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IntroductionThe Reality of Aid 2006

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Part IIntroduction


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The global security agenda and the “war on terror” launched by a coalition led by the UnitedStates have become key defining elements for international policy in a new millennium fraughtwith increasing social unrest, growing militarism and armed conflicts.

As the reports by NGOs from both sides of the globe in this Reality of Aid Report attest,this global security agenda influences development cooperation to a large degree. On onehand, the debate has emerged as to what legitimate role or value donor security interestshave in its ODA policy.

On the other hand, in countries currently involved in conflict there is prominent concernregarding aid diversion by recipient governments and the respect for rights of the poorcaught in the armed conflict. There are a number of reports inquiring into complicatedissues such as the role of donors in countries they have designated as “fragile or failingstates” or “difficult partnerships”, and the difficult conditions to uphold the rights of thepoor for genuine poverty reduction.

The issues of security, conflict and the war on terror present life-and-death challenges todevelopment cooperation. While issues and circumstances appear varied, there are strongcommon voices that emerge from these reports:

• In the context of conflict, development cooperation must be even more clearly guidedby binding obligations under international human rights instruments and agreementsand must be the framework for building improved donor coherence;

• Democratic national actors, including local civil society, are the owners and drivers forthe resolution of conflict and people-centered approaches to security must bestrengthened;

• The integrity of aid for poverty eradication must be protected; and• All avenues for promotion of peace must be exhausted and the UN system reformed

for effective democratic multilateral resolution of conflict.

As militarism grows in response to an increasingly unstable world and threatens instead totake the world into greater instability and war, the rights of the poor need to be championedas we work together for peace and development.

Antonio Tujan Jr. Chair, Reality of Aid

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The Reality of Aid 2006

Political Overview

Conflict, Security and DevelopmentThe Reality of Aid Management Committee

“If human development is aboutexpanding choice and advancingrights, then violent conflict is themost brutal suppression of humandevelopment. The right to life andto security are among the mostbasic human rights. They are alsoamong the most widely andsystematically violated.” UNDPHuman Development Report 2005,(p. 151).

HUMANITY AT A CROSSROADSThe year 2005 will be remembered as theyear of the tsunami, of devastatingearthquakes and other natural disasters inwhich tens of thousands died. But in 2005as in years previous, many millions of peoplewere devastated by “silent tsunamis”resulting from conflict, systemic human rightsviolations, and preventable diseases. Overthe last three decades, external and internalconflicts have increasingly inter-connectedwith deepening social and economicinjustice, undermining both global securityand the capacity of countries to achievesustainable development. The population ofconflict-affected states1 today represents asixth of the population of developing

countries and a third of those living on lessthan a dollar a day.

The 2006 Reality of Aid Report analyzesthe impact of policies and actions of theinternational community, and in particular ofaid donors, on the rights, needs andinterests of populations affected by conflict.Our messages for reform, as outlined in thefinal section of this chapter, are derivedfrom these realities and the proposals of theReport’s contributors from Asia, Africa, theMiddle East, the Americas and theOrganization of Economic Cooperation andDevelopment (OECD) countries.

In advance of the September 2005 WorldSummit at the United Nations, the UNDP’sHuman Development Report 2005 (HDR)warned that the world is at a crossroads,with current trends heading for a “humandevelopment disaster”. To reverse thistrend, the 2005 HDR called for urgent andcomprehensive action by world leaders onaid, trade and violent conflict to fulfill theirpromises in the Millennium Declaration by2015. By all accounts, in the face of thischallenge, the Heads of States at the UNfailed dramatically. In a post-Summitassessment, Kumi Naidoo, Chair of the GlobalCall to Action Against Poverty, concluded

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Political Overviewthat “leaders [at the Summit] have dashedhopes and squandered opportunities, andempty promises cost lives”.

Since the end of the Cold War, seeminglyintractable conflicts in developing countrieshave deepened, specially in the poorestcountries. According to the UNDP, 22 of the32 countries in the low human developmentcategory measured by the HumanDevelopment Index have experienced violentconflict at some time since 1990.2 InDecember 2004 there were 32 activeconflicts in 26 countries, with more thanone-quarter of African, and one-fifth ofAsian, states affected by one or more wars,and all except one was internal.3

While casualties among soldiers in recentcivil wars are not large, with combatantsoften avoiding direct contact, these warshave seriously affected the well-being oflarge numbers of civilian populations,particularly women and children. Indirectwar deaths in the Democratic Republic ofthe Congo (1998-2001) are estimated at 2.5

million, the Sudan (1983 - 2002) at 2 million,and Mozambique (1976 - 1992) at 500,000 to 1million, mainly due to war-related disease,and lack of access to food, clean water andhealth care.4

The end of the Cold War heraldedoptimism about a “peace dividend” fordevelopment. For the first time, there werepossibilities of progress in resolving wars inthe South that had been fuelled by the ColdWar politics of the previous decades. The1990s saw a series of comprehensive peacetreaties and internationally mediatednegotiations, often with the assistance ofthe UN, for El Salvador, Mozambique,Cambodia, Guatemala, and Namibia amongothers.5 These treaties and negotiationsoutlined processes for demobilization,disarmament, and rebuilding economies andlivelihoods, reconciliation processes, andimproved governance, which donors werecommitted to support. Unfortunately, peaceand reconciliation in several of thesecountries were tied to compromises with

A human development disaster in the making

• 18 countries with a combined population of 460 million had a lower humandevelopment index (HDI) in 2005 than in 1990;

• The bottom 25 positions in the HDI are occupied by Sub-Saharan African countries;• More than a billion people live on less than $1 a day, and half the population of

developing countries on less than $2 a day;• Inequality is widening, with 40% of the world’s population reaping a diminishing 5% of

global wealth, while the richest 10% account for 54%;• National averages on key MDG indicators mask deepening inequalities in the

achievement of the goals, based on wealth, gender and group identity.• At the end of 2004, the UNHCR was caring for just under 20 million refugees −

one out of every 300 people on earth − up from four million 30 years ago.• The FAO suggests that protracted crises and conflict in developing countries are now

the leading cause of hunger in the world today.

Sources: UNDP Human Development Report, 2006; UNHCR, Refugee by Numbers 2005; FAOCommittee on Food Security, May 25, 2005.

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Political Overviewconservative economic and military eliteswho retained their long-standing privileges,which locked in inequality and poverty.The “peace dividend”, accompanied byjustice for poor, marginalized and indigenouspeoples, was short-lived.

Conflict is deeply tied to injustice atevery level. The root causes of conflictcan be found in economic, political,historical and cultural factors. The donorshave had a profound influence in shapingover the past 30 years. In the words ofNoeleen Heyzer, Executive Director ofUNIFEM,

“Conflicts arise when groups ofpeople feel economically orpolitically deprived, others arisewhen people have their land ornatural resources taken fromthem, or their control. Patternsof economic and politicalgovernance that perpetuate andreproduce inequality and exclusionoften fuel political mobilization.In many cases, group mobilizationoften occurs along lines of ethnic,religious or ideological identity,enhanced by sharp inequalitiesand various forms of exclusion….

In conflict societies, where themajority of people are robbed oftheir capacity to shape theconditions of their lives, politicalmobilization can be an act ofcollective self-determination, anattempt by ordinary people toreclaim ownership and directionover their own lives, sometimeseven through violent means.”6

Because women experience some of themost entrenched inequalities and injustices,

they are intensely affected by conflictthrough violence, exclusion, anddisplacement. Women are the first to feelthe breakdown of social and economicinfrastructure and bear the burden of caringfor their families as well as the wounded andvulnerable, often surviving on the margins ofwar economies.

In the face of the acute failure by theinternational community to respond toconflict and genocide in Rwanda, negotiatedpeace agreements and peacekeeping gaveway, in the latter part of the 1990s, todirect military interventions, or “peaceenforcement operations”. These were seento be a necessary and urgent response toimminent threats to civilian populations(Kosovo) and for establishing the conditionsfor peace (Haiti). Peace operations arecharacterized by “an increased use of force,external leadership and unilateralism[coalitions of the willing], and a decrease innegotiated peace processes, nationalownership and multilateralism inpeacebuilding”.7

Aid remains an important tool for peaceoperations, as donors work to preventconflict, to strengthen governance and torebuild war-torn societies. While there is nodoubt that humanitarian assistance still playsa key role in shaping donor responses tocrises, the focus of this Report is on issuesof international security, conflict prevention,governance and peace-building, in relation todonors’ ODA.

Humanitarian assistance, while notunrelated to these issues, has been treatedin depth recently by others.8 Donor-supported peace initiatives have expandeddramatically over the past 10 years. In doingso, they often confronted difficult obstacles,whether self-imposed or arising from theconditions of complex post-conflict societies.Respecting the rights of the most vulnerable

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Political Overviewis an essential, but often elusive, part ofcontributing to conflict reduction on theground. During the 1990s, working in theDevelopment Assistance Committee (DAC) ofthe OECD, donors were asking themselveshow the international community could bestchannel its aid and diplomacy to strengthena holistic approach to building a sustainableand just peace. But the potential of donorsto address conflict within a human rightsframework was undermined in the aftermathof September 11th, 2001.

Aid and diplomatic and militaryinterventions today are deeply influenced bytheir strategic value in the “war onterrorism”. Donor interest in many of theso-called “failed and fragile states” is seenthrough the prism of the potential threat ofthe latter to Northern security interests.With the declaration of “a war on terror” bythe United States and its allies in 2001,peace operations have been sidelined byaggressive military intervention in Afghanistanand Iraq. These wars have beenaccompanied by a global effort to strengthensecurity sectors, sometimes with aidresources, whose purpose is to seek out andeliminate the threat of “terrorists” - withprofound consequences for the rights ofpoor and marginalized people.

The terms “poverty eradication”,“conflict” and “peace” are increasinglyintermingled with notions of “terrorism” and“security” in the discourse of most donorstoday. In the words of a controversial DACpaper in early 2002, “developmentcooperation does have an important role toplay in helping to deprive terrorists ofpopular support and addressing theconditions that terrorist leaders feed on andexploit.”9 Quite abruptly, it seems that theMillennium Summit emphasis on “sparing noeffort” for poverty eradication, guided byinternational human rights and humanitarian

law, has been pushed aside. The possibilityof increased aid resources, urgently neededfor these latter purposes, has been hijackedby the demand for almost limitless amountsof human, financial and military resources toprevent further terrorist attacks on theNorth. Some donors, beginning with theobservation that “you can’t havedevelopment without security”, concludedthat security concerns must trump andorient all other aspects of development.

As a result of this conflation ofdevelopment and conflict prevention withglobal security and anti-terrorism, theintegrity of development assistance forpoverty eradication is at stake. Mostdisconcerting, however, is the shrinkingpolicy space available to citizens indeveloping countries demanding that theirgovernments pursue poverty-orienteddevelopment, particularly if such policies areseen to be a threat to Northern interests.

The 2006 Reality of Aid Report exploresstrategic issues in the convergence of thepeace, security and development agenda:What is a rights-based approach to the nexusbetween human development and security?Whose security are we protecting, in whoseinterest and at the expense of what? Isdevelopment cooperation repeating its ColdWar history, and once again becoming acrude extension of donor foreign anddefense policy? To what extent is donor aidincreasingly implemented as “riskmanagement” for national security?

In drawing our conclusions and proposalsfor an approach to conflict, security anddevelopment centered on the rights of poorand vulnerable people, this Reportacknowledges and builds on the human rightsapproach of our 2002 and 2004 Reports.10

Obligations of all countries to internationalhuman rights and humanitarian lawobligations are clearly the starting point for

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Political Overviewa holistic and human rights-based analysis.The “war on terror” has been used to justifypractices that undermine the achievement ofdevelopment goals and run contrary tointernational human rights commitments. Theimpact on aid allocations and the nature ofdonor cooperation with developing countriesis only beginning to become apparent.Reality of Aid partners have monitored thesetrends and mobilized against the shift inpolicy towards defining development co-operation as a tool in the ‘war on terror’.

Taking up these themes, this PoliticalOverview looks more closely at• Redefining the goals and purposes of

development assistance. To what degreehave donors adjusted their mandates forinternational cooperation and divertedaid resources to foreign policy and globalsecurity interests? What are the trendsin the crucial area of military assistanceand security sector reform?

• Conflict prevention: donor policycoherence and intervention in conflict-affected countries. What is theimplication of donor-created notions of“failed and fragile States”? How havedonors adjusted their policy capacities tocreate more comprehensive responses totheir interests in these countries? What

are the implications of the September2005 World Summit’s acknowledgement ofthe “Responsibility to Protect”? How arepeace operations affecting the capacityto deliver aid on the ground?

• Donor Coordination and the role ofInternational Financial Institutions (IFIs)Have the IFIs become a gate-keeper fordonor approaches? As the World Bankasserts leadership and coordination rolesfor both donors and recipients incountries affected by conflict, whatpolicies are prominent, and with whatconsequences?

• Securing the rights of poor andvulnerable people: A Reality of Aidagenda for peace and development.How can Civil Society Organizations(CSOs) re-assert a human rights approachto current issues and approaches toconflict, security and development?How can CSOs collaborate to supportlocal capacities for peace in conflict-affected countries? Are theremultilateral alternatives emerging in thecreation of a Peacebuilding Commission atthe UN, reform of the Security Council,or Human Rights Council?

What counts as ODA?

Since September 2001, Official Development Assistance (ODA) mandates have beenamended and the allocation of development aid distorted to reflect the foreign policypriorities of some major donors to prevent and fight terrorism and to supportnorthern global security interests.

CSOs have advocated a clear mandate for ODA with its focus on povertyeradication. ODA must never be used for military purposes. The DAC criteria for ODAmust reflect this mandate and donors should agree to fund cooperation fordemocratic military reform, military aspects of peacekeeping and peace enforcementoperations from outside their ODA budgets.

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Political OverviewREDEFINING THE GOALS AND PURPOSESOF DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE

Changing aid mandates: what counts asaid in promoting security andcombating poverty?Reality of Aid 2004 asserted that “aid shouldbe treated as money held in trust for peoplein poverty”, but drew attention to thepotential diversion of aid resources into thepost-9/11 security interests of major donorcountries. Concerns for the implications ofconflict on poverty were not new.Throughout the 1990s, donors had beenexploring innovative aid interventionssupporting the establishment of conditionsfor peace in post-conflict countries. Severaldonors took the lead in mapping out bestpractices in highly complex post-conflictsituations, and in support of agreements toend long-standing conflicts in CentralAmerica, Southeast Asia and Southern Africa.

