3rd Module - Aid, Conflict and Security: A Critical Analysis of Trends

From Peacebuilding

The contents and activities in this module are relevant especially when working with policy and decision makers in agencies’ HQ as well as with Church leadership. Yet, some of the activities can be adapted for field managers and staff.

The frameworks developed for understanding how aid interacts with conflict – presented in the first and second module of this Resource Kit – are aligned with a policy shift in major international institutions and donors. Two trends seem to emerge:

1. A progressive shift from reaction to conflict prevention;
2. A progressive radicalisation of funding for development that links development assistance tight to security concerns.

Why are donor countries interested in conflict prevention? What happens when donors link development funding tighter to security concerns? What potential do development programs have to condition national/regional social, political and economic evolutionary trends in the “South”, and how?

This module proposes a critical analysis of relevant texts of the World Bank, the UN and the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee. DAC’s document Helping Prevent Violent Conflict is central for illustrating the alleged donors’ shift. Also DAC’s Security System Reform attacks the topic from a different perspective, locating the discourse explicitly on “security”. World Bank’s document Breaking the Conflict Trap focuses on civil/internal war as a trap for development and suggests why the WB is interested in conflict prevention. UN’s Human Security Now and A More Secure World set the discourse at a higher level - with a sophisticated rationale - but they both seem to complement other documents presented. Professor Duffield’s article proposes a sceptical critique for exploring the link between development assistance and conflict – or security.

Most activities are concerned with interpretation of these texts. They try to foster an understanding of development and security trends that goes beyond following the latest trends and buzz words uncritically. They support participants in a workshop to break through a superficial understanding of the texts and dig deeper, in order to explore connections, trends, interests and less evident rationale.

Online

• DAC, The DAC Guidelines: Helping Prevent Violent Conflict, Paris: OECD Development Assistance Committee, 2001. “Violent conflict in developing countries engages the basic values and interests of our societies.” This is the introductory sentence of the 1997 document. Who speaks is the development Ministers, aid agencies heads and other senior officials responsible for development cooperation of the Countries members of the DAC. Thus, the “interests of our societies” are those of the richest industrialised countries, sole members of the DAC. This document is central in illustrating donors’ shift in linking development with security and several sections can be used for interpretation and reflection.

• DAC, A Development Cooperation Lens on Terrorism Prevention: Key Entry Points for Action, Paris: OECD Development Assistance Committee, 2006. […]

• OECD, "Security System Reform and Governance: Policy and Good Practice", in OECD Observer, May 2001. This policy brief summarises the report Security System Reform and Governance: A DAC Reference Document. It clearly states that development and security are inextricably linked. It extends the concept of security as a public policy and governance issue. It states DAC countries’ interest to help poor countries “establish structures and mechanisms to manage change and political conflict” [from introduction]. It is a relevant text for understanding current trends in international development assistance.

• Klingebiel, Stephan, The OECD, World Bank and International Monetary Fund: Development Activities in the Crisis Prevention and Conflict Management Sphere, Bonn: German Development Institute, 2001. [...]

• Commission on Human Security, Human Security Now, New York: Commission on Human Security, 2003, http://www.humansecurity-chs.org/ The Commission on Human Security was launched at the 2000 UN Millennium Summit, out of a general agreement on both the concept of “freedom from want” and “freedom from fear”. “Human security is concerned with safeguarding and expanding people’s vital freedoms. It requires both shielding people from acute threats and empowering people to take charge of their own lives” [from foreword]. Particularly relevant for interpretation and discussion are: chapter one (outlining the concept of security centred on people, not states, thus redefining intervention); chapter two (reinforcing the narrative on internal conflict and its pervasive threats, and how a human security approach can make a difference); chapter four (on post-conflict reconstruction and the potential for international intervention to recast social, political and economic bases of power when State has collapsed) and chapter 8 (on how to advance the human security framework “to address the conditions and threats people face”).

• United Nations, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility, United Nations, 2004, http://www.un.org/secureworld/ Collier, Paul, Elliot, Lani, Hegre, Havard, Hoeffler, Anke, Reynal-Querol, Marta, Sambanis, Nicolas, Breaking the Conflict Trap: Civil War and Development Policy, Washington: World Bank and Oxford University Press, 2003, (accessed on December 12 2006, 19:11hrs). [...]

• Duffield, Mark, “Getting Savages to Fight Barbarians: Development, Security and the Colonial Present”, in Conflict, Security & Development, 5:2 August 2005, URL=<www.arts.ualberta.ca/~courses/PoliticalScience/357B1/syllabus.htm>, or directly here. The refrain that development requires security and security requires development has risen to a state of accepted truth in the post-Cold War era. The alleged double link has determined a progressive “radicalisation” of development as means to improve global stability. Wealthy states have identified new threats to global stability: decentralised shadow economies, migratory flows towards the rich Countries and non-state global insurgent networks. Consequently, donors have refined development funding and programs in order to address security concerns and in order to act directly at the level of population (groups, communities, societies), criss-crossing with - or advocating - prerogatives of the State. Development programs that challenge power balance between groups, promote inclusion and participation and help rebuild and re-organise conflict torn societies, promote civil society development, good governance and security system reform, are just examples of this so-called “radicalisation” of development.

Internal conflict is alleged to impede sustainable development, independently from what conflict, how fought, where, with whom and why. In this logic, internal conflict “always” needs to be prevented, managed or resolved and an important means to do this is development assistance, which now acts directly at the level of population. In this light, linking all development and relief to conflict and peace concerns (or security) seems to respond well to the demands for global stability, voiced mainly by wealthy states. Issues of social justice as much as questioning the status quo of international power balance, economic relations and existing regulatory international institutions, seem to be left out of the agenda.

Activities you can use when working on this content include

• Text Interpretation: the OECD on Security System Reform and Governance. The purpose of this activity is to interpret critically the paper Security System Reform and Governance: Policy and Good Practice (see above). A list of questions helps small groups to develop the discussion.

• Text Interpretation: A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility.