potential contribution of humanitarian agencies to peacebuilding be better understood, and how might those agencies be strengthened to maximize their potential contribution?, 5. Support to basic services and livelihoods needs to be carried forward sustainably over the long-term by national actors. What can be done to ensure these actors are up and running as soon as possible following a peace agreement? 6. What should be done to strengthen national social safety nets or help develop national safety nets in postconflict countries? 7. What additional steps are needed to ensure that the ongoing food and economic crisis does not further jeopardize prospects for the Millennium Development Goals in countries emerging from conflict? 9 Slobodanka B. Teodosijeiae. Armed Conflicts and Food Security ESA Working Paper No. 03-11, FAO, Rome, 2003. 6