A key lesson from the 1990s is thatdevelopment must strengthen the capacitiesof the poor to claim their rights ifsustainable foundations for peace are totake hold in societies that haveexperienced violent conflict. Developmentaid has been an important resource inresponding to humanitarian needs of conflictaffected people and meeting the terms ofpeace treaties during this decade.Nevertheless, the interests of poor andvulnerable people, whether in Guatemala,Somalia or Cambodia, often remained intension with both local elites and the geo-political interests of major northern powers,despite the end of Cold War politics.

Since the first Report in 1992, CSOs inthe Reality of Aid network have been clearabout what ODA should be. The promotionof donor short-term foreign policy interests,so common over three decades in theallocation of aid resources, must give way toa mandate for ODA that focuses exclusively

on poverty reduction and the rights of poorand vulnerable people.

In the UN global conferences of the1990s and in aid reforms promoted by somedonors such as DFID, the internationalcommunity was beginning to understand theimportance of aid as a catalytic resource forpoverty reduction.

Unfortunately, much of this nascentprogress has been lost in the past fouryears. Contributions to this Reality of AidReport suggest that the rights of the poorhave been deeply affected by the events ofSeptember 11th, 2001 and their aftermath.The resulting “war on terror” generatedtremendous pressures to make nationalsecurity the key foreign policy objective inmost donor countries, subordinatingdevelopment policy and peace operations tothese national interests. In the post 9/11security-centric era, poverty and violentconflict in the South are viewed increasinglyas “threats” to the security of the North.Development assistance is once againincreasingly seen through the lens ofnorthern foreign policy interests, as a toolfor rich countries to defend themselvesagainst these “threats”.

Since 2001, several donors have takenunprecedented steps to change the basicmandate and guiding principles of their aidprograms in response to foreign policyinterests (see Box 1). These shifts havebeen most stark in the changes over thepast four years in the United States andAustralia.

US development assistance is nowviewed as a strategic resource for USsecurity interests and the “war on terror”.In the words of Andrew Natsios, USAIDAdministrator in 2004:

“The war on terror has led to abroadening of USAID’s mandateand has thrust the Agency into

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Political Overview

Box 1. Changing mandates for ODA: giving priority to security

Reality of Aid network members in various countries report the following changes inmandate for their aid agencies:

Australia: In a November 2003 statement in the Parliament on the Australian aidprogram, poverty reduction was placed second to security in the aid rationale.The focus was on aid as an instrument to promote security and to combatterrorism.

Denmark: Development policy is seen to be an integral part of Danish foreignpolicy as a tool to overcome threats to national security. In 2004 the governmentadopted “Principles Governing Danish Development Assistance for the Fight AgainstTerrorism” and made this fight a new priority for Danish aid. Aid to prioritycountries is dependent on their active involvement in the “war on terror.”

Japan: In 2003, there was an important shift in Japan’s ODA Charter, which laysout basic principles governing Japanese aid, adding Japan’s own security andprosperity to the purpose of Japanese ODA, and the “prevention of terrorism”included in the principles of ODA implementation.

United States: Since 2001, US development assistance has been increasinglyviewed through the lens of US security interests and the “war on terror”. By 2005US CSOs note that the allocation of aid had shifted towards the vision of the USAID2004 White Paper that linked aid to conflict, security operations and the global waron terror. The US contribution to this Report notes that USAID investment incounterterrorism in 2005 represents a nearly seven-fold increase over 2004.

Canada: Since 2002, the mandate of the Canadian International DevelopmentAgency (CIDA) has been updated to include the phrase, “to support internationalefforts to reduce threats to Canadian security”.

The Netherlands While there is no change in the Dutch aid mandate per se, theDutch chapter reports that Dutch ODA is covering the lions’ share of the budgetfor the newly created Stability Fund and the use of these funds is mainly for“armed security” interventions. In 2006 the government will establish a national co-ordinators’ office for the “war on terrorism”.

European Union: Under the revised Cotonou Agreement between the EU and ACPcountries, cooperation on counter-terrorism has now become an ‘Essential Element’as a condition for EU aid, a category which was previously limited to human rightsand democracy issues.

Source: Reports from Reality of Aid network members.

situations that go beyond itstraditional role of humanitarianaid and developmentassistance….Aid is a powerfulleveraging instrument that can

keep countries allied with U.S.foreign policy. It also helps themin their own battles againstterrorism.”11

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Political OverviewThe US national security agenda has a

major effect on American CSOs that mustcertify that they have no direct or indirectrelationships with “terrorist” organizations.US development assistance deliverymechanisms became fragmented, withmultiple agencies within the US governmentresponsible for foreign assistance deliveryand an increasing reliance on budgetallocations for discrete special projects.This escalating incoherence in foreign policyimplementation is exacerbated by the USgovernment’s continued focus on a largelyunilateral approach, characterized bydecreasing consultation with developmentpartners, other donors and recipientcountries. A December 2005 proposal by theBush Administration, dealing with thisincoherence, to move responsibility forUSAID into the State Department was viewedby many as a further attempt to exerciseshort-term political control over internationalassistance.12

The Australian theme chapter in thisReport details major shifts in Australian aid,focusing aid as an instrument to promoteAustralian security and to combat terrorism.Australian aid now includes several initiativesfor counter-terrorism capacity-building,including bilateral counter-terrorismprograms with Indonesia and the Philippines,and a “Peace and Security Fund for thePacific Island Countries”. Australian peaceoperation intervention in the Solomon Islandscomes directly from the aid budget, as doesa massive AUS$1 billion support for policeoperations in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Thelatter was strongly resisted by the PNGgovernment as an unwarranted interferencein the affairs of PNG, but was acceptedwhen Australia’s full aid program to PNG wasmade conditional on acceptance of thispolice program.

Changing mandates for ODA in donorcountries have been accompanied by a

vigorous debate within the OECDDevelopment Assistance Committee (DAC) toexpand the criteria for what constitutes anaid activity. Since 1969, donors have agreedwithin the DAC on the common and detailedcriteria for donor expenditures that can bereported as ODA in relation to the ODAtarget of 0.7% of their GNI. The current DACcriteria for ODA are quite broad. Theycount resource transfers by official agenciesto a list of poor countries that are“administered with the promotion of theeconomic development and welfare ofdeveloping countries as its main objective”,or are loans with a concessional grantelement of at least 25% for this purpose.

Explicitly excluded from these criteriaare military aid and the enforcement aspectsof peacekeeping.13 But donors are allowedto include a number of related areas such asrehabilitation assistance to demobilizesoldiers, training in customs and bordercontrol procedures, counter-narcoticsactivities, disposal of weapons and landmines,and the training of police forces in civilpolice functions (but not in counter-subversive methods or suppression ofpolitical dissent).14

The Reality of Aid network hasrepeatedly challenged donors not to furtherweaken the central purpose and quality oftheir ODA for poverty eradication. Theimpact of ODA on this purpose has alreadybeen undermined by previous expansion ofthe criteria. For example, since the mid-1980s, donors have had the discretion tocount government allocations to refugees fortheir first year in the donor country. Whilesupport for refugees is clearly an obligationof governments, CSOs have long questionedthe inclusion by some donors of thesedomestic support programs in ODA. In 2004,17 of 22 DAC donors counted as ODA morethan $2.1 billion in domestic refugee supportprograms or 3.6% of their total ODA for that

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Political Overviewyear.15 In the case of Switzerland, refugeesupport made up more than 12% of its ODA inthat year, and exceeded 5% for Austria,Canada, France and Sweden.

Similarly, donors can include in ODA thefull value of debt cancellation in the year itis granted. Again, there is no doubt aboutthe contribution of debt cancellation toexpanding fiscal space for developingcountries to meet urgent developmentneeds. However, donors are allowed to takecredit in their ODA for the full face value ofdebt cancelled in the first year it iscancelled. This takes no account of thefact that in many cases this debt was largelyunpayable or would have been paid tocreditors in small amounts over decades.Total debt cancellation by donors averagedmore than $8 billion in each of 2003 and2004, or 10% of ODA in these two years. Butdeveloping countries at best received anannual direct benefit of approximately $600million in the debt services forgiven from thiscancellation.16 Nevertheless, donors countedthe full $8 billion as aid in these two years.

The 2005 Paris Declaration established“local ownership” as a central principleguiding the effective use of new aidresources directed to the MDGs. Yet aclose examination of donor bilateral aidbelies this rhetoric. The World TrendsChapter in this Reality of Aid Report closelyexamines the nature of bilateral aidallocations in terms of its relevance to localownership, following a similar calculation inthe 2002 Report. It estimates that only 32%of total bilateral aid in 2004 was actuallyavailable to counterparts in developingcountries as a resource they could allocateto implement their own developmentstrategies (see Table 18 in the World TrendsChapter), notably down from 39% in 2000,when donors pledged to spare no effort in arenewed partnership with developing

countries. Developing countries partnerstherefore had at their disposal a significantlysmaller proportion of bilateral aid in 2004,compared to a few years earlier, over theallocation of which they had some degree ofcontrol.

This deteriorating quality of ODA givessome urgency to the vigorous debate on theODA criteria that has been raging over thepast several years. The review of thecriteria has gained momentum since the late1990s as donors focused more of theirresources on conflict prevention and peace-building activities. Several donors believedthat ODA criteria would not permit importantaid allocations to address conflict preventionand the transition from conflict tosustainable peace. As we shall see in thenext section, a number of donors haveblurred bureaucratic distinctions in whole-of-government approaches to peace andsecurity funds. Government priorities andbudgetary pressures also encourage somedonors to look to ODA budgets as the sourceof these funds.

The donor debates on appropriate ODAactivities were accentuated in 2003 by acontroversial paper, “A DevelopmentCooperation Lens on Terrorism Prevention”,supported by DAC Member Ministers. Thispaper added its voice to those calling for areassessment of the criteria for ODA:

“Development cooperation doeshave an important role to play inhelping to deprive terrorists ofpopular support…and donors canreduce support for terrorism byworking towards preventing theconditions that give rise toconflict in general and thatconvince disaffected groups toembrace terrorism inparticular…this may have

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Political Overviewimplications for prioritiesincluding budget allocations andlevels and definitions of ODAeligibility criteria.”17

Donor moves to expand ODA eligibilitycriteria along these lines have been resistedstrongly by CSOs since 2003.18

At the April 2004 DAC High LevelMeeting, Ministers were able to reachconsensus on only a small range of activities− preventing the recruitment of childsoldiers, enhancing the roles of civil societyin security sector reform and civilianoversight of security expenditures − but leftseveral controversial areas for furtherdebate. One of the most contentious areasis donor contributions in support ofSouthern military training as well as theoperational costs in donor contributions toUN peacekeeping initiatives.

What are the implications of thesepotential changes to ODA criteria? Totalexpenditures for UN peacekeepingoperations in 2003 were $2.3 billion.19 Whilethese are sometimes very importantcontributions to peace, they also haveimplications for the long-standing ban on theuse of ODA for military purposes. InSeptember 2005, for example, 89% of troopsin UN peacekeeping operations were fromdeveloping countries (compared to 55% tenyears earlier). Many of these countries takeadvantage of donor funds for peacekeepingto equip and train their military forces.Moreover, some northern governments doubtthe objectives and results of UNpeacekeeping operations and favor“coalitions of the willing”, the funding forwhich diverts even more resources frompoverty reduction.

African contributions to this Report callfor “the substitution of competing Westernmilitary initiatives by centrally coordinated

efforts through the emerging African UnionPeace and Security Commission”.20 RecentG8 initiatives have focused on strengtheningthese capacities for African regional (in theAfrican Union) and sub-regional organizations(in ECOWAS) to undertake peace operationsin Africa. The UK-sponsored Commission forAfrica emphasizes the need for donors toprovide all necessary resources for acomprehensive engagement by theseinstitutions.21 While supporting this approachfor peacekeeping operations, African analystsin this Report suggest that support formilitary peace operations should not begiven priority over, or be at the expense of,strengthening early-warning conflictprevention capacity and non-military toolsfor conflict resolution in the African Union.

Nevertheless, donors are contemplatingmajor financial contributions to the creationof a 15,000 African Stand-by Force that wouldact as the armed wing of the AU’s Peace andSecurity Commission. Eight of the 16 UNpeacekeeping missions in force are currentlyin Africa.22 As a result, several EU countries,as well as the African Union, continue to seekthe inclusion of these donor expenditures inODA, despite the current exclusion of militaryassistance. Similarly, a paper by the Dutchgovernment in late 2004 called for theinclusion in ODA of activities related tosecurity sector reform involving the military,the integration and modernization of militariesin developing countries emerging fromconflict, as well as many other aspects ofpeace operations.23

Prior to the DAC Senior Level Meeting inDecember 2004, CSOs working in the GlobalSecurity and Development Network (andmany Reality of Aid network members)argued that “financing assistance in the areaof military reform, peacekeeping and peaceenforcement operations for already small andoverstretched ODA budgets would inevitably

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Political Overviewbe at the expense of the resources requiredfor achieving the Millennium DevelopmentGoals (MDGs), sustainable development, socialjustice and human rights”.24

Again, there was no agreement amongDAC Ministers at their High Level meeting inMarch 2005 on the most extreme of thesemeasures to expand ODA criteria. But asseveral OECD chapters in the Report suggest,the debate is far from over. DAC memberswill return to the question of non-militarytraining for the military and support topeace-building capacities with ODA resourcesat the DAC High Level Meeting in 2007.Meanwhile, some European donors continueto work in the EU, the G8 and with theAfrican Union to build consensus for theseadjustments. Others, such as New Zealandand Norway, will resist these moves.

The integrity of ODA for povertyeradication is already deeply compromised.In suggesting that the criteria remain morenarrowly concerned with poverty-focusedand non-military interventions, CSOs are notsuggesting that the international communityshould not provide the resources requiredto address urgent conflict and securityconcerns. There are certainly manylegitimate actions by northern governments(diplomatic, military, technical exchanges) forconflict prevention and constructingconditions for peace that follow from Stateobligations to international human rights andhumanitarian law. Some of these actions maybe directly related to poverty reduction andare already included in ODA. However,

including the disbursements for a broaderrange of activities for military aspects ofpeace operations or for the prevention ofterrorism will only dilute the publicunderstanding of the purpose of aid.It would effectively divert scarce ODAresources from poverty eradication.

