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USAID Workshop on
Conflict Prevention Management
>> USAID Home >> Conflict Prevention >> June 2000 Workshop
SESSION I:
CONCEPTS, PROBLEMS, AND TERMINOLOGY ON CONFLICTDr. Krishna Kumar
June 6, 2000
Krishna Kumar set the tone for the session by stressing a main theme: what can USAID do in the field of conflict prevention? The issue of conflict prevention must be approached as a development practitioner would approach it. The focus of the workshop should not be on causes to conflict per se, nor on the details of conflict, but on USAID's role and potential role.
The Agency and the development community in general are confronted with important cleavages and divisions. On a basic level, there are those who come from a firmly anchored development angle challenged by those practitioners approaching the subject from a new conflict prevention perspective, which follows US strategy more closely. Other important cleavages pit sector programs and officers against one another in missions. Conflict prevention by its very nature requires cross-sectoral programming efforts, incorporating, for example, DG, EG or Humanitarian elements. A third division involves the lack of communication between USAID and other major development agencies, such as UNDP. Too little institutional communication and program harmonization remains a major block as the development world moves into conflict prevention programming.
Traditional conflict prevention tools include preventive and two-track diplomacy, peacekeeping operations, economic sanctions, and arbitration and mediation. Kumar posited that USAID needs new tools if it is to be successful. Indeed, the Agency needs a different conceptualization of conflict prevention itself. The development community's efforts at intervention in conflict tend not to be just political but economic and humanitarian as well. Specifically, development assistance can contribute to conflict prevention by 1) reducing poverty and deprivation, 2) generating resources for building political and legal institutions, 3) supporting democratic institutions. Sustainable economic growth is a critical precondition to supporting democracy. An important lesson is that development assistance can also contribute to conflict itself ("hijacked aid").
There are three categories of countries for conflict prevention development programming: postconflict countries, states in conflict, and vulnerable societies. In postconflict societies, assistance must follow an integrated development strategy. The cross-sectoral synergy alluded to above is key to preventing relapses of conflict. Economic development should not be isolated as the only avenue for prevention. Secondly, experience has shown that tension exists between macroeconomic reform and the stability of the government in postconflict countries. The requirements of the former, in other words, tend to entail severe social costs. Thirdly, conflict prevention programming in postconflict countries is a long-term process. For every two steps forward, there is one step back. Why have there been successes in postconflict countries? First, the parameters of the conflicts are known. Second, peace agreements and accords usually have built-in frameworks for follow up efforts. Third, postconflict countries are often overwhelmed by war fatigue.
In countries in conflict, well-planned, well-intentioned humanitarian relief can perpetuate conflict. Assistance can provide resources for conflict. Conversely, international assistance can be channeled to consolidate sources of peace. Aid, in other words, can provide an inducement for peace.
Vulnerable societies provide a different set of variables for conflict prevention. There are three possible paths to intervention in these countries: development grounds, ethical considerations, and political pressure. Yet intervention in vulnerable societies also invites questions and issues. First, how can societies vulnerable to conflict be successfully identified in time? Second, who should build an effective early warning system? The Agency would need to spend enormous sums to build its own. Other early warning systems exist in the international community (e.g., FEWER). The Agency could also draw from other government sources, such as the CIA. Third, should USAID work in all vulnerable societies? Or should it work in the few in which it can make a difference? Fourth, does USAID already have programs that can be introduced in vulnerable societies to minimize conflict? Most counties in conflict or in a pre-conflict phase have already received much aid. USAID itself cannot transform or control structural conditions. It cannot solve ethnic hatred or other issues.
Four potential avenues for intervention exist. First, USAID can invest in mass media interventions. Second, peace committees and conflict resolution programming can be supported. Third, vulnerable communities can be targeted with special assistance. Fourth, USAID can promote security sector reforms, although the Agency has a less than auspicious record in this final category.
SESSION I: CONCEPTS, PROBLEMS, AND TERMINOLOGY ON CONFLICT
Dr. Johanna Mendelson-Forman
Click here to hear an audio clip from this speech.
Conflict prevention is a function of good governance. Governance, as the World Bank puts it, affects the "capacity to operate." But how can AID best influence this capacity? As summarized by Krishna Kumar, conflict prevention programming needs to focus on an "integrated agenda" (i.e., cross-sectoral programming). Not only is this an intellectually difficult agenda, but there are institutional constraints and rules within AID holding it back.
Several development challenges stand out. Security is a critical sector in which donors can make a difference. Without stopping the flow of guns and other weapons, without the creation of an effective judicial system, without job creation for demobilized soldiers, the proper environment for preventing conflict will not exist. The development community needs to come up with a list for vulnerable societies, a list for directing the right kind of aid. Early warning remains a major program. International assistance forces do not have the capacity to respond well when the situation calls for it. Also, the international community needs to better understand what makes a "vulnerable society." As breakdowns in Latin America are currently showing, transitional societies can be classified as long-term vulnerable societies. Critical military-civilian issues remain, as does an unsustainable income gap. Access to justice is still not a right, but a privilege.
SESSION I: CONCEPTS, PROBLEMS, AND TERMINOLOGY ON CONFLICT
Tom Beck
There has been an explosion of activity in the conflict prevention sphere among donors and international assistance organizations. Programs and activities range from the specific to the broad. Understandably, there are terminology problems among different donors and too little coordination to clarify them. Conflict analysis itself occurs at different levels depending on the donor s and programs. There have been efforts to bridge the gaps, however. Foremost among them, USAID has created a coordinating forum called the CPR, which bring together 30 donors two to three times a year to discuss conflict-related development issues. The meeting leads to a joint analysis of a particular topic, whose results are shared on a CPR web site. The next meeting will highlight one particular country at risk.
