Apologies for the break. My old laptop was struggling even to do such a simple task as type.
Deborah Haynes, the Times's award winning correspondent, who did such fabulous work covering Iraq has written an excellent article on how millions have been wasted by the British government on aid projects in Afghanistan. The story is bracketed by the inevitable quote from the Department of International Development saying words to the effect "it was rubbish then it's so much better now." I say this with a degree of cynicism. The vast majority of post-war reconstruction projects that I have covered have followed a similar trajectory. There is first much hurrahing from the politicians and their flaks over how well things are going. The second phase sees journalists and others peel back the reality to discover how much money has been wasted for little demonstrable effect. Finally, there is a pained debate how in country X we did not get the formula quite right.
I was reminded of it recently in Bosnia which is now approaching phase three, where even those like the former High Representative, Lord Paddy Ashdown, are now conceding that there is something structurally wrong with the way we pursue post-conflict reconstruction. Not least that we think we have a magic fix than can be delivered in years rather than decades.
One of the problems is that we are burdened with an inappropriate model. There is a tendency to look at what happened after the conclusion of World War II and apply it to situations that are entirely different. Our governments look at the vast scale of the rebuilding that was necessary there, the speed with which the aid was delivered and political institutions rebuilt and - in a kind of moment of hubris - think that it is possible to apply that model universally.
Except that it is not. The difference, as I recall Michael Walzer pointed out in one of his meditations on conflict, is that wars end in different ways. There are wars that end with total victory and defeat, where the terms of the post-conflict reconstruction (and political relationships) are imposed by the victors. There are wars that - horrible term - bleed out, leading to a negotiation of the conflicts between the exhausted sides and opening up the political space for meaningful rebuilding. And then there are the wars most familiar to us - frozen conflicts where the tensions continue to exist (as in Afghanistan) effectively unresolved.
What is the consequence for reconstruction of frozen conflicts? Increasingly, I have come to the conclusion that post-conflict reconstruction in situations like this, where the causes of violence remain, is difficult if not impossible to undertake. Because if the underlying causes of tension that led to violence are papered over, then inevitably it leads individuals to appropriate power and influence - often ethnic or sectarian - under the umbrella of reconstruction, empowered by their own communities, and unchecked by a wider consensus in society. Which leads to the most venal kinds of corruption. And renewed friction.
The kind of failure described by Deborah, is a symptom. Not the cause.
Comments