Is aid being diverted to nationalsecurity priorities?Recent trends demonstrate the degree towhich ODA, while falling within currenteligibility criteria, is already being subsumedto policy interests. At the 2002 UNFinancing for Development Conference inMonterrey, donors avoided any bindingcommitment to meeting the UN target of0.7% of GNI. But they did promise newfinancing for ODA as their contribution to adevelopment partnership in response tourgent development needs. Since thenseveral European donors have made furthercommitments to realize the 0.7% target by2015. The DAC calculates that $49 billion innew aid resources will be available between2005 and 2010, based on commitments madefollowing the 2005 G8 meeting in the UK.25

Nevertheless, as the World Trends Chapterpoints out, even the DAC analysis raisesconcerns that some donors will not meettheir commitments, which in themselves fallfar short of the Millennium Declarationpledge “to spare no effort” to provide thefinancing needed to reduce poverty.

While the extent of new resources foraid may be uncertain, the experience of the

Trends since 2001 demonstrate a significant diversion of new aid resourcestowards the foreign policy priorities of the donor countries, particularly in Afghanistanand Iraq. Also, the Millennium donor pledge “to spare no effort” for povertyreduction pales when set against dramatic increases in military spending for thesewars. CSOs will be closely monitoring donor timetables for new aid commitments to2015 to assure that the new resources are targeted to the expressed needs of thepoorest countries and peoples.

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Political Overviewpast four years suggests that new funds thatdo materialize may not be available forpoverty reduction and for the MDGs. Whiledonors did not reallocate pre-existing aidmoney to national security priorities after2001, many donors made new supplementarybudget allocations to meet commitmentsflowing from the broad-based ‘war onterror’.26 These large supplementaryincreases in assistance (not all of it ODA-eligible) have been spent in security-strategic countries, rather than the poorestand most vulnerable.

Between 2000 and 2003, all donors madeavailable $18.5 billion net in new ODAresources. These new resources werepotentially available for additional povertyreduction activities. But $5.4 billion, or 30%of these new resources, was spent incountries (such as Afghanistan and Pakistan)crucial to the U.S “War on Terror”. Anadditional $7.2 billion of this $18.5 billion hasbeen accounted for by increased debtcancellation (i.e., above the level of debtcancellation in 2000).27 That leaves a mere32%, or $5.9 billion of the $18.5 billion, thatcould potentially have been allocated to newspending in support of the MDGs.

For individual donors, the trends areeven starker. Ngaire Woods’ definitive studyon aid diversion concludes that almost all ofthe increase in U.S. assistance (military,economic and ODA) between 2002 and 2004(some $20 billion) went to strategicallyimportant countries in the Middle East, theFertile Valley (Israel, Egypt, Iraq, and Turkey)and to Afghanistan and its immediateneighbors. These allocations were roughlyequal to the total US aid flows to the rest ofthe world combined. The BushAdministration created a privately-managedMillennium Challenge Account (MCA), whichis beyond the administrative purview ofUSAID, to channel its promised $5 billionpost-Monterrey increased assistance to

developing countries. To put this intoperspective, the MCA’s $2.5 billion allocationto date is roughly equal to funds available tothe US military for fast-disbursing quickimpact projects on the ground in Iraq in2004.28

For Japan, with declining aid budgetsdue to budgetary pressures, participationin the “coalition of the willing” haslikewise been financed throughsupplementary funding requests toParliament. For the European Union,allocations for Iraq and Afghanistanbetween 2003 and 2005 are expected tohave taken up much of the €389 millionincrease in the External Relations budget.The UK government seems to have divertedaid funds, with Iraq displacing “at leastsome of DFID’s focus on low-incomecountries and has certainly prompted theacceleration of DFID’s intended scalingback of bilateral programs to middleincome countries [some of which, such asBolivia, have large populations living inpoverty].”29 As Woods points out, the newunplanned allocation of UK £200 million in2003 for Iraq would have most certainlygone instead to low-income countries. Sheconcludes that these substantialsupplementary allocations to backstop the“war on terror” will not be sustainable inthe future. Subsequent allocations forthese foreign policy interests are certainto come from existing ODA budgets andpromised increases intended for the MDGs.

In looking at the diversion of aidresources, the question of the balancebetween funds allocated to development andfor other foreign policy priorities must alsobe considered. As noted above, cumulativenet increases in global aid budgets between2000 and 2003 from all donors have amountedto $18.5 billion, of which the US contributed$11.1 billion. On the other hand, the USbudgetary allocation for the war in Iraq

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Political Overviewalone is $212 billion. “Operation EnduringFreedom” in Afghanistan has cost well over$100 billion to date. For the UK, theChancellor of the Exchequer put the totalcost of UK operations in Afghanistan and Iraqat UK £4.4 billion, in excess of the annualbudget of DFID in recent years.30 Figures inBox 2 suggest that $40.2 billion have beenpledged for relief and reconstruction bybilateral donors for Afghanistan and Iraq,while approximately $16.7 billion has beendisbursed.

For the first time since the end of theCold War, military spending globally exceededUS$1 trillion in 2004. Besides its regularmilitary budget (47% of the global total), theUS has allocated an additional $238 billionbetween 2003 and 2005 to fight the “war onterror”.31 According to the 2005 HumanDevelopment Report just the increase inmilitary spending since 2000 would have beenmore than sufficient for all donors to reachthe 0.7% target in their aid budgets.

The impact of military spending and USmilitary assistance is apparent in Asia. Anearlier Reality of Aid Reality Check onsecurity and development noted thedramatic increase in US economic assistance

to that region (104%) and in US militaryassistance (1,614%) between 2000 and 2003.The focus for these aid increases arePakistan, Indonesia and the Philippines (whichis now the third largest US aid recipient).32

The Philippines alone received $144 million in“foreign military finance” from the US and afurther $10 million for “international militaryeducation and training” during this period.33

But the US drive to confront“transnational security threats” is notconfined to Asia. Adam Isacson, in thisReport, suggests the US is once againencouraging Latin American militaries to armand reorient security forces for anti-terrorism counter-insurgency. “Terrorism” isput forward as a primary justification formilitary aid in which “radical populism” (i.e.,the government of Venezuela) is increasinglyviewed as a security threat.34 Mostexplicitly, 80% of the $4 billion Plan Colombiais devoted to strengthening Colombiansecurity forces. In Africa, the US is reportedto be spending $500 million to bolster anti-terrorism capacities in West Africa and inparticular to protect access to the region’soil fields in Nigeria and Gabon. American andallied troops have participated in joint

1. US Aid Appropriated for Relief and Reconstruction in Iraq $20.9 billionOf which disbursed (Nov 2005) $11.8 billion

2. Other donor aid pledges for Iraq $13.6 billionOf which disbursed (Nov 2005) $ 2.0 billion

3. Expected Total Official Debt Reduction for Iraq $31.2 billion

4. Bilateral DAC donor pledges for Afghanistan (2001 – 2003) $ 5.7 billionOf which disbursed (June 2004) $ 2.9 billion

Sources: Brooking Institute, “Iraq Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction and Security inPost-Saddam Iraq”, www.brookings.edu/iraqindex; Brooking Institute, “Afghan Index”,www.brookings.edu/afghanistanindex.

Box 2. Post 9/11 aid pledges and disbursements for Iraq and Afghanistan

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Political Overviewcounter-terrorism exercises in North andWest Africa under a Trans-Saharan Counter-Terrorism Initiative. The International CrisisGroup notes that these maneuvers with localgovernments for counter-terrorism have beenseen by these governments as “a way tostifle legitimate dissent and Muslim groups”.35

In contrast, the conflict in theDemocratic Republic of the Congo hasaffected the lives of millions. But donorsspent less than $900 million there in 2003and the UN struggled to meet the $393million bill for peacekeeping operations in2001/02. In 2004, all UN members owed morethan $2.5 billion in arrears for UNpeacekeeping operations, with the US andJapan accounting for 75% of this total.International humanitarian law requires thatproportionality according to need shouldshape the response of the internationalcommunity to humanitarian emergenciesarising from conflict. It is readily apparentthat some crises, where the strategicinterests of the donors are perceived to beextremely important, receive considerableattention, while others are conflicts that arenot so much forgotten, but ignored.

Security sector reform? Whosesecurity?While military assistance, including US andallied military intervention, has played anexpanding role in selected countriesaffected by conflict, since the mid-1990sdonors have also given increased emphasis onreform of the “security sector” in these

countries. Security cooperation in the ColdWar period was highly controversial with itsfocus on “modernizing” militaries that thenplayed direct roles in politics anddevelopment processes. Most often, militaryofficers took power, occupying governmentsin support of elite interests and those oftheir northern allies at the expense of therights and legitimate concerns of citizensand communities.

In the 1990s, free from Cold Warstrictures, donors began to explore howthey might strengthen people-centeredapproaches to security.36 The DAC facilitateda process of learning from donor practiceand concluded with lessons for securitysector reform in a 2004 paper, “SecuritySector Reform and Governance”. This papercharacterizes security sector reform (SSR) inthe 1990s as activities to “increase theability of partner countries to meet therange of security needs within theirsocieties in a manner consistent withdemocratic norms and sound principles ofgovernance and the rule of law”.37

This reorientation towards democraticforms of security was linked to thepromotion of a “human security agenda” onthe part of some donors (such as Norwayand Canada). A “human security” approachfocuses on the direct security priorities ofpoor people, which have been identified ascrime and community-level violence, civilianimpact of civil conflict and war, persecutionby the police, and the absence of effectivejustice. The World Bank’s 2000 Voices of the

Democratic control over the security sector is essential to protect the rightsof vulnerable and poor people in creating conditions for poverty reduction andsustainable livelihoods. Donor initiatives in support of the security sector and itsreform must be governed first and foremost by their obligations to human rightstreaties and must be transparent and accountable, and screened for potentialhuman rights impacts. In the post 9/11 security-centric world, CSOs must closelymonitor donor support for security sector reform.

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Political OverviewPoor established that the lack of physicalsecurity was experienced by poor people asa major impediment to their ability to claimtheir rights and reduce their poverty.However, in practice a “human security”starting point by donors has often ignoredthe underlying socio-economic and structuralcauses of conflict and insecurity incommunities and may ignore the role ofsecurity forces in sustaining theseconditions.

The DAC SSR agenda is ambitious, withits emphasis on a range of actors at all levelsof society and its concentration on a holisticapproach in the security sector (police,judiciary, and military). As noted, thediscourse strongly stresses democraticgovernance and international human rightsstandards at the heart of activities forimproved accountability in the securitysector. There have been some notablesuccesses in donor support for the reform ofjustice systems and civilian oversight (such asthe Office of the Ombudsman in Bolivia).However, the overall impression is that theDAC SSR principles have had minimal impacton donor practice: “in most…DAC countries,SSR, as defined in the DAC policy statementand paper, has barely penetrated even thedevelopment assistance ministries, let alonethe foreign affairs or security-relatedministries”.38

Even more telling, as donors promoteSSR in countries affected by conflict, aglobal SSR assessment undertaken by the DACconcluded that:

“in Africa, Asia, Central Europeand Latin America, SSR – in theDAC sense of the word – remainsperipheral to most governmentreform agendas, … [with] much ofit more narrowly focused onstrengthening the capacity of the

state security services to carry outtheir core functions. Even whenthe stated objective of the work isto strengthening security sectorgovernance, some of the reformscarried out in these regionsactually reduced accountabilityand transparency within thesecurity sector. This is often theoutcome of reforms undertaken inconflict-affected or insecurecountries, where the perceivedurgency to bolster state securityforces by increasing theiroperational effectiveness takesprecedence over efforts tostrengthen civil managementbodies.”39

These limited impacts of initiatives fordemocratic security sector reform must alsotake account of the realities of developmentchange in the interest of people living inpoverty. Many CSOs have long argued thatdevelopment in the interests of poor andvulnerable people is a political processfraught with conflict as people claim theirrights. In many countries where elites areconfronted by demands for extensive reformsthat affect their interests, these elites turnto the security system to defend theirinterests. Increasingly, internationalcompanies operating in regions of chronicconflict or in tension with local communitiesalso rely on private security forces todefend investments that extract resources,or establish conditions of employment thatignore the rights of affected workers andcommunities.40

The 2004 Reality of Aid Report, whichfocused on governance and human rights,suggests that democratic control oversecurity forces is an essential priority, but“like democracy, good governance cannot be

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Political Overviewimplanted or imposed by the donorcommunity, it has to be imbibed, nurturedand cherished from within”. The Reporturged donors to take account of unequalpower relations within developing societiesand globally, strengthening representativeorganizations in civil society as a space fordemocratic governance. Democratic securitysector reform based on the promotion ofhuman rights should be at the center ofdonor initiatives that promote democraticgovernance.

Actual progress in democratic securityreform has been clearly challenged by thetough political environment in many poorcountries for promoting democraticaccountability and citizens’ rights. The post9/11 global security agenda has no doubtcompounded these challenges. Since 2001increased attention to security reform hasbeen accompanied by strong pressures fromnational security agencies in donor countriesto shape security services in poor countriesto effectively counter “terrorist threats” tothe North.

A key element of the “war on terror”has been to strengthen intelligence agenciesand anti-terrorist military capabilities, theregulation of remittances, and strongerborder controls, all potentially reinforcing arepressive state apparatus. Australian andDanish CSOs highlight in this Report the use

of aid resources for these purposes. CSOcolleagues from the US point out in theirchapter that “in 2005 USAID invested $887.5million or 7.2% of its budget, towardscounterterrorism” which “represents anearly seven-fold increase over 2004”.Beyond the use of US ODA, “a study of 47low-income, poorly performing states carriedout in 2002/03 found that those countriesthat were considered major US allies in the‘war on terror’ received 90% of the militaryand police aid provided by the US to thatgroup of countries between 2000 and2004.”41

CONFLICT PREVENTION: DONOR POLICYCOHERENCE AND INTERVENTION INCONFLICT-AFFECTED COUNTRIES

Country selectivity: donors respond to“low-income countries under stress”,“difficult partnerships” and “fragilestates”International concern for the prevention ofconflict in the 1990s was accentuated by thehumanitarian catastrophes in Rwanda andBosnia. Previous humanitarian efforts to aidthe victims of war and to reconstructdevastated societies were seen to be clearlyinsufficient. A new humanitarian discoursehas emerged, which is highly contentious inits implications: The international community

Donors have defined for themselves a set of “fragile and failing states” in whichthey seek to act to prevent conflict or restore peaceful conditions for economicgrowth. In doing so, they almost exclusively focus on the internal dynamics of poorpolicies and governance, corruption and the abuse of power. But deterioratinggovernment capacities in many poorest countries has been exacerbated by decadesof donor-imposed Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs), unequal and unfairglobal trade, exploitative terms of investment, unsustainable massive debt burdens,inappropriate aid, and the promotion of trade in small and light weapons, for whichdonors have a major responsibility. Donor policies for preventing conflict willcertainly fail if these issues do not command their urgent attention.

