The Role of Foreign Assistance
in Conflict Prevention

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Download Jonathan Moore's paper from this session: - Word - PDF - HTML Download Ted Morse's paper from this session: - Word - PDF - HTML Listen to audio clips from this session  January 2001 Conference Report TOC     Session V: The Challenge for Development Assistance: How We Work in an Increasingly Unstable World of Pre- and Post-Conflict Transitions In order to develop an effective system of conflict prevention, the underlying political, economic, and social forces that drive conflict need to be identified and understood. There are three key components for any conflict prevention strategy: The outside realm (the international donor community). The inside realm (the country in need of assistance). Reconciliation of the outside and inside realms. For effective conflict prevention, a new development assistance paradigm needs to be created. Under the terms of this paradigm, international donors and government representatives (the outside realm) would have input, butthe main impetus for change would come from indigenous actors (the inside realm). Ideally, the indigenous perspective would be comprehensive and not preempted by international society. To make the paradigm work, the following criteria must be understood: The task of assisting unstable states is extraordinarily difficult. By failing to recognize the magnitude of the task, well-intentioned donors may devote insufficient resources and find themselves participating in or engaging in recriminations when failure occurs. International actors need to adjust to the indigenous context. Discrepancies often arise between what the outside realm deems necessary and what the inside realm identifies as beneficial. Effective development assistance must focus on the latter. For example, even if the international community wishes to see quick elections, the inside realm must own the process if lasting results are to be achieved. The indigenous community may prefer to tackle instability challenges prior to holding its first elections. Development assistance programs suffer low priority behind political, humanitarian, and security efforts. Such assistance should be integrated into the transition phase following the conflict and the provision of emergency aid. Implementing the new development assistance paradigm will require significant changes; conventional methods will not work in the new context. If the new paradigm is to be effective, the impetus for change must be maintained without assuming that progressive change will automatically occur. In attempting to reconcile the inside and outside realms, it is unlikely that the improvement needed in international performance will evolve readily. Therefore, while pressing for new policies agents of change should recognize that political and bureaucratic constraints will continue to persist and accept limitations on implementation. The War-Torn Societies Project: Adapting the Development Assistance Paradigm By Focusing On The Inside Realm The War-Torn Societies Project (WSP) focuses on the internal perspective for multilateral aid and post-conflict transitions, working where current development strategies have been inadequate. WSP adopts a process of inclusive participatory local input, leading to programmatic collaborations within government, different ethnic groups, and civil society. It facilitates a locally staffed action research component to provide relevant data, analysis and substantive expertise to the collective decision-making effort. WSP is consistent with the paradigm in its adoption of a neutral position, providing for international support, but keeping the problem-solving impetus on the indigenous community. Once the process has taken root in both rehabilitation and reconciliation, WSP representatives withdraw but remain on-call to deal with potential future problems. In the past, implementation of conflict prevention programs has been problematic. While the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict recently generated considerable discussion on this issue, very little progress has been made to institutionalize a conflict prevention process with the U.S. government. Few departments have a plan for preventive diplomacy or preventive action. Only 3 out of 100 of the State Department's Mission Performance Plans (MPPs) include vulnerability analyses, and none of these address the consequences. The European Union and the United Nations Secretary General have also been unable to institutionalize conflict prevention plans. A major obstacle is the difficulty of defining and focusing on what conflict prevention means specifically in application. The difficulties associated with implementing a conflict prevention strategy are well illustrated by the Greater Horn of Africa Initiative (GHAI). Under GHAI there was too much focus on money, at the expense of the prism of prevention. "Stovepipe" reporting was also a problem, particularly in Ethiopia, as different groups (political, academic, USAID, defense community) reported on different elements of the problem.The main lesson of future international intervention is the importance of catching problems before they explode. One possible reason for the lack of implementation of effective conflict prevention plans is governmental skepticism about the feasibility of conflict prevention. In addition, most government agencies do not place much faith in the ability of early warning systems to detect future conflict. Even among groups who believe that early warning systems can predict conflict, many do