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Jump to Chapter 4 Sections:
>> Conflicts since the Cold War >> Understanding conflict >> Windows of vulnerability and opportunity >> Foreign assistance, conflict management and conflict mitigation >> Guiding principles for encouraging stability >> Notes >> Background paper >> References
Several principles must guide donors’ work in high-risk settings. The first is that there are limits
to what the international community can do to encourage peace and discourage violence. In severely divided societies it may be possible to reduce or manage tensions, but it is not possible to eliminate them and policymakers should not pretend that it is. A durable peace cannot be imposed from abroad. Outside actors can raise issues that internal actors might not be able to, they can monitor events, and they can exert diplomatic, financial, and military pressure on leaders walking down a dangerous path. But conflict is ultimately the product of deep grievance and ambition, reckless leadership, zero-sum competition over political and economic power, weak or unaccountable institutions, and regional and global pressures. What is required is a change in attitudes and power inside a country and the will to address these issues. The international community has a range of policy tools that might help, but most of its influence occurs at the margins and takes years to accomplish.
Still, donors should recognize that their efforts matter a lot. All aid is political, particularly in countries at high risk for conflict. Foreign assistance represents a valuable resource in a highly competitive environment. It feeds into complex internal dynamics and often produces explicitly political results. These results can be positive but intended or not they can just as easily be negative. Donors need to accept and manage the heightened risks encountered in these types
of environments. To some extent this means being more aware of the political aspects of any project and understanding how its design, implementation, and aims interact with underlying conflict dynamics. It also means consciously attempting to minimize the potential negative consequences of any project. But doing no harm does not mean avoiding all action. Rather, it means adopting a strategic framework that has at its core an understanding of conflict, then taking considered risks within that framework.
Among the most important things that donors can do is develop a deeper, context-specific understanding of what drives conflict. This will require a significant investment in research and analysis, both among donors and in countries where conflict programs are being considered. Much of foreign assistance’s success in its work on health and population concerns, for example, stems from close collaboration between practitioners and researchers. But in conflict there is still a strong belief among many development practitioners that it is inherently random, driven by passion rather than calculation, and so not amenable to rigorous analysis or subject to outside influence. While there is still a long way to go on conflict research, since the mid-1990s scholars have made great strides in identifying the forces that cause and sustain widespread violence. If donors wish to emerge as leaders in this area and to expand the range of programs at their disposal, they need to base their work on the best available research.
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