Several key donors have plunged into the conflict prevention field. The European Commission has initiated an impressive array of policy developments, including a sponsoring the Conflict Prevention Network (of NGOs). They have also put out a practical tool entitled Prioritizing Development Assistance, a worksheet that looks at 16 different problem areas in the field. There is also a Practical Guide for measures once problems have been identified. The UN has several useful programmatic mechanisms. A Framework Exercise was launched in 1995 to coordinate all major UN Agencies and the World Bank as they move from identifying preconflict situations to response. The exercise is meant to bring consensus on preventive responses and early warning issues. The UN has also set up a Training Exercise which seeks to build the institutional capacity for conflict prevention throughout the UN. The Conflict Prevention Network is very much involved in this endeavor. Bilateral donors such as the UK, Canada, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, the Swiss and the Netherlands have set up projects and programs or are in the process of doing so.
Two major challenges stand out within the donor community as a whole. First, there are many different kinds of approaches to the field. How can these approaches be best coordinated? Second, how do you best keep conflict analysis dynamic and ongoing? The issues themselves are fluid; situations, variables, and the conflicts themselves evolve. Agencies need to be flexible to these changing elements. There's an enormous body of work within the academic and NGO worlds. This needs to be more effectively tapped.
SESSION I: CONCEPTS, PROBLEMS, AND TERMINOLOGY ON CONFLICT
Michael Lund
Are all the right questions in Krishna Kumar's paper? Several additional issues need to be addressed: mandate, efficacy, implementation, and coordination. Regarding the mandate issue, does USAID have a clear commitment to conflict prevention? At this point it remains uncertain whether conflict prevention is an official policy. What is the Agency's mandate for conflict prevention? In terms of donor efficacy, what makes effective preventive action? Put another way, what kinds of interventions work? Perhaps one way of looking at the issue is by focusing on the question of scale. The scale of donor efforts has not always matched the scale of conflict.
Further, who should do what? The implementation of conflict prevention programming is a very tricky issue. There is as much a vertical dimension to its institutionalization in donor agencies as a horizontal one. Management, in other words, needs to adapt to the programmatic changes as much as sector practitioners. Is conflict prevention separate from other sectors? Country missions need the operational capability to implement conflict prevention strategy. Coordination remains a thorny issue. For USAID and other donor agencies, internal coordination between sectors needs to be streamlined. At the same time, inter-agency coordination must be improved.
Certain lessons have already been learned. USAID and other development agencies are best placed to work in preconflict and postconflict situations; they are not well placed to work in continuing conflict environments. Donors cannot contain genocide. In conflict prevention programming, the emphasis is often on the needs of the minorities. Donors should be aware of the risks entailed in this perspective. By siding with minorities, fears and passions can be inflamed on the majority side.
SESSION I: CONCEPTS, PROBLEMS, AND TERMINOLOGY ON CONFLICT
Howard Adleman
Another quantitative factor can be added to the definition of deadly conflict: the number of combatants. Moreover, experience indicates that analysis of a conflict prevention situation should identify potential spoils and spoilers to peace? Are there actors who simply do not want resolution? A key lesson pits the short-term versus the long-term. Development-based programming is not necessarily effective in solving short-term conflict issues. In the short-term, Western policy makers have empowered the wrong actors, like Kabila in the Congo.
SESSION I: CONCEPTS, PROBLEMS, AND TERMINOLOGY ON CONFLICT
Questions and AnswersQ: If a USAID mission has 80 percent of its budget earmarked for health, how can conflict prevention be integrated into a program?
A: This is a major limitation, and perhaps why conflict prevention cannot be implemented in all countries. Still, there can be no development without stable security. Sometimes resources are not allocated because the issues have not been effectively presented to Congress.
Q: Can't USAID work better with other US Agencies, such as the Department of Defense?
A: Agencies are often generations apart on issues. There need to be mechanisms to bridge the gap.
Q: Is the Agency culturally mature enough to deal with the cross-cutting nature of conflict prevention? Many development and humanitarian practitioners within cling to what they know. Meanwhile, other agencies' programs are often counterproductive for USAID's purposes. Some agencies, the military for example, do not know how to approach USAID
A: Clearly, the Agency needs to come to an internal agreement as a first step. Government agencies in general need to understand among themselves that they can't handle the conflict beast on their own.
Transcription of audio clip: "I want to go back to the security sector again, because I think there are many areas of that sector that can be effectively addressed through AID and prevent conflicts. We have no policy on the control of light weapons and the trade of light weapons. I don't believe that you can intervene in an area in a programmatic sense if you don't address the notion of light weapons control and cross-border transnational issues."
Transcription of audio clip: "A couple of preliminary points. First, on terminology, I think people -- different actors describe what they're doing in different ways, and so I think it's useful just to -- to be aware that people are doing conflict analysis on different levels for example. There is what's often called strategic conflict analysis, which is the country-level or regional-level type of analysis that often feeds into a country plan, for example. There is project- or programmed-focused conflict analysis often called peace conflict impact assessment or PCIA, which looks at what is the potential impact of this program or project on the dynamics of peace or conflict."
Transcription of audio clip: "The emphasis is on the needs of minorities and the underdog. And we -- we associate addressing those situations with structural approaches to conflict. Defending -- protecting human rights, economic development and so on. I think that may ignore the fact that when the international community sides with a minority it creates an intense -- it can create an invisible but -- or not very obvious, but intense fear and insecurity on the part of the -- of the oppressors, of the over-dog. And that what -- if you look at Somalia, if you look at Rwanda, if you look at Burundi, if you look at Bosnia, the immediate outbreak of violence was a reaction to a threat of losing something on the part of an oppressor."
[These audio clips require RealPlayerTM. The RealPlayer software is available for free download from RealNetwork at http://www.real.com/player/index.html.]
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