Obstacles to Peacebuilding

Graciana del Castillo

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781315466392
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Combining the insights of a seasoned practitioner with the academic rigor of a meticulous policy and risk analyst, del Castillo discusses the major obstacles to peacebuilding that need to be removed before war-torn countries can move towards peace, stability, and prosperity. As Secretary-General António Guterres assumes leadership in January 2017, a top priority must be to address the bleak peacebuilding record where over half of the countries under UN watch relapse back into conflict within a decade.

While policy debate and the academic literature have focused on the security, political, and social aspects of the war-to-peace transition, this book focuses on "the economic transition"—that is, "economic reconstruction" or "the political economy of peace"—which, in the author's view, is the much-neglected aspect of peacebuilding. The book argues that rebuilding war-torn states effectively has acquired a new sense of urgency since extremist groups increasingly recruit people by providing jobs and services to those deprived of them due to government and economic failures.

Based on past lessons and best practices of the last quarter of a century, the author makes recommendations to move forward and improve the record. It will be of great use to students and scholars of peacebuilding, as well as policymakers in national governments, donor countries and international organizations involved in peacebuilding, statebuilding, and development.

1 Peacebuilding conceptual framework

From An Agenda for Peace and its Supplement to An Agenda for Development

• Peacebuilding: conceptual definition, timing, and sequence

• Preventive diplomacy vs. post-conflict peacebuilding

• An “integrated approach” to human security and to development

• International financing of peacebuilding

• Sovereignty, policy ownership, and peacebuilding

• Other definitions and obstacles to peacebuilding

• Conclusions

An analysis of the post-Cold War period as a whole, in Mats Berdal’s view “would surely reveal, as one of its most striking characteristics, the widespread practice of external intervention undertaken with the express aim of building sustainable peace [emphasis added] within societies ravaged by war and violent conflict.”¹ It also reveals that, although the concept of “peacebuilding” was developed early on, it evolved over time as the context in which it took place started to change in fundamental ways soon after.

This chapter addresses the conceptual development of the term “peacebuilding” in Boutros-Ghali’s An Agenda for Peace and how it evolved in its 1995 Supplement for An Agenda for Peace (hereafter Supplement) and in its 1994 An Agenda for Development; discusses the timing and sequence of UN activities; and analyzes what his proposals for “an integrated approach to human security” and “an integrated approach to development” mean in practice.

The chapter also addresses the issue of local “ownership” of policies and strategies for peacebuilding; analyzes the arguments of the Secretary-General for the UN to be able to draw on resources of the UN system as a whole for this purpose; and presents additional points made by academics and practitioners highlighting the economic aspects of peacebuilding, which reflect mostly their own expertise and the institutional mandate of their own organizations.

Peacebuilding: conceptual definition, timing, and sequence

Upon assuming office, and “at a time when the UN seemed at last poised to play the role for which it was conceived,”² the Security Council asked Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to make recommendations on how to strengthen the capacity of the UN for preventive diplomacy, peacemaking, and peacekeeping. In his An Agenda for Peace, he added to the three traditional UN activities a new one that he labelled “post-conflict peace-building” (with the hyphen dropping later on). He defined the term as “action to identify and support structures which will tend to strengthen and solidify peace in order to avoid a relapse into conflict.” The “post-conflict” qualification was designed to contrast it with “preventive diplomacy,” an ongoing and fundamental UN peacebuilding activity.³

Boutros-Ghali’s argued that “[p]eacemaking and peace-keeping operations, to be truly successful, must come to include comprehensive efforts to identify and support structures which will tend to consolidate peace and advance a sense of confidence and well-being among people.”⁴

Among the post-conflict peacebuilding structures, he listed the disarmament of former combatants and the restoration of order, controlling and possibly destroying weapons, establishing and training civilian police forces, monitoring and promoting human rights, and reforming or strengthening governmental institutions and promoting formal and informal processes of political participation. As de Soto rightly pointed out, “the institutions of economic management, budget formulation, and resource allocation appeared nowhere” among the structures mentioned in An Agenda for Peace.⁵

After some digression, Boutros-Ghali also mentioned that the UN has an obligation to develop and provide when requested “support for the transformation of deficient national structures and capabilities, and for the strengthening of new democratic institutions.”⁶ In de Soto’s view, the digression had the unfortunate effect of blurring Boutros-Ghali’s vivid original insight. As a result, “some of us in the Secretariat were disappointed at what appeared to be a dilution of the concept as originally stated, and made it our business to highlight and flesh it out on our own, unsupported but unopposed.”⁷

An Agenda for Peace was hardly an example of good organization. Before even defining the term “post-conflict peace-building,” together with the other UN activities in chapter II, Boutros-Ghali posited that with the end of the Cold War, demands on the UN surged, with the security arm of the organization emerging as a “central instrument for the prevention and resolution of conflicts and for the preservation of peace.” In his view, the aims of the organization were expanded “[t]o stand ready to assist in peacebuilding in its differing contexts: rebuilding the institutions and infrastructures of nations torn by civil war and strife; and building bonds of peaceful mutual benefit among nations formerly at war; and in the largest sense, to address the deepest causes of conflict: economic despair, social injustice and political oppression.”⁸

For our purposes – discussing the economics of peace as a critical component of peacebuilding – it should be highlighted that, by mentioning economic despair as one of the deepest causes of conflict⁹ and by linking “success” of UN peacemaking and peacekeeping activities to a sense of “well-being among people,”¹⁰ Boutros-Ghali was implicitly recognizing the importance of economic factors – without which it will be impossible to reduce economic despair and improve people’s well-being.