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Political Overviewis obliged to organize its diplomatic,economic, and ultimately its military resourcesand capacities to act prior to imminentmassive human rights violations againstvulnerable populations and pre-empt thedevastating consequences of war. As a resultof “widespread frustration over the inabilityof the United Nations, regional organizationsand great powers to protect victims fromgenocide and ethnic cleansing…[some havecalled] for the development of newinternational norms and capacities forhumanitarian intervention”.42 But thequestions are: Where to act, on whoseauthority, and with what capacities?

At the same time, donors have beenconcentrating their aid to improve itseffectiveness in a smaller number of “highperforming” developing countries “certified”by the World Bank and the IMF to have“good policies”.43 But donors soon facedthe uncomfortable issue: What to do withthe dozens of “poor performers” or “difficultpartnerships”? In these countries 28% to 35%of people are estimated to live on less than$1 a day, one in three persons aremalnourished and up to 50% of children diebefore their fifth birthday.

In fact, the Bank’s own analysisdemonstrates that between 1992 and 2002these “poor performing” countries received43% less aid than predicted by theirpopulation and poverty levels, policy andinstitutional environment.44 These gaps forsome countries have grown even wider withaid diversions after 9/11.45 The Reality ofAid in its 2004 Report emphasized thefundamental importance in the internationalhuman rights law framework of non-discrimination in donors’ allocation ofresources for the realization of the MDGs.46

There is little evidence that these principlesare determining current donor aid allocationpolicies.

In response to this donor “dilemma”over ignoring large numbers of poor people,the World Bank created the category of“Low Income Countries Under Stress”(LICUS), based largely on its own CountryPolicy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA).The CPIA is a World Bank ranking ofdeveloping countries according to a measureof “good policies” that has been challengedby CSOs as unaccountable to citizens in thecountries being measured, non-transparentin the determination of ranking, and highlysubjective in its choice of “good policies”.47

LICUS are countries in the lowest twoquintiles of CPIA scores. Other donors, suchas DFID and the UN system, suggest thatState obligations under international humanrights law should be the point of referenceand thereby identify states that aresystematically either unwilling or unable tomeet basic obligations to their citizens. Asmany of the OECD chapters in this Reportdocument, donors now commonly refer tosuch states as “fragile”, “failing” or “failed”.

The term “fragile” or “failed” is used bydonors to describe a loose category ofcountries whose state infrastructure is weak,whose citizens are subject to systematichuman rights violations, and where basichuman needs are not being met and aredeteriorating, sometimes leading to thecomplete collapse of national state functions(e.g., Somalia). As noted above, the choiceof countries to include in this categorylargely derives from the World Bank’s CPIA.But what are the origins of “state failures”and what rationale do donors give to informtheir engagement?

For donors, analysis of “fragile states”informs initiatives in conflict preventionbecause they exemplify social, economic andpolitical indicators that signal impending orexisting conflict. The focus is largely on theinternal deterioration of governance factors

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Political Overview− high levels of corruption, elites competingfor control over diminishing economic spoils,breakdown of legitimate authorities andjustice systems, ineffectual institutions forthe delivery of basic social services − thathave brought countries to this point ofcrisis. But as we saw in the previoussection, the public rationale for donorengagement in situations of conflict since 9/11 is increasingly becoming their perceptionof “threats” from specific countries to theirsecurity and global interests. First amongthese are countries perceived to be on the“front line” of the “war on terrorism”.Many CSOs are deeply apprehensive that anexclusive donor discourse on “state fragility”provides public and international legitimationfor a growing number of direct and intensiveforms of intervention on their own terms bynorthern countries in southern countries.

Aid is a key resource for theseinterventions. “Fragile” states are amongthe poorest in the world and one wouldhave expected that they would attract highlevels of aid dollars, given donors’ self-asserted concerns for potential “threats”.But this has not always been the case. Inthe words of the UK-sponsored 2005Commission for Africa, “the current aidarchitecture seems to favour some countries− the donor ‘darlings’ − and to neglectothers, the donor ‘orphans’. Given thatcountries with weak capacity requireexternal assistance for a longer period oftime,…the relative under-financing of donor‘orphans’ requires urgent correction.”48

But even as they provide less and morevolatile aid volumes to “fragile states”,donors seldom acknowledge, much lessattempt to address, the systemic structuraland international causes of stress to thecapacities of these poor countries. A majorsource of “fragility” are the decades offailed donor-imposed structural adjustment

programs (SAPs) in many countries that havedescended into conflicts, such as SierraLeone or the Ivory Coast. SAPs dismantledState structures, throwing many into povertyand creating highly competitive environmentsamong elites for diminishing economicreturns from commodity exports.

For example, in the case of the IvoryCoast, the structural adjustment of macro-economic policies has been instrumental inthe outbreak of social and political crises inthe 1990s. Trade liberalization was anaggravating factor of instability. In particular,in the areas of agriculture and agribusiness,it led to the emergence of private andforeign-owned oligopolies to the detrimentof the majority of national producers. Thecollapse of cocoa and coffee pricesresulted in the tripling of the incidence ofpoverty, less tax resources for thegovernment that provided economic rents tothe elite, and the spread of poverty toother regions and cities in the country. Infact urban poverty, particularly amongunemployed youth, reached a quarter of thetotal poor in some countries.49 Competitionover scarce resources, combined with largepools of the recently unemployed, providedthe conditions for the emergence of violentconflict.

The implications of donor policies asthey affect conflict go beyond aid and itsterms. Attention must be given to the de-stabilizing effects of readily available smallweapons throughout the South. In 2002,arms deliveries to Asia, the Middle East, LatinAmerica and Africa constituted 66.7% of thevalue of all arms delivered worldwide, with amonetary value of $17 billion. The fivepermanent members of the UN SecurityCouncil accounted for 90% of thesedeliveries.50 As the special contribution byOxfam colleagues point out in their chapter,donors need to work with communities in

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Political Overviewthe South to reduce the spread and impactsof easily accessible light weapons, whileworking urgently towards a binding globalArms Trade Treaty that will control armsflows to the South.51

Whether in Burma, the Philippines orIndonesia, major corporate investments inthe extraction of natural resources haveaffected the rights of local communities andhave aggravated conflict. In Africa,resource extraction in zones of conflict haveregionalized the conflict in the Congo, andprovided the fuel for conflict in Sierra Leone(“conflict diamonds”) and the Sudan (oilrevenues). Why then are there are so fewregulations in developed countries forinvestments by resource corporations or fortrade in valuable commodities from zones ofconflict? CSOs have called for regulation innorthern host countries, similar to legislationrecently introduced in the Belgianparliament, which conditions the provision ofpublic support for private direct investmentoverseas on a human rights impactassessment and its effect on current orimminent conflict. Such regulation shouldinclude appropriate monitoring andcompliance mechanisms.

Dr. Rupiya’s chapter on conflictprevention in Africa recommends theinnovative use of panels of internationalexperts under the auspices of the UN toexamine and produce explicit reports onthose states, companies or private actorswho are provoking and perpetuating conflict.He points to the relative success of theExperts Panel on the Illegal Exploitation ofNatural Resources and Other Forms of Wealthin the DR Congo in shaming several majorcompanies illegally operating in the Congo.The Extractive Industries TransparencyInitiative (EITI) is also an important evolvingmulti-stakeholder initiative that is workingwith governments, companies and NGOs to

assure that revenue from extractiveindustries contributes to sustainabledevelopment and poverty reduction.52

Donor policy discussions in the DAC andtheir articulation of best practices seldomtackle these structural and political issuesfor the donors themselves. Rather, donorshave developed principles and policies toguide their aid relationships that focusalmost solely on the internal dynamics of“fragile states”. According to the DAC,these programs should be oriented tostrengthening both state structures and civilsociety, still closely following the broadlessons of aid effectiveness. But while localownership is important, in thesecircumstances, donors should also beprepared to accept “partial alignment” withgovernment priorities. The latter are almostcertainly poorly articulated in “fragilestates”, and consequently donors shouldrelate to a range of alternative nationalstakeholders, including civil society actors.53

The DAC summary of ideal practices indicatesthat donors should be prepared:

• to engage with local organizationsand networks working for inclusivechange,

• to ground their interventions instrong country-specific analysis(which includes an analysis of thepower to make change),

• to take account of the differingimpacts of conflict and instability onwomen and children, and

• to be flexible and ‘stick with it’over the long-term, and collaboratein multi-stakeholder partnerships.

Unfortunately “best practices” seldominform the actual realities of donorengagement “on the ground” in mostsituations of conflict. Indeed, several

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Political Overviewstudies of donor peace-building initiativespoint to a fundamental contradiction indonor practices. To what degree can post-conflict transition processes be locally-owned through stakeholders for peace, whilethe donors seem to work uncritically from auniversal agenda? This agenda comes with afixed set of policy tools linked to liberaldemocracy and the market economy, and“holds that a combination of democracy andmarket economy is suitable for all societiesand eventually will bring lasting peace”.54

Mauricio Katz’s chapter on Colombia inthis Report reveals these tensions in donorrelationships with the Colombian government.The latter is pursuing a so-called democraticsecurity policy through Plan Patriot, which isa civic strategy aimed at military superiorityover the FARC, Colombia’s oldest and largestinsurgency, with strong support from the USgovernment. Plan Patriot is drawing citizensdirectly into the conflict as informers or asthose accused by informants of being insupport of “terrorists”. European donors,on the other hand, have an ambiguousrelationship with this Plan as they continueto pursue their own “peace laboratories” inselected regions of the country. The intentof these “laboratories” is to build socio-economic conditions for lasting peace andthe foundations for dialogue betweencontending forces. But in the context ofgrowing human rights violations in theimplementation of Plan Patriot, Katz notesthat the EU contribution could easily

become confused as “the social component”of a repressive “Democratic Security Policy”carried out by the Colombian state.

CSOs have been working for decadeswith developing country partners insituations of conflict and socio-economicreconstruction. Drawing from thisexperience, several OECD authors, as well asthose from Colombia and Africa, stress theimportance of long-term collaboration withrepresentative agents for change. Theseagents will be found in both civil society andthe State, especially among women and thepoor, and their efforts, fraught with dangerand difficulty, to promote change for peaceand claim rights should be staunchlysupported. National reformers should alsobe encouraged in their efforts to defusetension, build trust and construct viablealternatives based on nationally determinedpriorities, and not necessarily those imposedby donor interests.

Clearly, effective States are a pre-requisite for improved conditions for thosemost affected by conflict. But these effortsat strengthening structures for governancein conflict-affected societies must beconsistent with international human rightsobligations (including economic, social andcultural rights as well as civil and politicalrights). Reducing day-to-day insecurity forcitizens must be carefully balanced so asnot to reinforce the repressive mechanismsof state security. Human rights principles ofuniversality, indivisibility, interdependence

Donor mechanisms for a whole-of-government coordination of defense,diplomacy and development policy in zones of conflict must give priority to thehumanitarian interests of people affected by conflict, not the security interests ofthe donor states. Conflict prevention and peace operations should explicitlyprotect the space for independent humanitarian and civil society actors, clearlyseparate from military forces on the ground.

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Political Overviewand non-discrimination should lead donors topromote social processes of inclusion andmeasures to enhance equality and justice,with particular emphasis on women’s rightsand the rights of those who have beensystemically excluded. Understanding theunique aspects of a more just society in agiven country is a prerequisite forestablishing peace and preventing conflict.

This has not been a common approachamong donors. A detailed assessment ofCanadian aid in Haiti over the past decade,for example, concluded that much of thedonor programming was undertaken with asignificant “disconnect with the politicalsituation in Haiti” and with aid that washighly tied to ineffective donorconditionality.55 Over the next several years,Reality of Aid partners will be assessing theresults of increased donor initiatives in“fragile states” in the context ofinternational human rights law.

Donor interventions: a whole-of-government approachIn the words of Dutch Minister forDevelopment Cooperation Anna Maria Agnesvan Ardenne:

“The distinction between foreignpolicy and developmentcooperation is vanishing. It wasnever very useful to begin with.Aid, politics and diplomacy forma seamless whole and we shouldnot try to pick them apart.”56

In responding to this challenge forcoherence, a number of donors havebrought together multiple arms ofgovernment, in a so-called whole-of-government approach, to respond toconflicts and crises in the South. Theseministries include Defense, Foreign Affairs

and Development (loosely called the “3-Dapproach”), and sometimes Immigration,Justice, and civilian police forces.

We have already seen the increasedconvergence of peace, security anddevelopment issues in donor discourse andthe corresponding donor-expressed need forgreater flexibility in funding, not necessarilytied to ODA criteria (but also seeking toexpand these criteria). The institutionalconvergence of government capacities is thelogical expression of donor assessments thateffective responses to protractedemergencies require the blending ofhumanitarian action with pro-active peaceoperations. The (mostly metaphorical)“three-block war” is one expression of thisapproach for the military on the ground:peace operations troops could be fightinginsurgents in one block, providing“humanitarian” assistance in another, andsupporting reconstruction in a third.57

These are not only Northern notions, ThePhilippines chapter in this Report describeshow the Philippine Government uses ODA incounterinsurgency with a similar strategy.

A number of authors from OECDcountries in this Report describe thecreation of funding mechanisms aroundwhich joined-up ministries plan andimplement strategic interventions insituations of conflict and post-conflictreconstruction. The target countries forcoordinated intervention have been mainlythose that affect in varying degrees northernsecurity interests in the Balkans, Iraq,Afghanistan, Haiti and the Horn of Africa/Great Lakes Region.

The Dutch chapter describes a StabilityFund created in January 2004 with a budgetof approximately $200 million to supportpeace processes, re-integration of formercombatants, re-organization of military andpolice forces, and the destruction of small

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Political Overviewarms. Uniquely (in comparison with othermechanisms in other countries), this Fundcannot be used to support military activityor civil-military cooperation. The Britishgovernment created a Global ConflictPrevention Pool (approximately $650 million)and an African Conflict Prevention Pool(approximately $170 million). In this case, asubstantial portion of each Pool is earmarkedfor peace operations, including militarycomponents, and the Africa Pool has beenvery active in supporting the peace processin West Africa. Canada and Norway havecreated similar Funds or Taskforces withcoordinating structures.

In July 2004, the US established anOffice of the Coordinator for Reconstructionand Stabilization at the State Department tocoordinate civilian capacity in post-conflictsituations. One of the tasks of the Office ofthe Coordinator is to develop a model forcivilian teams that can be deployed togetherwith, or when needed, embedded within themilitary. When deployed with the military,these teams will provide civilian leadership inparallel with military operations.58 There arealso separate Reconstruction Groups forAfghanistan and for Iraq formed outside theUS State Department.

While the experience of most of thesecoordinating mechanisms is still quite recent,a number of observations can be made. Thefirst, and most obvious, is that themechanisms give overall priority to militaryresponses to conflict, particularly where thestrategic interests of the donors areinvolved, as in Afghanistan. The focus forcoordination of policy is entirely withrespect to the immediate circumstances of acountry in conflict; there is rarely any linkmade to northern-based policy issues thatare an important element in fueling conflict(such as investment in zones of conflict). Atthe operational level the results have been

mixed. Some level of coordination isachieved, but there is rarely a concertedoverall country or regional strategy. Thedegree to which country-based policies andstrategies are built through on-the-groundassessments is an open question, particularlythose that give precedence to strengtheningthe capacities of citizens’ organizations toset country-owned priorities.59

A central concern for CSOs is thepriority given to humanitarian anddevelopment issues in determining the overallobjectives guiding the engagement ofnorthern governments in their interventions.In the words of Canadian CSOs, “integration[around common objectives] risks conflatingdevelopment objectives with foreign policyobjectives, and blurring the lines betweenhumanitarian and military action”.60 A keyquestion in Canada is the degree to whichgovernment attempts to integrate all actorsin the field within a “coherent” commonstrategy on the ground. The ways in whichgovernments determine coherence is vitallyimportant. Circumstances on the groundmay require different policy goals, objectivesand strategies to create security andrespond to humanitarian needs. In the faceof different policy needs, coherence shouldmean making sure the implementation ofsuch policies do not conflict, adjustingpolicies where they do. Whole-of-government approaches must avoid imposinga predominant security agenda on otherpriorities for people on the ground.

In a “3-D” peace operation (which bringstogether defense, diplomacy anddevelopment), the military brings a distinctcommand structure that may be appropriateto its mission, but may prove counter-productive in resolving on-the-groundtensions and sensitivities to local needs in atruly joined-up mission. Operational controlin peace operations in high conflict areas

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Political Overviewgives the military distinct advantages in fieldoperations, which may be needed to haltmilitary action. But in the words of MichaelPugh, a UK analyst, “it is not the military’sjob to empower those vulnerable to abusiveStates or warlords” in creating conditions forpost-conflict peace.61

The engagement of the military inhumanitarian activities or “quick-impact”reconstruction projects brings particularconcerns for the safety of humanitarianworkers active in the area. In the allusionto the “three block war” noted earlier,independent development workers can easilybe identified by local citizens with military“hearts and minds” operations and the goalsof military intervention.

The most explicit expression of joined-up approaches to managing conflict is theoperations of Provincial ReconstructionTeams (PRTs) in Afghanistan. PRTs are jointcivilian and military teams operating atprovincial level in Afghanistan in the areas ofsecurity, reconstruction, support to thecentral government and limited reliefoperations.62 There are currently severaloperational teams controlled by the UK, theNetherlands, Germany, Canada and the US invarious parts of the country, includingKandahar in the South, where the US militaryforces continue military operations seekingout the forces of the Taliban.

While PRTs represent an integratedapproach to security and reconstruction,corresponding closely to donor thinking on

managing conflict, they also present severalserious challenges. In a context of ongoingmilitary action, it is impossible to avoid ablurring of the line in the eyes of the localpopulation between offensive military action(by US or other northern allied forces) andstabilization efforts by PRTs. Because oftheir make-up and their mission, PRTs lacksubstantial expertise to assess the needs ofthe population to design and implementsustainable projects. Usually militarypersonnel make up all but 5% to 10% of agiven PRT.

From the perspective of internationalhumanitarian law, there are significantdifferences between a PRT approach andthe notion of humanitarian action:

“Humanitarian agencies maintainthat for any assistance to beconsidered humanitarian, it mustbe delivered according to the coreprinciples of humanitarianism:humanity, impartiality andindependence….The currentphraseology of, for example,‘military-humanitarian operations’,‘military strikes for humanitarianpurposes’, and ‘humanitariansafety zones’, has left truehumanitarian action and identityin a state of crisis.”63

PRT operations not only createconfusion, but also endanger domestic and

Donors should develop and use policy tools that respond to the full range ofoptions suggested by the three pillars of “The Responsibility to Protect”, inparticular the responsibility to prevent and to reconstruct. Unfortunately, themajor powers have largely ignored multilateral norms in recent militaryinterventions, significantly undermining support among developing countries for “theresponsibility to protect”. Implementing the “responsibility to protect” will requirefundamental reform of the UN Security Council as well as substantial investment inregional capacities such as the Peace and Stability Fund of the African Union.

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Political Overviewinternational workers who face dauntingchallenges in reaching vulnerable people inrural Afghanistan; they cannot afford to beidentified with one party to the conflict,and in particular with military forces seenby local populations as an occupying force.A coalition of Afghani NGOs sees a role forPRTs, but one exclusively focused onestablishing security in their zones ofoperation – training the Afghani NationalArmy at the provincial level as well as thepolice. In their view, “PRTs should not actas a conduit for humanitarian assistanceexcept under exceptional circumstanceswhere lives are at risk and there is nogovernment or civilian assistance workerswilling and able to respond”.64

From the point of view of northerngovernments, PRTs are a possible model forfuture interventions, as a relatively low-risk(military, financial and political) alternative tosubstantial troop deployments in zones ofconflict. A Save the Children assessmentsuggested the importance of carefullycircumscribed and clear missions for PRTs,focusing on ensuring a security environmentfor other humanitarian actors workingindependently of the Team.

New international norms: theresponsibility to protect?In response to divisions among countries overthe non-UN sanctioned military interventionin Kosovo in 1999, the InternationalCommission on Intervention and StateSovereignty was established at the UN. Itsreport in 2001, The Responsibility to Protect,asserted that the obligations attached toState sovereignty assumed the responsibilityto protect its citizens from massive humanrights violations such as war crimes andgenocide. In these circumstances and asauthorized by the Security Council, theinternational community had a corresponding

obligation to protect citizens in the face ofmassive crimes against humanity, when theState in which they lived is unwilling orunable to meet their responsibility to do so.The Report sets out three pillars for action,which have not received due attention inthe controversy that followed − theresponsibility to prevent the escalation intoarmed violence, the responsibility to protect,which includes in the extreme militaryaction, and the responsibility to rebuildsocieties affected by war.65 Most attentionhas been focused on the responsibility toprotect through military intervention.

The UN General Assembly Special Sessionin September 2005 adopted language in itsOutcomes Document that acknowledgesnational governments’ “responsibility toprotect” through the use of all diplomatic,humanitarian and other peaceful means incases where national governments do notprotect their populations “from genocide,war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimesagainst humanity”. Where peaceful meanshave failed, the Outcomes Document goesfurther to acknowledge that member nations“are prepared to take collective action, in atimely and decisive manner, through theSecurity Council, in accordance with the UNCharter, including Chapter VII, on a case bycase basis and in cooperation with relevantregional organizations as appropriate”.66 Butsignificantly, there was no assertedobligation on the part of the internationalcommunity to do so. The modalities fordetermining the timing and nature of anintervention remain equally unclear.

To what degree is a new internationalnorm emerging for intervention in the affairsof another State? Major efforts to bringreform to the structures and work of the UNin 2005, and particularly the reform of theSecurity Council, have largely failed.Without a reformed Security Council that is

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Political Overviewseen to have improved legitimacy, particularlyfor developing countries, there is noassurance that the major powers will notabuse a biased Security Council decision-making process to further their ownstrategic ends.

In the wake of US and allied attacksagainst Al-Qaeda and the government ofAfghanistan in 2001, and the attack andoccupation of Iraq two years later, thenotion of pre-emptive intervention in theface of massive human right violationsreceived little support from many UNmembers. Clearly the strategic interests ofthe US and other major Western powersdrove the decision to intervene in thesecases (including that of Haiti). Major recentinterventions in the affairs of developingcountries in crisis have not been driven bymultilateral peacekeeping norms, but ratherby the strategic interests of the majorpowers, and particularly by the unilateralactions of the United States.

While some donor countries such asCanada and northern CSOs continue topromote expanding multilateral norms forintervention, the reality of recentinterventions deeply undermine theircredibility in the Responsibility to Protectdiscourse. At the same time, donorgovernments have indicated little politicalwillingness, and even less resources, forsubstantive programming for long-termconflict prevention and peace-building,reconstruction, the other two pillars in TheResponsibility to Protect.67

Africa has been the focus for thosepromoting a role for the UN and Africanregional organizations in implementing theResponsibility to Protect. The Africachapters in this Report point to importantchanges in the 2001 Constitutive Act of theAfrica Union which for the first timeacknowledged that the AU could intervene inthe internal affairs of a sovereign memberstate if the Assembly determines that thereexists “grave circumstances, namely warcrimes, genocide and crimes againsthumanity” or if instability in one country maylead to instability in neighboring states.These mechanisms have yet to be fullytested, with the notable exception of theAU monitoring mission in Darfur. But clearly,as Darfur so amply demonstrates, the meansat the disposal of the AU to act is severelylimited and highly dependent on donorresources, equipment and training.

Lee Habasonda suggests in his overviewof intra-state conflict in Africa that muchmore attention needs to be given to otherareas that affect conflict and its aftermath−good governance of natural resources,measures to control trade of conflict goodsthrough their accurate definition, promotingthe use of development aid in reducingvulnerability to conflict such as integratingbetter conflict analysis into the workingpractices of donors, using Parliament, civilsociety and the media to put pressure onGovernments to take positive measures forconflict prevention rather than justresponding to violent or extreme events.

Until the International Financial Institutions implement significant reforms,including the democratization of the institutions’ governance, their currentcoordination role in post-conflict reconstruction should be strongly resisted bybilateral donors, recipient governments and CSOs.

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Political OverviewThese are measures consistent withResponsibility to Protect norms, but havereceived scant attention by donors to date.

DONOR COORDINATION AND THE ROLEOF THE INTERNATIONAL FINANCIALINSTITUTIONS

Coordinating donor approaches andfunding mechanismsThe United Nations and its constituentbodies must be reformed and strengthenedto play the principal role in internationalengagements in situations of conflict.

As donors move towards greatercoordination of their efforts in conflict-affected countries, the World Bank haspositioned itself to play a key coordinatingrole among donors and with recipientgovernments in post-conflict recovery. Ithas done so by developing its knowledgebase through studies of “low incomecountries under stress” and in setting outthe CPIA as a measure of “fragility” inaffected countries. The Bank has publisheda definitive donor study on civil war anddevelopment policy by Paul Collier and histeam,68 and this body of work is influencingdonor discourse along the same lines asearlier work on aid effectiveness andcountry/policy selectivity at the Bank.

The CPIA has emerged as a keyinstrument for the Bank and for donors inmeasuring both governance and policies ofdeveloping countries in a comprehensivescore. As noted earlier, both the particularmeasures of “good policies” (e.g. trade

liberalization, privatization, support for theprivate sector) and “good governance”(accountability and transparency withingovernment, but not democratic norms forparticipation) and the process of scoring(which lacks transparency and is directedexclusively by the Bank) are highlyproblematic.69 In one study of nine bilateraldonors, for example, five explicitly make useof the CPIA in their aid allocation decisions.70

The CPIA strongly influences thecategorization of countries as “fragile states”through measures over which they have littlesay and no control.

The Bank’s Conflict Prevention andReconstruction Team is coordinatingresearch in Iraq (macroeconomics, humandevelopment, water and power), Afghanistan(public administration, education, communityempowerment, transport and infrastructure),the African Great Lakes (food security andrestoring social services), Bosnia, Sri Lanka,Rwanda and Azerbaijan. The Bank suggestsas a result that it is well-positioned to leadpost-conflict planning missions and to adviseon transitional macro-economic policy andorganize arrangements for payment ofcountry loan arrears to creditors.

The Bank is able to exercise itscoordinating roles in part through thepooling of donor resources in Special TrustFunds placed by donors at the Bank. TheseFunds are managed separately from theBank’s own resources and have discreteobjectives and management structures. Bythe end of 2003, the AfghanistanReconstruction Trust Fund had received

Aid is not a “carrot” for imposing conditions to resolve conflict. Imposedconditions, particularly those relating to policy prescriptions, are incompatible withdemocratic governance and local ownership of processes to establish policies forpeace. Any terms in an aid relationship must be fairly and transparently negotiatedwith participation and accountability to people living in poverty and in line withthe principles of international human rights and humanitarian law.

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Political Overviewcontributions totaling $453 million, the thirdlargest World Bank Trust Fund after HIPC andthe Global Environment Fund. This TrustFund is a key resource for the governmentof Afghanistan in financing its core budgetneeds.71 Overall, by late 2003 the WorldBank had over 80 projects in the area ofconflict prevention and recovery totaling$5.5 billion in 13 conflict-affected countries,an amount larger than the total humanitarianassistance budget of the DAC donors in2001.72

In recent years the InternationalMonetary Fund has established similar TrustAccounts from which it allocates non-concessional loans to countries emergingfrom conflict (whose interest payments aresubsidized by bilateral donors). In the wordsof one analyst, these loans not only add tothe indebtedness of highly stressedeconomies, but this engagement creates“the Fund’s capacity to maintain a quasi-permanent state of policy-making in themember country”, at the behest of bilateraldonors.73

International financial institutions andthe “liberal peace”The coordinating and policy roles ofInternational Financial Institutions (IFIs) inconflict-affected countries give theseinstitutions a particular advantage inestablishing the macro-economic and politicalpolicies for promoting recovery. Theoverarching approach of both the Bank andmajor donors is to combine two conflictingagendas. As noted in the previous sectionon “failed states”, donors simultaneouslypromote efforts to establish the political orgovernance conditions (elections) forpeaceful resolution to civil and politicalconflict, while creating country-support toimplement a Washington-consensus set ofeconomic policies. The former includes

early elections, strengthening representativegovernments at all levels, encouragingrespect for human rights, and theengagement of civil society actors as well asthe private sectors in recovery initiatives.The latter promotes one-size-fits-all policiesfor macroeconomic stability, limits on publicsector budgets, decentralization,privatization of key services and public/private partnerships, in the hope thateconomic liberalization will stimulatedevelopment.74 At best, these two agendasremain in tension, and both may furtherexacerbate conflict.

Donor priorities and strategies havebeen adapted from “Post-WashingtonConsensus” mainstream IFI-thinking abouteffective policy advice. For conflict-affectedcountries, the donor focus then is on re-establishing the institutions of governanceand security, as an essential pre-conditionfor the effective use of aid. But as the 2004Reality of Aid Report detailed, donorgovernance programs often depoliticize thepolitics of recovery by concentrating largelyon externally imposed technical fixes withinstitutions of government. And thesecurity focus strengthens support forexisting elites and structures ofimpoverishment that often lie behind socio-economic conflicts in which poor andvulnerable people pursue their rights.

In post-conflict environments, therebuilding of social trust and publicconfidence in government is critical toestablishing roots for peace. Donorresponses will fail if they are not informedby deep understanding of local politics andlocal knowledge, including community levelconflict resolution, multicultural co-existence and local initiative for improvinglivelihoods.75 Donor strategies for improvedgovernance rarely take up these issuesseriously. Roland Paris, writing about the

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Political Overviewlimits of liberal internationalism inpeacebuilding, argues “that the hastypromotion of elections and superficialinstitutional changes can actually destabilizefragile peace processes, particularly whencombined with economic liberalization”.76

Civil society can be a space thatencourages conditions for democraticgovernance – tolerance in the context ofpluralism, diversity, and mediation of socialand economic conflict. Governance is infact the product of complex local politicalprocesses in which different groups insociety compete and benefit differently fromalternative governance agendas. Politicaltensions in the aftermath of conflict must bedealt with through flexible and sensitivepolitical engagement across the society tore-establish the legitimacy of government.These political processes cannot and shouldnot be short-circuited by IFI/donor imposedgovernance models or quickly organizedelections.77

The implementation of fair and justeconomic policies that alter the pre-conflict dynamics of poverty and socio-economic exclusion is equally important forsuccessful post-conflict development.Three decades of Washington Consensuspolicies leave little confidence that the IFIswill be sensitive to these concerns.Indeed, the short term one-size-fits-allpolicies imposed through the SAPs in theIvory Coast, as noted earlier, contributed todeepening the urban and rural politicalcrisis, leading to conflict, by impeding theemergence of innovative social and politicalprocesses in the state and political system.These might have been able to take intoaccount the particular nature and impact ofthe national crisis, and perhaps avoidedviolent conflict.78

Economic policies that encouragemaximum employment are critical to peace

processes, but run counter to the impactsof SAPs in the past. A review of economicpolicies implemented in post-conflictcountries drew the following conclusion:

“High levels of unemploymentpose a clear threat to peace,whether through disillusionment,lack of alternative activity andstatus, or continued availability ofthe unemployed for mobilizationby [peace] spoilers…Yet economic strategies are notaimed to overcome this problem.Neither the IMF approach tomacro-economic stabilization northe World Bank emphasis ondeveloping large scaleinfrastructure promotesemployment. Developmentassistance and advice is stillfocused on laying the basis foreconomic growth in the long runand assumes that employment willnaturally follow….”79

In such circumstances, people have fewoptions but to turn to the informal economyor to crime and petty corruption,undermining difficult efforts to rebuildlivelihoods and the rule of law.

For countries emerging from conflict or“fragility”, there is no pretext on the part ofdonors that they are working with policiesthat are initially “owned” by the countryconcerned. The aid, coordinated by theIMF and the Bank on behalf of the donorcommunity, is consequently highlyconditioned for both policy and developmentimpact. The failure of conditionality as anapproach to implementing externallydesigned policies is now well-established indevelopment literature.80 For countriesexperiencing conflict and political stress,this is no less so, as the box quote on the

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Political Overview

overall effectiveness of donor conditionalityin Haiti demonstrates (see Box 3). Thisdonor-initiated study concluded that it wasessential to avoid one-size-fits-all conditions.Rather, donors need to work with broadsectors over relatively long periods of time(usually beyond the timeframe of agenciesseeking quick results) in order to developmulti-stakeholder coalitions that could beginto develop their own priorities forstabilization, to which donors could thenrespond.

On the other hand, it is also difficult todeny that donors will inevitably exerciseconsiderable power, whatever theirmotivations, in the early stages of post-conflict recovery or where the institutionsof government have broken downconsiderably. Some suggest that establishinga negotiated peace agreement, where this ispossible, is an ultimate reference point forconditioning donor-aid in the post-conflictperiod. A peace agreement, arrived atthrough transparent and inclusive

negotiations, has significant legitimacy overand above the approach of IFIs or majordonors where the latter seek to imposetheir policies and interests through aidconditionalities. Indeed there isconsiderable evidence that donors havelargely ignored those aspects of peaceagreements that focused on more equitableeconomic and social relations in favor ofaccommodating political and military elites.This has been the experience of El Salvadorand Guatemala and is at the root of difficultdonor mediation of conflict in Colombia.81

Reality of Aid authors suggest in thisReport that donors might use theconsiderable influence that they command incountries affected by conflict to assure thattheir aid is allocated so that it does no harm(by favoring one side over another). Theysuggest that public accountability could beimproved through donor support for the useof prominent global citizens, parliaments orUN forums to highlight provocateurs ofconflict and isolate war criminals. Donors

Box 3. Donor aid conditionality in Haiti

“Haiti exemplifies some of the negative consequences of conditionality forboth recipient and donor. The years 1994 to 1997 were marked by donor-driven reform agendas and conditionality-based financing in Haiti. Resultsfrom this period are unsurprising. Donor driven agendas contributed topoor commitment and ineffectual implementation on the part of theGovernment of Haiti and to frustration and ‘Haiti fatigue’ for the donorcommunity. This in turn contributed to the withdrawal of some donoragencies. Following the 2000 disputed election, strict conditionality wasimposed to promote transparency of governance, solid macroeconomicpolicies, and fiscal responsibility. Once again, it is highly questionable howconstructive this set of conditionalities was, given that the system did notreform and in February 2004 Haiti experienced another period of intensepolitical instability.”

Source: CIDA, “Canadian Cooperation with Haiti: Reflecting on a Decade of ‘DifficultPartnership’, December 2004, p. 11.

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Political Overviewcan contribute to the repatriation ofrefugees, particularly war-affected youth andwomen, and their reintegration withimproved livelihoods, as a vital condition forsustainable peace since unemployed youthare often the targets of war recruiters.Creditor countries and IFIs should alsoacknowledge and cancel odious debtassumed by governments in conflict withtheir citizens.82

Unfortunately, donors face fewincentives to follow these policy directions,either because security considerations inthe “war on terror” trump effective supportfor peace processes, or because othercompeting donor interests such ascompanies interested in exploiting naturalresources are given priority. As one analystconcludes, “the IFIs face few penalties forfailure to exercise due diligence in conflictprevention….IFIs [and donors] needincentives to take risks for peace, as well asreduce risks of war”.83

SECURING THE RIGHTS OF POOR ANDVULNERABLE PEOPLE: A REALITY OF AIDAGENDA FOR PEACE AND DEVELOPMENTIn the post-9/11 era, the national securityinterests of donor countries are dominatinginternational relations, with graveconsequences for people living with violenceand poverty. Northern donors areaddressing the interests of poor andmarginalized people in so-called “failingstates”, whom they increasingly view as“threats”, through the lens of “security”.As a result, long-standing social and politicalstruggles by people to claim their rights arebeing sidelined by the rhetoric of“terrorism” in the discourse of majorinternational actors. Conflicts based onsocial, economic and political issues areoften described as terrorism, andrecognition of the rights of poor people to

act in their own interests to resolveconflict, reduce poverty and protect theirrights minimized.

1. Giving primacy to human rights:Donors must carry out theirdevelopment cooperation,including all actions relating toconflict prevention, interventionand reconstruction, guided bytheir binding obligations underinternational human rightsinstruments and agreements.

CSOs working through the global Realityof Aid network insist that internationalhuman rights and humanitarian law must bethe guiding framework for internationalassistance. These rights are relevant as theinternational community and CSOs worktowards the achievement of the MDGs andthe principles of the Millennium Declaration.They are equally relevant to addressing theinter-related challenges of conflict, securityand development, the theme of this Report.

The global community must collaborateto end global poverty. In doing so, therights of the poorest citizens, with noexceptions for poor women or children, thedisabled or the old, must be at the forefrontof this agenda. Human rights standards −universality, indivisibility, interdependence,equality and non-discrimination – createinternationally binding legal obligations thatare relevant in all situations, including mostparticularly humanitarian emergencies andnational crises.

In the words of Louise Arbour, UN HighCommissioner for Human Rights:

“Human rights do not impede theprotection of national security….[A] country is as much at risk ofdestruction, and so are the ideals

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Political Overviewit stands for, by the collapse of itshuman rights norms, and of therule of law that acts as theirguardian, than it is by theexplosion of bombs on itsterritory. To fight insecuritywithin the framework of humanrights is to fight with ourstrongest weapon, our deepestvalues; it is the protection ofhuman security in the mostprofound sense.”84

When systematic human rights violationsbecome a prelude or even a strategy of war,humanitarian organizations and governmentsare compelled by international law torespond with appropriate actions in theinterests of affected populations.

2. Giving primacy to local actors forpeace:

Donors must recognizedemocratic national actors,including local civil societyworking for peace, as the ownersand drivers of the resolution ofconflicts.

A fundamental principle guiding donorsand other external actors in conflict-affected countries is the primacy of localownership. Primary responsibility for conflictprevention rests with local citizens and localactions to create peace, which is ownedand not externally imposed. Progress mustbe based upon initiatives for a justresolution of the underlying conditions thatgave rise to the conflict. The role ofexternal actors is therefore to support andprotect spaces for inclusive processes thatenable people directly involved to buildcapacities and make decisions on ways to

resolve violent conflict and construct a justpeace.

People affected by conflict andpoverty are not pawns in a global gameaimed at protecting the powerful fromperceived threats to their security.Donors should support and strengthen civilsociety capacities to deal effectively withconflict prevention, civilian crisismanagement, early warning systems, post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding.Civil society organizations play critical rolesin sustaining peace, bringing unique skillsof mediation and reconciliation, defense ofhuman rights and unique local strategiesfor peacebuilding. Donors and localgovernments should support negotiationprocesses and implementation of peaceagreements with wide stakeholderinvolvement, and with particular attentionto the interests of women, the disabled,youth, indigenous peoples and othermarginalized and vulnerable groups. Inpost-conflict development, donors shouldexperiment and seek out engagement withmarginalized actors beyond those mostimmediately accessible in national capitals.

The role of women, the promotion ofgender equality, and the rights of women inending violence and building peace arefundamental. Gender equality and humanrights are inextricably intertwined. War andcommunity level violence have profound andvaried impacts on women. Womenexperience general social marginalization anda neglect of their rights, but also may sufferthrough conflict from displacement or threatsto personal security including rape as aweapon of war. They experience greatlydiminished social well-being for themselvesand their family with the loss of land, ofaccess to health, education and housing. Butwomen often also have crucial social roles intheir communities, are the heads of

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Political Overviewhouseholds (particularly those who aredisplaced), and the primary sources oflivelihood for their families. Women’sparticipation and leadership in creating theterms of a just peace process and innegotiations is therefore crucial. Theinterest of women in post-conflictreconstruction should take into account theirrights to political participation, access to landand other assets essential for theirlivelihoods, and basic social services thatmeet their needs.

Donors need to pay close attention to theimplementation of Security Council Resolution1325 on Women, Peace and Security. ThisResolution is a ground-breaking recognition ofthe rights of women during armed conflicts,not just as victims of violence, but as actorsfor peace and reconstruction. Donors andtheir local counterparts must design policiesand programs that are conscious of theirgender dimensions and offer practical steps inimplementation directed specifically to improvegender equality and social justice.85 A 2004review by the UN Secretary-General ofprogress in implementing the Resolution 1325noted “major gaps and challenges…in all areas,including, in particular, in relation to women’sparticipation in conflict prevention and peaceprocesses; the integration of genderperspectives in peace agreements; attentionto the contribution and needs of women inhumanitarian and reconstruction processes;and representation of women in decision-making processes”.86

3. Protecting the integrity of aid forpoverty eradication:

(a) Official DevelopmentAssistance (ODA) must have as itsprimary purpose a clear mandatefor poverty eradication and thepromotion of human rights for all,

including the right todevelopment. Aid should neverbe diverted and allocated on thebasis of the perceived nationalsecurity interests of donors or formilitary purposes.(b) Timetables to achieve the UNtarget of 0.7% of GNI for alldonor countries by 2015 at thelatest are critical for achievinginternationally agreeddevelopment goals, including theMDGs, and creating conditions forpeace.(c) The determination of countryand sector priorities for aidshould be based solely on theprinciple of poverty eradication.Humanitarian assistance should bedelivered according to theprinciples of Good HumanitarianDonorship (proportionate to theneed and based on impartialneeds assessments).

ODA should be a resource held in trustby donors and recipients for improving thelives of people living in poverty and who arevulnerable, no matter where they may live.At the beginning of the new millennium,development cooperation is on the thresholdof a new “Cold War” where “the war onterror” is dictating the use of new aidresources that some donors are committingin their timetables to reach the long-overdue0.7% target of GNI for ODA.

The tools and resources available toassist those living in poverty and affected byconflict, as well as various coordinatedapproaches to peace operations, should notbe subverted to protect Northern securityinterests. Despite the pledges made in 2005by the G8 and the EU to increase aid, ODAresources for poverty reduction remain

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Political Overviewinsufficient and inadequate. In the words ofthe 2005 Human Development Report:

“International aid is one of themost powerful weapons in the waragainst poverty. Today, thatweapon is underused and badlytargeted. There is too little aidand too much of what is providedis weakly linked to humandevelopment. Fixing theinternational aid system is one ofthe most urgent priorities facinggovernments at the start of the10-year countdown to 2015.”87

CSOs oppose the call by some donors toexpand the DAC criteria for ODA to includefurther security activities, particularly thoserelating to the military aspects of peaceoperations.

The achievement of the MDGs forcountries affected by conflict will requirehigh quality ODA focused on improvinglivelihoods for poor and vulnerable people,democratic governance and political rights,as well as the advancement of economic,social and cultural rights of all citizens. Manydonors have acknowledged the need toimprove the quality of their aid and maximizeits effectiveness and impact on povertyreduction. The March 2005 Paris High LevelForum on Aid Effectiveness made somefurther, albeit limited commitments toimprove donor practice through increaseddonor harmonization and coordination,alignment with country strategies andsystems, better poverty focus and reducedtransaction costs. However, it failed toaddress key issues such as continued highlevels of conditionality and did not agree ontargets for untying all aid. The ParisDeclaration on Aid Effectiveness seeks tochannel aid to “good policy” countries. In

doing so, it may divert aid away from theurgent needs of millions of people who arepoor and affected by conflict

The quality of aid is particularlyimportant for conflict-affected countries orregions of countries (such as NorthernUganda). The approaches set out in theParis Declaration, with their primary focus onstrengthening government capacities andaccountability, are not necessarilyappropriate in shaping donor responses toparticular conflict situations. DAC donorsshould measure their aid in conflict-affectedcountries against the well-developed “DACGuidelines on Helping Prevent ViolentConflict” and the “Principles for GoodInternational Engagement in Fragile States”.88

In particular, improved donor coordinationshould recognize the importance ofadvancing poverty-centric goals of donorinterventions in difficult conditions, workingwith proponents for peace within civilsociety and local communities in conflict-affected regions, and staying engaged overthe long-term, as essential to the success ofpeacemaking.

Donors must be held to account fortheir statements, pledges and actions toboth increase their aid and improve itsquality by ensuring its focus on povertyreduction and the achievement of the MDGs.Donors must not be diverted from theiralready long-overdue aid pledges by a narrowand self-interested approach to the “war onterror”.

4. Strengthening people-centeredapproaches to security:

Security assistance by donorcountries and the democraticreform of the security sectormust be governed first andforemost by their obligations

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Political Overviewunder domestic and internationalhuman rights instruments andprovisions, and they must betransparent, accountable andscreened for potential humanrights impacts.

Strengthening the security sector andits reform have become majorpreoccupations of donors since the eventsof September 11th, 2001. While donors havedeveloped substantial lessons and discoursethat orients this reform towards democraticaccountability for the security sector, thereis little evidence of this approach on theground. The security sector in countriessuch as Indonesia, the Philippines orGuatemala, for example, operate largely toprotect the interests of elites andinternational corporations to safeguard theirprivileged and highly unequal access towealth. The post-9/11 focus on security hasallowed political leaders to link complexnational conflicts in countries such asColombia, the Philippines or Nepal, to the“war on terror” and to seek support tostrengthen the repressive apparatus of theirmilitary and security sector in response.CSOs are calling for clear transparency andaccountability for the resources, trainingand equipment provided by northern donorsto the security sectors of countries affectedby conflict. Transparency must apply to allchannels of cooperation, not just ODA, sothat affected communities can monitor itsimpact on conflict. Donors must clearlyassess the extent to which their currentpriorities and approaches for security sectorreform contradict the real security interestsof local populations in zones of conflict.

5. Improving donor coherence, consis-tent with human rights obligations:

(a) Donor mechanisms forcoordination of military,diplomatic and developmentinstruments with respect toconflict prevention and peaceoperations should be guided bynorms clearly authorized by theUN and should explicitly protectthe independent space ofhumanitarian and civil societyactors.

(b) Donors should develop anduse policy tools that respond tothe full range of optionssuggested by the three pillars of“The Responsibility to Protect”,in particular the responsibility toprevent conflict and toreconstruct post-conflictsocieties.

International intervention to resolvesituations of violent conflict have often beenrepressive and militaristic, focused on quickimpact and short-term fixes, avoidingcomplex issues of root-causes anddemocratic governance. These militaryinterventions have sometimes had embeddedwithin them humanitarian goals. Not onlyare the basic principles of humanitarianaction ignored, but independenthumanitarian and development workers onthe ground are also put at risk, mostrecently in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Norms associated with The Responsibilityto Protect made some progress at theSeptember 2005 World Summit at the UN.The three pillars of internationalresponsibility offer a menu of policy optionsto protect vulnerable people, short of directintervention. However, UN norms related todirect military intervention arising from TheResponsibility to Protect take little account

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Political Overviewof the current geo-political realities outsideof the UN that fuel major conflicts today −such as the unilateral exercise of power bythe US and its allies in the “war againstterrorism”. The sovereignty of the poorestcountries is already deeply compromised bythe lending policies of the IMF, the WorldBank and the terms for aid from the majordonors. To date a majority of membercountries of the UN see The Responsibilityto Protect’s option for aggressive militaryintervention as a means to furthercompromise sovereignty. Minimally,significant democratic reforms in governanceof the UN, particularly in the key roles andcomposition of the Security Council, will berequired if UN-endorsed intervention underthese norms is to take practical form.Donors should continue to strengthen thecapacities of regional forces for peaceoperations, such as in the African Union, byinvesting in the required training, equipmentand logistical support to enable them tomeet the mandates agreed upon by theinternational community.

6. Exhausting all avenues for thepromotion of peace:

(a) Donors must invest significantly inearly warning and conflict-prevention action, therebyreducing costly reconstruction ofsocieties devastated by armedconflict.

(b) Coherent and coordinatedapproaches to conflict preventionin donor countries must include asa matter of priority theestablishment of an internationalarms trade treaty.

(c) OECD countries should establishclear, comprehensive and legallyenforceable guidelines covering the

potential social, environmental andrelated impacts of companiesoperating in areas at risk of violentconflict.

(d) Donors must ensure 100%unconditional debt cancellation forall of the world’s poorest countries,including, but not limited to, post-conflict countries, while upholdingself-determination and human rightsin designing and implementingeconomic programs in affectedcountries.

(e) All countries must ratify andimplement the United NationsConvention against Corruptionadopted in 2005.

In developing early warning capacities,particularly in Africa, donors, regionalinstitutions and local governments alikeshould work with local stakeholders,including civil society organizations, toanalyze and address the root-causes ofconflict. Where possible, stakeholderscommitted to peace, including advice fromhighly credible “neutral parties”, should bebrought into the analysis of these root-causes towards resolving conflict andbuilding peace. These underlying causesinclude those for which the donorsthemselves bear considerable responsibility −the perpetuation of unpayable debts whichreduce resources available for meetingurgent social needs in the poorestcountries, the uncontrolled export fromnorthern countries of small arms and lightweapons, and the investment and commerceby northern-based corporations in naturalresources in poor countries affected byconflict.

7. Reforming the UN and theInternational Financial Institutions

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Political Overviewagency, transnational coalitions and the challengesof sustainable peace. The North South Institute,Working Paper, October 2005, pp 4-9, accessible athttp://www.nsi-ins.ca/english/pdf/wkop_lead_paper.pdf.

6 Noeleen Heyzer, “Women, War and Peace: Mobilizingfor Peace and Security in the 21st Century”, The2004 Dag Hammarskjöld Lecture, Uppsala, 2004,pages 11-12.

7 Baranyi., op.cit., p. 5.

8 See for example, ODI, Humanitarian Policy Group,at http://www.odi.org.uk/hpg/index.html;Development Initiatives, Global HumanitarianAssistance 2004/05, 2005, accessible at http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/lib.nsf/db900SID/MIRA-6EN83Z?OpenDocument; and Larry Minear and IanSmilie. The Charity of Nations. Kumarian Press,2004.

9 DAC, A Development Cooperation Lens onTerrorism Prevention: Key Entry Points for Action,2003, accessible at www.oecd.org/dataoecd/17/4/16085708.pdf, page 11.

10 Earlier Reality of Aid Reports are available online atwww.realityofaid.org.

11 Andrew S. Natsios, “Foreign Assistance in the Ageof Terror”, speech to The U.S. Institute for Peace,April 21, 2004, accessible at http://www.usaid.gov/press/speeches/2004/sp040421.html.

12 Guy Dinmore, “Bush plans overhaul of US foreignaid system”, Financial Times, December 11, 2005.

13 Development Assistance Committee, Is it ODA? Noteby the Secretariat, Working Party on Statistics, May2001.

14 See detailed discussion of reportable ODA andsecurity issues in H. Mollett, “Official DevelopmentAssistance (ODA): Conflict and Security Issues”,Unpublished Draft Discussion Paper for CONCORD,2004, pp 1-3.

15 See DAC, Development Cooperation Report 2005.Paris: OECD, Table 14, accessible at http://www.oecd.org/department/0,2688,en_2649_33721_1_1_1_1_1,00.html.

16 Reality of Aid calculation, based on the average debtservicing by low income countries of 7.3% of theface value of their outstanding debt in the period2001 to 2003.

17 See DAC, A Development Cooperation Lens onTerrorism Prevention: Key Entry Points for Action,2003, accessible at www.oecd.org/dataoecd/17/4/16085708.pdf.

18 See CSO statements on DAC paper on terrorism,including “Joint statement by members of theinternational Global Security and DevelopmentNetwork on the Development Assistance Committeepolicy statement and reference document: ‘ADevelopment Co-operation Lens on TerrorismPrevention: Key Entry Points for Action” (October10, 2003), accessible at http://www.bond.org.uk/advocacy/gsd/gsdjoint.htm and “Civil SocietyStatement on the OECD Development AssistanceCommittee Senior level meeting, 8-9 December2004”, accessible at http://www.bond.org.uk/advocacy/gsd/daction1204.htm.

19 See statistical information on UN peacekeepingoperations at http://www.globalpolicy.org/finance/tables/inxpckp.htm and http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/peacekpg/data/index.htm.

20 Rupiya, Martin. “A Critique of the Efficacy ofProviding AID to Africa’s Peace and SecurityAgenda”, Reality of Aid 2006 Report.

21 See the Commission for Africa, Our CommonInterest, chapter on “The Need for Peace andSecurity”, pages, 157 – 178, accessible at http://www.commissionforafrica.org/english/report/thereport/english/11-03-05_cr_chapter_5.pdf.

22 Thalif Deen, “Africa’s New Standing Army Primedfor Next Year”, International Press Service (IPS),November 7, 2005.

23 DAC, “Note by the Netherlands on Security andDevelopment”, Room Document #6, April 14, 2004and “Towards consistency of ODA-eligibility inrelation to conflict prevention, peacebuilding andsecurity-related activities”, no name, written afterApril 2004, mimeo.

24 “Civil Society Statement on the OECD DevelopmentAssistance Committee Senior level meeting, 8-9December 2004”, accessible at http://www.bond.org.uk/advocacy/gsd/daction1204.htm.

25 See DAC, “OECD-DAC Secretariat Simulation of DACMembers’ Net ODA Volumes in 2006 and 2010”,accessible at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/57/30/35320618.pdf. As the World Trends Chapter pointsout Japan has effectively reneged on its Gleneagles

39


Political Overview(IFIs) for democratic, multilateralmanagement of conflict:

(a) Unless the IFIs implement significantreforms, including democratizationof these institutions’ governance,their current coordinating role inpost-conflict reconstruction shouldbe strongly resisted by bilateraldonors, recipient governments andCSOs.

(b) The United Nations, and itsconstituent bodies, must bereformed and strengthened withthe resources needed to play theprincipal role in positive, creativeand democratic internationalengagements in situations ofconflict.

(c) Urgently needed aid should not bea “carrot” for imposing conditionsto resolve conflict by IFIs anddonors. Imposed conditions,particularly those relating to policyprescriptions, are incompatiblewith democratic governance andlocal ownership of processes toestablish policies for peace. Anyterms in an aid relationship mustbe fairly and transparentlynegotiated with the participationof, and accountability to peopleliving in poverty, and in line withthe principles of internationalhuman rights and humanitarian law.

Non-accountable and anti-democraticIFIs are playing central roles in conflict andpost-conflict societies, over and above UNdevelopment and economic bodies such asthe United Nations Development Program andthe Economic and Social Council. The IFIsare pooling donors’ resources, coordinatingtheir efforts, and brokering relationships

with recipient governments. The result isoften the imposition of a “liberal peace”which creates its own tensions. On the onehand, donor policies aim to strengthendemocratic accountability (throughelections) and improved security through therule of law for all citizens. On the otherhand, donors strongly push for theprivatization of services, limiting thecapacities of governments to meet urgentneeds, and promoting an export-orientedgrowth, all of which negatively affect thelivelihoods of the poor.

A UN Peace-building Commission,announced at the September 2005 UN WorldSummit was agreed upon by Member Statesof the General Assembly in December. Itcomes with a mandate to coordinate adviceto UN bodies, including the Security Council,on integrated strategies for post-conflictpeace-building and the resources requiredto carry them out. While clearly welcomedby CSOs, the levels of staff, financialresources and authority to enable theCommission to fully carry out this mandatehave not materialized. The Commission hasbeen designed for discussion andcoordination, but it has no means to assurethe adherence of UN agencies, IFIs, bilateralagencies, national governments, and civilsociety organizations to an agreed-uponcoherent and effective post-conflict plan.

****************

Since 1992, Reality of Aid Reports havefocused attention on the ways in which aidhas too often served donors’ foreign policyand strategic interests, in turn ignoring andsometimes undermining the rights and needsof people living in poverty. We also havepointed to incremental progress in increasingthe poverty focus of ODA starting in the late1990s. Historically, donors’ self-interest and

40


Political Overview

Notes

some recipient countries’ misuse of aid haveundermined the potential for aid tocontribute to poverty alleviation. However,aid has been an important catalyst inreducing poverty, not least in significantlyreducing the impact of diseases such aspolio, cholera and tuberculosis in poorcountries or in creating alternative sourcesof finance for poor and vulnerable people.Aid has been a key resource in rebuildingsome post-conflict societies such asMozambique, East Timor or Central America.It is also suggested that aid can play anincreasingly important role in tacklingconditions that give rise to conflict.

The Reality of Aid authors writing in thisReport, however, are deeply distressed thatrecent trends in global aid since 2001 reveala returning emphasis in aid priorities to theforeign policy priorities of donors in theglobal “war on terror”. Donor policies andaid allocations have focused on an expandingsecurity agenda in the South, accompaniedby overt diversions of aid resources toregions of the world that are seen tothreaten security in the North or tocounter-insurgency activities in zones ofconflict. Humanitarian assistance and

reconstruction following the wars inAfghanistan and Iraq have captured morethan a third of the new aid resourcesallocated by donors since 2001.

Is it then any wonder that theinternational community has largely failed tomeet commitments made to the MillenniumDevelopment Goals? While recent aidresources have been diverted, new aidpledges made in 2005 still fall far short of theurgently needed financing to meet eventhese minimal Goals. Indeed in 2007, theDAC donors will be returning to a debate onexpanding the criteria for ODA that couldpermit many to “increase” their ODA throughaccounting adjustments. The internationalcommunity has an opportunity to replacerhetoric and narrow self-interest withpolicies and resources that could truly makea difference and ensure that the nextdecade is devoted to ending global povertyand creating conditions for peace. Realityof Aid joins with the UNDP’s 2005 HumanDevelopment Report in its appeal: “if everthere was a moment for decisive politicalleadership to advance the shared interestsof humanity, that moment is now.”89

1 The Reality of Aid Report uses the term “conflict-affected states” as a designation of states in whicha significant proportion of the population arevulnerable to death, disease and disruption oflivelihood as a result of a prolonged conflict and/orcrisis in which the state is unable to meet itshuman rights obligations to its citizens. Theinternational donor community has referred tothese countries as failed states, failing states orfragile states. The Reality of Aid network rejectsthe pejorative nature of this terminology, whichmasks in our view the complicity of internationaldonors and institutions in creating and sustainingstate “fragility”. While there is a strongcorrelation between the list of “fragile states” and

“states affected by conflict”, clearly not all “fragilestates” are in the latter category, depending on itsdefinition by donors.

2 United Nations Development Program, HumanDevelopment Report 2005, page 12. accessible athttp://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2005/.

3 Project Ploughshares, Armed Conflict Report 2005,accessible at http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/ACRText/ACR-TitlePageRev.htm.

4 Human Security Report 2005, pp 128-130.

5 See the excellent summary of the evolution ofpeace-building in the 1990s in S. Baranyi, What kindof peace is possible in the post 9-11 era? National

42


Political OverviewG8 aid commitment. See http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/3208.html.

26 The most comprehensive review of the question ofaid diversion for global security interest of donorshas been the studies by Ngaire Woods. See N.Woods, “Reconciling effective aid and globalsecurity? Implications for the emerginginternational development architecture”, GlobalGovernance Program, University College, Oxford,2004 and N. Woods, “The shifting politics of foreignaid”, International Affairs, March 2005.

27 Calculated from DAC, Development CooperationReport, 2004, 2003, 2002, and 2001. The countriesincluded for those directly related to the US “Waron Terror” includes Turkey, Egypt, Azerbaijan,Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan,Turkmenistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and thePhilippines.

28 Woods, “The shifting politics of foreign aid”, pp 5-6.

29 Woods, “Reconciling effective aid and globalsecurity?”, p. 23.

30 Woods, “The shifting politics of foreign aid”, p. 9and Scott Wallston and Katrina Kosec. “TheEconomic Costs of the War in Iraq”, AEI BrookingsJoint Centre, Working Paper, 05-19, September2005, accessible at http://aei-brookings.org/publications/abstract.php?pid=988.

31 “Arms Spending Topped $1-trillion in 2004, reportsays”, Associated Press, June 7, 2005.

32 For a case study see, A Padilla, “Mini-Marshall Planfor Mindanao: Will Foreign Aid Help End the MoroWar?”, Reality Check, October 2004, accessible atwww.realityofaid.org.

33 See Centre for Defence Information (US), “U.S.Military Assistance to 1460 Report Countries: 1990-2005”, April 2004, accessible at http://www.cdi.org/news/children/1460.pdf.

34 Isacson, Adam. “United States Security CooperationPolicy in Latin America”, Reality of Aid 2006Report.

35 Ann Scott Tyson, “US Pushes Anti-Terrorism inAfrica”, Washington Post, July 26, 2005 and HectorIgbikiowubo, “US to spend $500 million to secureNigeria’s oil”, Vanguard (Lagos), May 31, 2005.

36 For an excellent overview of the history and

current tensions in security sector reform, see NBell, D Hendrickson, “Trends in Justice and SecuritySector Reform (JSSR): Policy, Practice and Research”,draft paper for a Workshop on “New Directions inSecurity Sector”, IDRC, November 2005. Thissection relies on this overview for its basicframework for understanding issues in securitysector reform.

37 OECD, Security Sector Reform: Policy and GoodPractice, DAC, 2005, p. 16, accessible at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/8/39/31785288.pdf.

38 Ball and Hendrickson, op. cit., p. 14.

39 Ibid., p. 15

40 See Madelaine Drohan, Making a Killing: How andwhy corporations use armed force to do business.Toronto: Random House, 2003.

41 Ball and Hendrickson, op.cit., p. 19.

42 Baranyi, op. cit., p. 10

43 For a critique of country selectivity and aideffectiveness as it apples to issues of governanceand human rights see the Political Chapter in TheReality of Aid Report 2004, accessible atwww.realityofaid.org.

44 Levin, V. and D. Dollar, The Forgotten States: AidVolumes and Volatility in Difficult PartnershipCountries (1992 – 2002)”, paper presented at theOECD/DAC Senior Level Forum on DevelopmentEffectiveness in Fragile States, 13/14 January 2005,London.

45 Mark McGillivray, “Aid Allocations and FragileStates”, Background paper for the Senior LevelForum on Development Effectiveness in FragileStates, January 2005, pp. 5-6, accessible at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/32/43/34256890.pdf.

46 See also B. Tomlinson, “The Politics of the MillenniumDevelopment Goals: Contributing to strategies forending poverty?”, May 2005, accessible atwww.ccic.ca.

47 See the critique in The Reality of Aid Report 2004,p. 17. For other CSO critiques of the CPIA seeNancy Alexander, Judge and Jury: The World Bank’sScorecard for Developing Countries, Citizens’Network on Essential Services, 2004, accessible athttp://www.servicesforall.org/html/otherpubs/judge_jury_scorecard.pdf and Jeff Powell, “TheWorld Bank Policy Scorecard: The new

43


Political Overviewconditionality?”, Bretton Woods Project, November2004, accessible at http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/doc/knowledge/cpia.PDF.

48 Commission for Africa, Our Common Interest.London: Penguin Books, 2005, p. 351.

49 Ministère des Affaires Étrangères français, « Leprocessus de libéralisation et la crise ivoirienne.Une mise en perspective à partir du cas des filièresagricoles », Briefing note by Bruno Losch, SandrineMesplé-Somps, Jean-Pierre Chauveau and BernardContamin, December 2002., in Campbell, Bonnie,« La Côte d’Ivoire – pays « exemplaire »…,Asymétries », Institut d’Études internationales deMontréal et Centre Études internationales etMondialisation, UQAM, no 1, 2005, p. 101-104

50 Oxfam, Amnesty International, International ActionNetwork on Small Arms, “Guns or Growth:Assessing the impact of arms sales on sustainabledevelopment”, 2004, accessible atwww.controlarms.org.

51 See for example, Debbie Hillier, “The link betweenarms sales and development”, in this Report.

52 See information on the EITI at http://www.eitransparency.org/.

53 M Roeskau, “Better Aid for Fragile States”, DACNews, April-May 2005, accessible at http://www.oecd.org/document/44/0,2340,en_2649_33721_34682732_1_1_1_1,00.html.

54 Louise Andersen, “International Engagement inFailed States: Choices and Trade Offs”, DanishInstitute for International Studies, DIIS WorkingPaper No 2005/20, pp 16 – 20 accessible at http://www.diis.dk/sw15848.asp.

55 CIDA, “Canadian Cooperation with Haiti: Reflectingon a Decade of “Difficult Partnership”, December2004, accessible at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/41/45/34095943.pdf.

56 Quoted in J. Randel, M Cordeiro, T Mowjee,“Financing countries in protracted humanitariancrisis: an overview of new instruments andexisting aid flows”, in A Harmer and J Macrae(editors), Beyond the continuum: The changing roleof aid policy in protracted crises, HPG ResearchReport #18, July 2004, p. 54.

57 The Canadian government put forward the “three

block war” as one of the rationales for thecreation of its Global Peace and Security Fund. SeeDepartment of Foreign Affairs, Canada’sInternational Policy Statement: A Role of Pride andInfluence in the World, Defence, page 8. accessibleat http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/reports/dps/pdf/dps_e.pdf.

58 Ball and Hendrickson, op.cit., p. 13.

59 See C. Lockhart, “From aid effectiveness todevelopment effectiveness: strategy and policycoherence in fragile states”, Background paperprepared for the Senior Level Forum onDevelopment Effectiveness in Fragile States, January2005. See also “Evaluation of the ConflictPrevention Pools: Synthesis Report”, BradfordUniversity, UK, Channel Research Ltd, PARC &Associated Consultants, February 2004.

60 E. Simpson, “The post 9/11 security agenda andCanadian foreign policy: Implications for the GlobalSouth, Key entry points for action”, A CCIC PolicyBackground Paper, May 2005, p. 22, accessible atwww.ccic.ca.

61 M Pugh, “Civil – Military Relations in InternationalPeace Operations”, Disasters, 25 (4), 2001, p. 350.

62 Save the Children UK has an exhaustive study ofPRTs published as Provincial Reconstruction Teamsand Humanitarian – Military Relations inAfghanistan, 2004, accessible at http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/darfur/uploads/military/Military%20PRTs%20in%20Afghanistan_Sep04%20by%20SCUK.pdf.

63 Ibid., p. 9.

64 ACBAR, “Provincial Reconstruction Teams and theSecurity Situation in Afghanistan”, Policy Brief, July2003, accessible at http://www.careusa.org/newsroom/specialreports/afghanistan/07242003_ACBAR.pdf.

65 ICISS, The Responsibility to Protect. Report of theInternational Commission on Intervention andState Sovereignty, accessible at http://www.iciss.ca/pdf/Commission-Report.pdf.

66 See UN General Assembly, 2005 World SummitOutcome, p. 31, accessible at http://www.un-ngls.org/un-summit-FINAL-DOC.pdf.

67 A summary discussion of these issues is found inBaranyi, op. cit., pp. 10 – 13.

68 P, Collier et al. Breaking the Conflict Trap: Civil War

44


Political Overviewand Development Policy, Washington and Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2003 accessible at http://econ.worldbank.org/prr/CivilWarPRR/.

69 See for example Nancy Alexander, Judge and Jury:The World Bank’s Scorecard for DevelopingCountries, Citizens’ Network on Essential Services,2004, accessible at http://www.servicesforall.org/html/otherpubs/judge_jury_scorecard.pdf and JeffPowell, “The World Bank Policy Scorecard: The newconditionality?”, Bretton Woods Project, November2004, accessible at http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/doc/knowledge/cpia.PDF.

70 M. McGillivray, op. cit., p. 5.

71 J. Randel et al. op. cit., p. 59.

72 Harmer and Macrae, op. cit., p. 8

73 A. Harmer, “Bridging the Gap? The internationalfinancial institutions and their engagement insituations of protracted crisis”. in OverseasDevelopment Institute, HPG Report #18, July 2004,p. 36.

74 Harmer and Macrae, op. cit., p. 6. See alsoBendana, op. cit.

75 Baranyi, op. cit., p. 16.

76 Ibid., p. 15. See Roland Paris, “Peacebuilding andthe Limits of Liberal Internationalism”,International Security, Vol 22, No 2, Fall 1997, pp.54-89, accessible at http://socsci.colorado.edu/~parisr/IS_97.pdf and Roland Paris, “Internationalpeacebuilding and the ‘mission civilizatrice’”,Review of International Studies, Vol. 28, 2002, 637-656, accessible at http://socsci.colorado.edu/~parisr/RIS_Oct_2002.pdf.

77 See the discussion of democratic governance andthe IFIs in the Political Overview chapter of TheReality of Aid 2004, op. cit.

78 Campbell, Bonnie, La Côte d’Ivoire – pays« exemplaire »…, Asymétries, Institut d’Étudesinternationales de Montréal et Centre Étudesinternationales et Mondialisation, UQAM, no 1, 2005,p. 101-104

79 S. Woodward, “Economic Priorities for PeaceImplementation”, International Peace Academy PolicyPaper Series on Peace Implementation, New York,

October 2003, p. 5, accessible at http://www.ipacademy.org/PDF_Reports/ECONOMIC_PRIORITIES.pdf.

80 See for example, D Kapur and R Webb,“Governance-related conditionality of theInternational Financial Institutions”, G-24 DiscussionPaper Series #6, UNTAD, August 2000 and TheReality of Aid 2002 Report on conditionality andownership in the aid regime, accessible atwww.realtityofaid.org.

81 Bendana, op.cit., pp. 2-4, 10-12.

82 For an interesting notion of “peace conditionality”see J. Boyce, “Aid Conditionality as a Tool forPeacebuilding: Opportunities and Constraints”,Development and Change (33) 5: 1025 – 1048, 2002.

83 Ibid., p. 1037.

84 Louise Arbour, “Human Rights and the Politics ofFear”, Presentation to the Canadian Club ofToronto, June 13, 2005, p. 7.

85 See the excellent analysis of the January 2005 PeaceProtocols in the Sudan in Niemat Kuku, “TheNaivasha Agreement: a critical view from a genderperspective”, Gender Centre for Research andTraining (Khartoum, Sudan), for The Civil SocietyInitiative for Peace in collaboration with FreidrichEbert Stiftung, February 2005.

86 See E. Stensrud and G. Husby, “Resolution 1325:From rhetoric to practice: A report on women’srole in reconciliation processes in the Great Lakesin Africa”, CARE Norway and the International PeaceResearch Institute (Oslo), 2005 accessible at http://www.prio.no/files/file47078_prio-care_report_women_and_reconciliation.pdf.

87 UNDP, Human Development Report 2005, op. cit.,page 75.

88 DAC, Guidelines on Helping Prevent ViolentConflict, Paris: OECD, 2001, accessible atwww.oecd.org/dac/conflict/preventionguidelines,and DAC, Principles for Good InternationalEngagement in Fragile States, Paris: OECD, 2005.accessible at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/59/55/34700989.pdf.

89 UNDP, Human Development Report 2005, op cit.,page 14.

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