not think such conflicts can be prevented. It essential that while keeping in mind the constraints, skeptics are not allowed to deter action, especially in cases where the conflict is likely to lead to deadly violence. Definition of Roles Under the New Conflict Prevention Paradigm Conflict Prevention Structural Operational Responsible Agencies USAID, Congress State, Embassies Objective Development Political Activities Pre-conflict prevention Conflict resolution Impact Long-term Short-term Perspective Narrow Broad Rapidity of action Slowness expected Speed desired Time horizon Future capacity building Present reality Rigor of action Adherence to process Flexibility stressed Orientation Technical Policy Leadership Local leadership developed Outside Direction Funding DA – C/S – SEED DRL – ESF Both structural long-term prevention and operational short-term prevention are required in the new paradigm. The focus and methods of each are very different, and no one agency can be expected to fully meet the requirements of both. For successful conflict prevention, a formal division of labor should be established whereby USAID assumes the lead for long-term pre-conflict prevention problems. The State Department should take the lead for cases requiring short-term conflict, with technical reinforcement provided by USAID. Implementing this vision and establishing the necessary division of labor will require significant changes in both agencies, specifically the corporate cultures of each. Inter-agency cooperation is essential under the new paradigm; a strategy needs to be developed to share information across agencies, as well as with academics and nongovernmental organizations. Attention needs to be paid to developing better early warning systems. Mission Performance Plans can act as vehicles linking early warning with action. To be effective, these early warning systems need to be based on comprehensive analyses of the root causes of conflict. More time needs to be devoted to institution building; 10-year and 15-year perspectives are necessary. It is important to remember that institution building is not just constructing buildings. A challenge for the foreign affairs community will be to revamp the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. Though the world has changed greatly since the 1950s, the Foreign Assistance Act has only been amended through plank or earmark. Generating the impetus for changing the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and National Security Act of 1947 will be difficult given other legislative priorities (health care, taxes, etc.), but not impossible.One potential source of support is the American business community, which has a vested interest in global long-term stability. Conflict prevention strategies can be strengthened by building an incentive system to reward conflict prevention, developing a system of metrics to assess the success of conflict prevention strategies, and channeling more resources into post-conflict reconstruction. AUDIO CLIPS FROM THIS SPEECH Click here for an audio clip of Jonathan Moore. [RealAudio non-streaming file, 189k] Transcription of audio clip: "An advantage of not trying to do too much too fast and not inflating expectations for ourselves and others, being more effectively resolute by greater realism and honesty, is that the message is conveyed more credibly to the local actors that they cannot rely on us to do very much and that they must, they have to do the job themselves. They have to get their own act together. The inside-outside equilibrium in some respects can benefit from this." Click here for audio clip#1 of Ted Morse. [RealAudio non-streaming file, 311k] Transcription of audio clip: "The U.S. civil and foreign service people still do not believe that you can prevent deadly conflicts. Many of them don't believe that you can have any early warning that can actually predict these, but even if you can predict them, that they can't be prevented. And I think that a good deal of discussion has to go on to marry up the people who now have the conceptual framework with the people who are the operators to convince them that 'yes, not all of them should be prevented, can be prevented, but those that have the promise of mass violence you should at least take a crack at it.' " Click here for audio clip#2 of Ted Morse. [RealAudio non-streaming file, 207k] Transcription of audio clip: "She [Jane Holl Lute] assigns to AID and foreign assistance the structural, long-term prevention (which I fully believe with) that that should be the major focus of foreign assistance, to build the capable states, that they're capable of handling their own problems over the long-term. The problem is that time after time by not attending to the short-term problems, that long-term work gets disrupted." Click here for an audio clip of David Hamburg. [RealAudio non-streaming file, 207k] Transcription of audio clip: "I think you [Ted Morse] are exactly right to think in terms of institutionalization of the prevention approach. What you particularly suggest to me is -- there are very few moments when I wish I was still president of the foundation and this is one, because I would immediately set up a process to try and get a major study of the different components of our own government and how they might come together in a prevention focus, they way you suggested. I think that very badly needs to be done." [This audio clip requires RealPlayerTM.The RealPlayer software is available for free download from RealNetwork at http://www.real.com/player/index.html.]

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