With the attention given by academics and practitioners alike to the major obstacle to peacebuilding identified in our Foreign Policy article as the UN-mediated peace agreement and the IMF-sponsored economic program were on a collision course,¹¹ and with the Secretary-General expressing concern about it publicly in a press conference in Bangkok in April 1993 (Chapter 4), the “economic factor” in peacebuilding activities began to be seen in a new light.

With increased evidence of the challenges, in his Supplement, Boutros-Ghali added the “reintegration into civilian life” of former combatants and “the coordination of support for economic rehabilitation and reconstruction” to the list of activities needed for peacebuilding.¹²

It has gone unnoticed that in An Agenda for Peace, Boutros-Ghali only refers to “disarming” of warring parties, without mentioning the need for “reintegration into productive activities.” With the hindsight of experience, and the difficulties faced in El Salvador, Mozambique, Cambodia, and others, his Supplement explicitly notes that peacekeeping operations will have a mandate to launch various peacebuilding activities “especially the all-important reintegration of former combatants into productive civilian activities.”¹³

By then, the Secretary-General was acutely aware of the difficulty of reintegrating combatants productively and on a sustained basis under inadequate levels of aid and with the budgetary and external constraints imposed by IMF-sponsored economic programs. The lack of productive opportunities for reintegration proved then – and continues to be today – one of the major factors behind the dismal record with UN operations in the aftermath of the Cold War (Chapter 6).

The issue of “timing” and “sequence” of peacebuilding in relation to other UN activities has led to several interpretations and even confusion. Some of the confusion resulted from subsequent work at the UN. For example, the 2000 Report of the Panel on UN Peacekeeping – known as the Brahimi Report – notes that “[p]eace-building … defines activities undertaken on the far side of conflict [emphasis added].”¹⁴

Incomprehensibly, and perhaps explained by the lack of an institutional memory and competent staff at the UN, a 2010 document prepared by the Peacebuilding Support Office entitled UN Peacebuilding: An Orientation notes that, “[a]t the UN, ‘peacebuilding’ came to the forefront of intergovernmental debates with … An Agenda for Peace (1992). This identified postconflict peacebuilding as one of a series of tools at the UN’s disposal following [emphasis added] preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peacekeeping.”¹⁵

This obviously does not make any sense and has created confusion. Indeed, why would one need peacebuilding “following” preventive diplomacy unless the latter failed? In addition, if one leaves peacebuilding activities to be performed “following” the peacekeeping mission ended, the result would most probably be failure.

In Boutros-Ghali's conception, peacebuilding would take place throughout different UN activities. As discussed above, his Agenda mentioned that peacebuilding activities would have to take place during peacemaking and peacekeeping to make the two successful.¹⁶ It also takes place during “preventive diplomacy” that “seeks to resolve disputes before violence breaks out.” That this was his conception is clear from the Supplement, where he specifically refers to “peace-building, whether preventive or post-conflict.”¹⁷

A distinction in terminology between the two situations is justified on the grounds that – although preventive diplomacy indeed requires a number of peacebuilding activities – for obvious reasons it excludes those that are specific to the post-conflict context, in particular disarming, demobilization, reintegration; destroying weapons; and demining.

Two additional points are worth clarifying. First, in order to be effective, post-conflict peacebuilding activities have to be carefully planned during the peacemaking phase – that is, they have to be included in peace agreements or planned carefully before military interventions such as those that took place in Afghanistan and Iraq. Otherwise, their implementation will likely fail.

Second, while the term “post-conflict” was inspired by and apposite to the Salvadoran case, the label would not apply to later operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the DRC, among others, where important armed groups had been excluded from the peace process and/or where large parts of the territory remained outside the control of the government. In these countries, a combination of peacebuilding and peacemaking would need to take place simultaneously, often in different parts of the country.

In defining “peacebuilding” in his An Agenda for Development, Boutros-Ghali strengthened the importance of the “economic factor” in sustaining peace by arguing that,

Only sustained, cooperative work on the underlying economic, social, cultural and humanitarian problems can place an achieved peace on a durable foundation. Unless there is reconstruction and development¹⁸ in the aftermath of conflict, there can be little expectation that peace will endure …. The most immediate task for peace-building is to alleviate the effects of war on the population.

Food aid, support for health and hygiene systems, the clearance of mines … represent the first peace-building tasks. … it is essential that efforts to address immediate needs are undertaken in ways that promote, rather than compromise, long-term development objectives. As food [and other relief supplies are] provided there must be concentration on restoring food production capacities … road construction, restoration and improvement of port facilities and establishment of regional stocks and distribution centres.

… the reintegration of combatants is difficult, but it is critically important to stability in the post-conflict period. In many conflicts, soldiers have been recruited at a very young age. As a result, the capacity of former combatants to return to peacetime society and make a living is severely compromised, thereby undermining society’s prospects for development. Effective reintegration of combatants is … essential to the sustainability of peace. Credit and small-enterprise programmes are vital if excombatants are to find productive employment. Basic education for re-entry into civilian society, special vocational programmes, on-the-job training, and education in agricultural techniques and m...