Peace tomorrow, repression today?
A post by Madeleine Bunting on the Guardian’s PovertyMatters blog today explores the political fragility of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with reference to a recent Human Rights Watch briefing. Bunting is right to draw attention to the risks linked to the coming elections in the DRC, and she shows very clearly how difficult it will be to build peace there until many of those who currently benefit most from and control the political economy are either removed from power, or can themselves see more peaceful ways to maintain their positions of power.
Bunting then moves on to discuss the difficult fact that two of the states most supported by the British government in East Africa, while making good progress in terms of health, education and livelihood outcomes, are also highly repressive: she refers to Rwanda and Ethiopia.
If the UK along with other donors is bankrolling and providing technical support to the regimes in Kigali and Addis Ababa, then it follows that the UK can claim some of the credit for their good development outcomes: better health, more educated children, higher household incomes, and so on. But if so, surely it also follows that it has to shoulder some of the responsibility for the harm which they do: for their human rights abuses.
It’s also logical that the UK and other donors to such regimes must be both aware of and – to some degree – accept the nature of governance there. A governance based largely on patronage and the one-party state. Surely in some respects this means that the UK taxpayer bears some share of responsibility for any resulting harm in Rwanda or Ethiopia?
To some, this is a clear case of bad donorship: they see it as out-and-out wrong for UK taxpayers to support regimes which are clearly undemocratic, and which also reputedly practise torture and in which opposition activists have died or disappeared in murky circumstances.
But as I have explored in other blog posts on this site, things are not so cut and dried. The difficulty for British aid officials and politicians is that we simply do not know the way Ethiopia and Rwanda – much less the DRC – will evolve over the coming years. We can, yes, look back at the UK’s own history, and try to figure out how it traversed that difficult terrain between feudalism and the democratic and accountable governance enjoyed by British people today, under which human rights are largely respected and the ruling regime operates within the rule of law. There are indeed many lessons there, and a fuller exploration can best be found in the wonderful book Violence and Social Orders by North, Wallis and Weingast. But that story shows us that human progress made under repressive regimes is an important step towards the kind of peaceful and prosperous future which we might wish for Rwandans and Ethiopians. So how do we know if Ethiopia and Rwanda are on “the right” path towards peace and prosperity, under their own repressive regimes, or if we are simply supporting and reinforcing an unacceptable status quo in which repression and patronage will continue to trump human rights and good governance?
While we cannot predict the future path these countries will take, that doesn’t mean we should pull the plug on our support; but nor does it mean we should simply close our eyes to the problem. Surely we need to have a more open discussion about these difficult aspects of providing aid to countries which we hope – but cannot guarantee – are moving in a democratic direction.
Bunting has done us a service with her statement that it is “worrying … how aid has been used extensively in both Ethiopia and Rwanda to develop repressive states”, because she raises this as a concern full of nuance, without a clear and easy resolution, and thus deserving of continued and broad debate in the institutions of the donor nations, in this case the UK: parliament, the media and civil society. It’s complicated, so we need to explore it in discussion and debate.
Those of us who support overseas aid are still by and large too scared to have this debate out in the open, for fear that the Daily Mail will seize on our nuanced questions and turn them into a crude but clear argument to “stop supporting African dictators”. But if activitists in places like Ethiopia and Rwanda are courageous enough to stand up against repressive regimes, surely we can find the courage and the wit to stand up to the Daily Mail?
Five dilemmas faced by peacebuilders
The international debate and discussion about peacebuilding has moved on tremendously since Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s 1992 speech in which he invigorated the debate and gave new coinage to the idea of international peacebuilding. Today there is a remarkable degree of consensus among those with an interest in the subject which can perhaps be very loosely summarised around a few key elements:
- Peace is not just the absence of violence, but also the presence of functional relationships within society, and between the people and a responsive and responsible state
- Institutions that mediate relationships within and between societies, and which enshrine and reinforce certain kinds of values and norms, are critical to maintaining peace
- Peace is not static: societies and states continue to evolve, as do the relations between societies and between states. Therefore the institutions need to be adequate both to deal with the resulting stresses, and to adapt themselves, to keep up with these changes
- Peacebuilding, development, statebuilding – these and other jargon words and phrases are all different facets or ways of describing what is essentially human progress, i.e. the evolution of how we as humans live together and try to fulfil our individual and collective aspirations without harming one another. Thus “development” can no longer be defined in purely technical or narrowly sectoral terms
- While the institutions which mediate inter-state and international relations are legitimately the domain of international agencies, the task and challenge of building peaceful states and societies within a specific polity is the domain of the people of that country. Outsiders can have a legitimate role, but whatever their desire, this is normally limited to a supporting role. Nevertheless, this does not mean they have no influence at all, so they must use it with all due care.
I was at a conference organised by the German development agency Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) today in Königstein near Frankfurt, where we discussed these issues. It was a wide-ranging and rich discussion, which for me highlighted five dilemmas that peacebuilders face.
- Reconciling our desire for fast progress, concrete results – success! – with what we know about the process of building peace, which is that it takes generations, is extremely non-linear, is incremental and subject to repeated setbacks and changes of direction outside anyone’s easy control. In this, we have to hold fast and avoid the temptation – and resist the impatient demands of donor agencies working on 5-year electoral cycles and the need to “show results” to satisfy aid sceptics – to pick strategies and interventions because they are measurable, rather than because they are the right things to do. As Andrew Natsios the ex-Administrator of USAID said in his 2007 Center for Global Development paper The Clash of the Counter-bureaucracy and Development, “ those development programs that are most easily and precisely measured are the least transformational, and those that are most transformational are the least measurable”.
- Avoid confusing the ends with the means. Development programming (or peacebuilding, call it what you will) is really an attempt to predict and influence the future; i.e. to influence the course of what will one day be looked at as history. So if we have the arrogance – literally, since we are arrogating to ourselves this role – to try and do this, we must at least learn lessons from actual history. Societies in which universal human rights are relatively widely respected today did not get here by focusing on universal human rights: instead their respect of universal human rights was an unintended consequence of earlier actions. So in the UK for example, it is a result among other things of the efforts of mediaeval barons to limit the powers of the king over them and their families and clients – not over the common people who made up 90% of society and who did as they were told. Similarly, historians tell us that the emergence of shareholder-owned companies was an indirect result of the rise of Protestantism in Western Europe. But nobody supporting Martin Luther in the 16th century did so with that distant outcome in mind. So those of us who wish to promote the broad ownership of capital within fragile societies as a force for peace and stability may need to focus our short-term efforts on what might be interim steps along the way (the means) rather than on the end itself, which might come later. Changes in fragile and conflict-affected societies will only happen if they are seen as being in the interests of the currently powerful, so tactically we need to identify on a case by case basis what such incremental changes might be, with an eye on the later changes they just might make possible, rather than pushing too quickly for outcomes still out of reach – for improved forms of governance, perhaps, which may be resisted and rejected.
- Making an omelette without breaking eggs. History also shows us that progress is often accompanied by – or emerges from – violence. Looking at my own country’s history (the UK), parliament emerged as a way to limit the power of the king to go to war; and the Bill of Rights emerged as a protection for the in-power elite after decades of unrest, coups and revolutions. I am obviously not suggesting that we use violence in support of change, as a tool of peacebuilding or development. But the liberal western-oriented institutions promoting development and peace around the world do need to develop a greater appetite for risk, and a greater tolerance for the instability and sometimes violence which accompanies change.
- Reconciling the need to promote jobs and wider participation in the economy to reinforce peace, with the orthodoxy of “sustainable development”. It is increasingly clear – and the influential 2011 World Development Report is very persuasive on this – that one of the keys to stability and development in post-conflict contexts is to ensure that as many people as possible, and especially young men, are decently employed or otherwise legitimately involved in some other way in the economy. “Idle hands do the devil’s work” seems trite, but it contains more than a kernel of truth. What this means in places like Afghanistan or Sierra Leone is the creation of hundreds of thousands – perhaps millions – of jobs in short order. But neither Afghanistan’s nor Sierra Leone’s economy is likely to be up to this sustainably in the timeframe we are talking about. Therein lies the dilemma: should international agencies go against their own avowed orthodoxy of sustainable economic development, and wait for the jobs to be created “sustainably” – likely to take decades and risk being prevented by a resurgence of violence by the devil’s idle hands – or invest over a long period of time – perhaps 25 years – in subsidising “unsustainable” jobs as tool for building peace?
- Finally, the big one: what do we do with all the development institutions which are no longer – according to the broadly agreed demands of peacebuilding and development agencies as summarised at the start of this article – fit for purpose? We all know that people working for international development and peacebuilding organisations (donors, multilaterals, NGOs – myself included…) are like hammers looking for nails: when we analyse a given context we are looking for reasons to justify our presence, and reasons to justify the kinds of things we tend to do. Whatever else we see, we will certainly find nails. But the consensus I referred to above is very different indeed from the previous consensus, which shaped most of the international organisations active today. Can they really change to suit this new purpose, or will most of them go through the motions of changing but actually stick pretty closely to the mission and approaches they have grown up with, and know how to do – “old wine in new bottles”, in Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart’s memorable phrase? It would only be human if they do the latter. Some big decisions will be needed by risk-taking politicians and organisations’ leaders if the international organisations are to embrace the mission implied by the 2011 WDR, and become much more political and less technical in their orientation, way of working and in the kinds of results they aim to achieve.
How donors take account of the World Development Report
In earlier blog posts I have referred to the challenges for international organisations including donors working in conflict affected contexts, and how well these were articulated in the 2011 World Development Report. It is good to see at least one donor taking this seriously: DFID included the following text as part of a recent procurement tender. A good step, and an example for others to follow, perhaps?
“Key lessons from 2011 World Development Report
- Donors need to be realistic about what their support to peacebuilding and governance can achieve.
- Change takes time. Creating legitimate institutions that can prevent repeated violence is a slow process which takes at least a generation.
- Asking fragile states to move forward too quickly, even with very desirable steps, risks creating pressures that collapse what little capability has been created.
- Reforms need to be carefully sequenced and carried out through systematic and gradual action.
- When trying to influence institutional transformation in complex conflict settings, perfection should not be the enemy of progress—pragmatic, “best-fit” approaches adapted to local conditions should be used to address immediate challenges.
- A focus on developing legitimate institutions does not mean converging on Western institutions.
- Governments and donors should keep an open mind on how institutions will develop, and be ready to respond flexibly to opportunities for reform as they arise.
- The absence of easily recognisable formal state institutions should not be equated with an absence of institutions altogether. Coexistence and interaction between ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ institutions have been key in balancing internal and external demands for legitimacy [….] and represent significant progress in governance.Innovative approaches managing and assessing risk need to be adopted; which allow for flexibility, failure and amendments within a transparent reporting framework.
- Goals, number of priorities and timeframes need to be more realistic.
- Donors should adopt targeted approaches which focus on two or three rapid results to build confidence and on narrowly and realistically defined institution-building.
- A stronger focus needs to be placed on addressing external stresses (such as economic shocks and the infiltration of organised crime and trafficking networks)
- It is critical to support strong leadership – committed to security, justice and equity.
- It is critical to establish lines of accountability.”
Regime Change in Libya
So now the end of the Gaddafi regime seems more or less a fact, after several months of bombing by NATO forces, on behalf of the UN Security Council, to “protect civilians”.
I am happy to celebrate the end of his rule; though I remain anxious that what comes next may be difficult. National unity may be hard to achieve.
Questions remain however about the way this has been achieved, and only a fool would agree that NATO’s hundreds of sorties, supported by special forces on the ground, were genuinely flown to protect civilians. This was – and was early on declared by the most active NATO members – to be about regime change.
Does this make a mockery of the rule of international law, or is it simply a pragmatic way to use the international instruments available to achieve an outcome which offers an opportunity for Libyans to begin to construct a new polity?
I just spent a week in Juba, and was struck by two apparently opposing views of the future I heard from South Sudanese people. On the one hand, a fairly predictable pessimism – or perhaps it would be better described as realism. From this perspective, South Sudan faces a troubled near- and medium-term future, beset by problems with its neighbour to the north, and by a host of internal difficulties so vast, they seem beyond the capacity of a new nation to resolve. Meanwhile others expressed their view of the future in terms of what seemed at first to be cautious optimism, along the lines of “if the government gets it right over the next few months, we should be OK”.
This apparent dichotomy is reflected more broadly. At one extreme we find views such as that expressed by Dennis Blair, former head of US national intelligence, who told US Congress last year that among countries at risk of outbreaks of mass violence, “a new mass killing or genocide is most likely to occur in Southern Sudan”. While at the other extreme we find the delirious enthusiasm which greeted South Sudan’s independence last month, after decades of civil war and dashed expectations, and a feeling that it’s now full steam ahead for a brighter future; accompanied by a genuine sense of goodwill within the international community, and a desire to support the world’s newest nation in its first few years of independent existence.
The reality presumably lies somewhere in between. If one examines the “optimism” camp more carefully, it tends to be conditioned by qualifiers such as “if the government gets it right”, and “if Khartoum doesn’t interfere” – neither of which inspires massive optimism based on recent history. Indeed, President Kiir’s 8th August speech to the Legislative Assembly in Juba was sobering, setting out the need to build a new nation by putting the people’s well-being and needs first, through service delivery in education and health, infrastructure development, justice and the rule of law, peace and security, underpinned by a culture of transparency and honesty. He ended with the exhortation to “start work right away”.
President Kiir’s speech was interesting for the balance he sought between what one might call a technical, problem solving approach – providing services, building police posts, fixing the things which new countries need to fix, etc. – and the more inspirational idea of re-creating South Sudan in a new image, characterised by honesty, altruism and putting an end to corruption. I am not sure he got that balance quite right.
Development as a technical challenge
Looking at the challenge of building a prosperous and peaceful South Sudan – starting from a low baseline – I am reminded of the origins of the international agreement (or at least intention) by rich countries to spend 0.7% of their GDP on overseas aid. The source of this figure is clouded by various myths of origin, but one of the more credible is that it was calculated back in the 1960s, based on the need to invest in infrastructure in poor countries. The idea was that, once the infrastructure was in place, development would surely follow; and 0.7% of OECD annual income was approximately what was needed, over a decade or so, to meet this investment deficit in what was then known as the Third World, and bring poorer countries up to par.
It is tempting to apply this model now to South Sudan, which lacks even the most basic all-weather infrastructure of intra- and inter-city roads (it is often said there are less than 100km of paved road in the country), let alone the secondary and tertiary feeder roads needed for the reliable transport of inputs and produce in an agro-pastoral economy. Given the complexities of the political economy in South Sudan, a simplistic formula like this would surely be a welcome relief to government, civil society, businesses and international donors trying to chart a way forward.
Of course one would need to add the human dimension, and invest also in health and education services: clinics, schools, training, educational and health materials, and so on. Quite a challenge in the vast and under-served territory of South Sudan.
Problem solving
Meanwhile the new country’s leaders have some pressing problems to solve. Negotiations with Khartoum over their mutual border, over the cost of exporting southern oil through northern pipelines, over separating the two countries’ currencies, over sharing the national debt, and over the rights and responsibilities of and towards each other’s citizens, to name but a few. Fighting on both sides of the border appears to have been stimulated by secession, and the disputed territory of Abyei remains a potential flashpoint, whence thousands of people have been displaced by violence in recent months.
The police service needs a complete overhaul, and massive investment in training and new police posts. The army needs to be rationalised as a single force and brought under proper civilian control, and ghost soldiers removed from the payroll. New contracts need to be agreed with oil companies. Internal borders need to be clarified. A massive decentralisation process is foreseen – redefining the roles and competencies at different levels of government. Corruption needs to be stamped out…. And so the list goes on.
Setting out a more complex idea of progress
One can look at this long list of challenges and problems (the actual list is far, far longer), and see it as a set of technical accomplishments to be ticked off on a long checklist: perhaps starting with infrastructure and continuing from there. In so doing one can imagine the government and the international community – donors, United Nations agencies, etc. – planning a programme of fund transfers and technical “capacity building” until the list is exhausted. Overall, I’d say this is how President Kiir’s speech sounded: although he started with an exhortation to nation-building, and later made excursions into issues like values, his speech in the end seemed mainly to be about “getting things done”, and was laced through with words like delivery, deliverables, services, etc.
Such things are clearly critical, but they don’t fully describe the challenge facing the South Sudanese, any more than the challenges faced by poor countries in the 1960s could be met by the simple injection of 0.7% of rich country GDP to meet their “investment deficit”. Solving the problems which present themselves – the phenomena of fragility and poverty – is not the same thing as building peace and harnessing South Sudan’s and the South Sudanese people’s development potential. Based on some of the ideas I heard from South Sudanese in Juba last week, I had the impression that the challenge can partly be defined along the following kinds of lines.
Creating a vision and sense of nation. South Sudan has been defined in public discourse as much by what it is not – the Sudan from which it has now seceded – as what it is and can become. A great deal of leadership time and effort at all levels will be needed to create a shared long-term vision, towards which South Sudanese can aspire, and to which they can hold their leaders for making progress. There are many ways to do this, and the process is probably never-ending, but the comments I heard last week in Juba suggest that a great deal of dialogue and debate is needed, focused loosely on the question “what kind of nation do we want to build, and how to get there?”
An evolution in the culture of power. Many of the conflicts in the country are defined around access to political and economic power. The length of time President Kiir is taking over his cabinet reshuffle is a good indicator of how tricky a subject this is: exclusion from the halls of power may push some disaffected members of the elite back to the bush, and the threat or use of the gun. This has already happened.
But it is not just at national level that violence is intertwined with politics: young men in cattle-herding tribes traditionally raid cattle from neighbouring clans or tribes as a way of increasing their economic standing and power in the community. Ethnicity and identity, rather than policy differences, are major factors in determining political alliances locally, and at state and national level. South Sudan has in any case emerged from Sudan, and thus reflects the Sudanese culture of power, characterised by violence, patronage and exclusion, among other factors. As Ugandan Professor Mahmoud Mamdani asked recently “Will the South establish a new political order, or will it reproduce a version of the old political order, such as the old state we know as Sudan?” Perhaps this is what Salva Kiir had in mind when he exhorted members of the Legislative Assembly:
“Let us recreate ourselves, let us find new ways, new thinking and be ready to learn in order to adequately meet new challenges.”
And a nation which is born of violence – civil war with Khartoum, as well as between various southern factions over the years – has a culture of power which is bound up with notions of violence as a means of political expression.
Like it or not, culture expresses the values held in society. It is difficult to change, and there are no blueprints. Indeed, it is particularly difficult for those who have only or mainly known a culture of power tied to violence, to take the lead in changing it; what practical models do they have to draw on, especially locally where people have been less exposed to outside influences and have neither seen nor experienced other cultures of power? But difficult or not, it seems critical for South Sudanese leaders (at all levels, in government, in civil society, and in business) to focus on this issue from now on, and identify ways to begin promoting and instilling a culture of inclusive power, and more functional non-violent relationships between people and peoples.
These measures do not in themselves have to be deeply structural, or huge: many small steps can add up to a decent distance covered. There are many ways to increase the level of popular participation: e.g. when negotiating new contracts with oil companies, involving civil society and local representatives from the different groups in the oil areas, and paying attention to their concerns about pollution, jobs, revenue sharing and infrastructure development; or including opposition politicians in the reshuffled cabinet. There is a lively debate going on about the decentralisation of governance to be as close as possible to the grassroots, and the concept of subsidiarity seems highly relevant, i.e. that decisions should be taken at the lowest appropriate level. This offers the best opportunity for transparent and responsive governance.
Livelihoods. One of the great challenges is the need for decent livelihood opportunities across the country, so that as many South Sudanese as possible benefit sustainably from the peace dividend. This means figuring out – through participatory processes – what kind of economy will best promote peaceful development.
Currently the country is too highly dependent on oil, which accounts for 98% of government revenue, and other extractive sectors like gold mining also beckon. It is of course crucial to obtain government revenues, but an economy dominated by oil and mining supports a political economy which tends towards violence. It creates vast disparities in wealth, yet few jobs, thus fuels a sense of exclusion. It is vulnerable to corruption, skewing political choices towards the self-interest of the elite, ignoring the interests of the majority, and thus undermining moves towards democracy. Meanwhile there are many stories of large tracts of land being bought up by outside investors – perhaps unlawfully sold to them by those who have no right to do so – which risks alienating rural people from the land, and from both its livelihood and its cultural value.
In the short term, there is likely to be a rise in agricultural production provided there is enough stability, as an automatic peace dividend. Infrastructure projects can be designed to be as labour intensive as possible, as a way to create paid work for as many hand as possible. It’s also critical for infrastructure investments to be chosen with an eye on their contribution to peace: e.g. it is important to avoid giving the impression that certain geographic areas linked to particular individuals or groups are more favoured than others, so as to avoid entrenching exclusion or the perception thereof. Outside investors need to be required to take their time, so their plans can be subject to full, informed scrutiny by all those likely to be affected, and mitigation measures put in place where there is a risk of social or economic disruption. Contracts with oil and mining companies will need to be negotiated firmly, to ensure they pay adequate attention to their corporate responsibilities – and some existing contracts will need renegotiating.
Security and justice. In President Kiir’s speech he highlighted the need for improved security and justice. His focus was on improving the professionalism of police and security institutions, and on building police stations and prisons. He did not mention the plans – which are quite well developed – to work at a very local Payam level, to find ways to enhance the security of people in their communities.
In the discussions I had, people were keen to look beyond the formal justice and security services: recognising the importance of the “traditional” and less formal mechanisms on which South Sudanese often rely, while also aware that such mechanisms are often quite unfair, and can also entrench dysfunctional relationships between communities.
Last week there were relatively large scale armed clashes between Murle and Lou-Nuer, in which many people died, continuing a recent trend. The authorities and communities have to find ways to reduce the likelihood and intensity of these kinds of “tribal” conflicts, and prevent them from being manipulated and escalated by militia leaders; this is not just about forcible disarmament, since new weapons will easily become available to replace the ones taken away.
The window of opportunity, and how to seize rather than squander it
One way to see the situation in South Sudan is as a window of opportunity: new nation, enthusiastic people, plenty of international support and goodwill. It is of tremendous importance not only to seize this opportunity now, but also to define carefully and accurately what the opportunity actually represents, as this time will not come round again.
The lesson for me, from listening to discussions among South Sudanese in Juba last week, is that it seems essential to broaden the discourse – frame the opportunity – to include not just what I have called technical challenges and problem solving, but to embrace a genuine and honest vision of what a peaceful South Sudan might look and feel like in the future, and then start to map out the pathways towards that vision. There is no lack of ideas, but they need framing in a way which creates useful clues about what progress will look like, so that it can be measured not just by technical jobs done, and practical challenges met, but also by incremental movement towards that vision.
How to re-think international aid agencies to fit the findings of the 2011 World Development Report?
The 2011 WDR is a radical document. It’s well-packaged in the politics and jargon of international aid, and so just about palatable to those individuals who have invested their careers in a now-faded approach to development; to donor governments who have invested their billions in both the Washington Consensus and the post-Washington Consensus consensus; to borrowing governments who prefer their grants and low-interest loans linked to soft, technical conditions; and to the many organisations – NGOs, IGOs and private companies – which benefit from and have helped define the way aid has been dispersed over these past couple of decades.
Within this clever wrapping, the WDR has a hard, core message: that in countries experiencing or threatened by violence, where 1.5 billion people live, one of the main “development” challenges is how to foster the emergence of the right kinds of institutions; and among these the most important are those which mediate a functional relationship between a responsive state and responsible citizens.
The World Bank and other development agencies are now considering the implications of the WDR for the way they define and implement their role. This will be difficult, as it is always hard for institutions – especially large, well-established ones – to imagine a radically different role and thus genuinely to radically restructure themselves. Simply put, the question should not be “how can we adapt our existing institutions to the revised terms of reference implied by the WDR?”, but rather “what kind of institution would best be able to foster the emergence of institutions which reduce the fragility of fragile states and societies?” In other words, don’t take the institution you are sitting in as the starting point, as it will get in the way of clear thinking. Instead, take a zero-based approach.
This implies first of all an attempt to define, generically, what kind of tasks this new development assistance role implies. Here are just a few suggestions.
1. Defining the strategic approach
Thinking strategically on a continuous basis, and adapting accordingly, is as or more important than having a perfect strategic plan. Nevertheless, organisations need strategy documents for planning and reference, so it’s important to invest in the right kind of strategic analysis every few years. Some people are recommending that outside agencies – the WB, DFID and so on – conduct their strategic analysis entirely in concert with the host government of the aid-recipient country. This is a seductive idea, in keeping with the Paris Declaration, but – like so much connected with the Paris Declaration – it’s a mistake.
It woud be immensely difficult for the staff of – say – the World Bank to discuss issues of legitimacy and citizen-state relations completely truthfully with the representatives of relatively undemocratic regimes, whose own political survival often depends on untransparent and inequitable policies and practices; and even on a dysfunctional relationship with the populations they are meant to represent. Any joint analysis of such issues would therefore be conducted without complete honesty, would therefore be be based on half-expressed diagnoses, and would therefore recommend incomplete or just plain wrong approaches. This is one of the things which was wrong with the PRSP model, so let’s not make that mistake again.
So while the strategic analysis should obviously be based on wide-ranging conversations with different stakeholders, inlcuding the host governnment, local civil society, businesses, other internationals, etc., it nevertheless needs to be done by the international institution itself, so as to preserve the integrity of the analaysis. It also needs to be based on the right conceptual model. There is no perfect prescription for this, and a thousand methodological flowers should be allowed to blooom, but those conducting the analysis should aim to understand as well as possible:
- How does the political economy actually function, where is it positive for peaceful outcomes, where does it obstruct them, where are the potential opportunities for improvement, and how can those in positions of economic/political power be persuaded to allow or support changes?
- What institutions currently exist in society, what function do they/could they play?
- What is a realistic vision for transformation over the next 25 or more years, in tems of reducing fragility and fostering the emergence of institutions which ensure that people are safe and justly treated, and that they have a voice in decisions which affect them?
- Who are the likely leaders of such changes?
- What people or factors might stand in the way of progress, and can they be prevented from doing so?
- Finally: can we envisage any role for our (international) organisation, which would help enable the kinds of changes we have in mind? (The potential for a “no” answer to this question should be taken seriously).
2. Recognise the difference between humanitarian and development aid
Humanitarian aid is often just a synonym for emergency aid – like the support currently being provided to millions of people in the Horn of Africa in dire need. But it may be that a lot of so-called “development aid” is really just humanitarian aid dressed up in a more intellectual, less sentimental construct.
Take international support for capital investment and recurrent costs in the education or health services of states whose economies will take decades to reach the levels at which they could pay for such services themselves from tax revenues, and where the institutions of power are so flawed that the schools and clinics built and staffed with aid may quietly crumble away or be destroyed due to social violence. Is that really an example of development aid – i.e. supporting the establishment of an enabling environment for societal progress – or is it more like humanitarian aid – i.e. sending money and technologies to fill a gap in service provision? If the task is to help shape a society which is more likely to both want and be in a position to provide schools, clinics, and universal health care and education to its members, is the best way to achieve this to send them money and ideas about schooling and health care? Or should that more properly be described as fulfilling a numanitarian impulse along the lines that “it seems wrong for children to be denied the opportunity to go to school, so we fund school programmes in countries far away”…
It’s obviously a lot more complicated than that. But to me it does seem clear that the test for any “development” investment ought to be whether it is likely to contribute to a change in the likely outcome for society several years hence, and whether that change is likely to contribute to the emergence of effective institutions, and a reduction in fragility. Anything else is a humanitarian transfer of resources. I am not arguing against this kind of humanitarianism, simply for clarity of purpose. But it is also true that humanitarian investments should be undertaken with great care, lest they inadvertently make things worse.
An obvious example of the latter would be a programme which inadvertently reinforces inequalities in society – as for example happened in eastern Zaire where international programmes designed to improve livestock management benefited herders over farmers, hence skewed the terms of trade between cattle and land, and contributed to conflicts which have yet to be brought under control in a quintessentially fragile environment. It was particularly unfortunate that herding and farming were, as so often, linked to different ethnicities, so the livestock improvement programmes may inadvertently have fuelled inter-ethnic tensions.
3. Seek out and support change agents – wherever they may be found
Change comes largely from within society, and is often led by inspired and inspiring individuals, at local level or on a wider scale. It stands to reason therefore that international agencies looking for ways to support transformation need to find ways to identify such individuals and support them.
The support doesn’t only have to be in the form of funds: it might equally be in the form of solidarity, the provision of opportunities to broaden horizons and explore ideas with others, or may take other forms, depending on circumstances.
As to identifying leaders: that is clearly a task fraught with risk. We need to accept that, as in the old European fairy tale, we may have to kiss a lot of frogs before we catch our prince. Above all, it’s very labour-intensive: looking for and getting to know leaders and potential leaders, and isn’t something which many international civil servants spend much time doing, as of now.
4. Provide long-term economic subventions to provide decent job opportunities
One of the core findings of the WDR is the need, in fragile and conflict affected contexts, for jobs. Young people, especially young men, are vulnerable to being recruited to violence by political leaders, in inverse proportion to their access to decent economic opportunities. Meanwhile, societies which exclude young women from decent economic opportunities are holding themselves back in terms of their ability to harness the potential for progress. Ergo, an economy in which jobs and other economic opportunities are in short supply is one which remains vulnerable to instability…
… Ergo, one might think, donors and other international agences would invest large amounts in job creation in conflict-affected contexts. But they don’t, at least not on the scale which one might expect. Take Sierra Leone, for example: it’s commonly accepted that one of the main factors underlying the civil war was the lack of opportunities for young men. Indeed, post-war elections have been marked by the mobilisation of violent youth militants representing both the main parties. The analysis of the UN, World Bank and other donors – and the government itself – all make a big issue of the need for jobs. But none of these agencies appear to have plans to invest in a way which will create the tens of thousands of jobs which are needed to build peace in Sierra Leone. Instead the international agences fall back on the mantra of “sustainable economic growth”, and the main investment focus is on mining and oil, neither of which are likely to create large numbers of jobs per GDP percentage point of growth – and which are associated in other contexts with instability.
Surely the problem here is that the agencies are failing to develop a strategy to match their own analysis. Rather than support peacebuilding, by subsidising job creation on a massive scale – e.g. through large scale, labour-intensive public works – they prefer to stick to the economic development orthodoxy that says it is wrong to distort the economy by creating jobs with external transfers. But it will take years, decades, for a country like Sierra Leone to create sufficient jobs in its own economy to absorb enough of its young people to reduce its vulnerability to destabilisation. Surely the orthodoxy is standing in the way of what the agencies’ own analysis tells them is needed? Which is worse: artificially subsidising jobs which thus reduce the risk of violence, but which may have unintended consequences for endogenous economic growth; or taking the longer-term, orthodox approach, stimulating FDI and local entreprenership – but enhancing the risk of more cycles of violence?
So one of the most important questions facing large international development agencies, post-WDR, is how to fast-track the creation of jobs and other economic opportunities in a careful way, so that the short-term gain of getting young people active in the economy – laying the foundations for peace – is not achieved at the expense of laying the foundations for healthy economic development which will in time, perhaps 15 years or more, replace the international transfers.
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These are only a few of the things which international agencies need to consider in their programmes in fragile and conflict-prone contexts. What they imply is that the agencies – the World Bank, DFID, the EU, and so on – need to have a capacity for disinterested strategic analyis and planning, within a clear conceptual framework of how societies changes over the medium term; for the identification and support of change agents; and for implementing and supporting very different kinds of programmes, designed to fit the local context, and which at times seem to go against the orthodoxy of both the Washington Consensus and the post-Washington consensus. That’s quite a challenge.
Land grabs in Africa are much in the news. For example we read in a recent Oakland Institute report that up to 60 million hectares (an area the size of France) were bought or leased in Africa by outside investors in 2009 alone. It’s widely reported as an iniquitous state of affairs and so it is, when African governments take advantage of low levels of transparency and citizen accountability to sell or lease off large parcels of land at prices and terms and conditions which disadvantage their nation and their people, and especially people local to the land in question. In that sense it has much in common, as a phenomenon, with the way some mining and oil companies have long dealt with African governments, and vice versa.
This seems completely wrong. But, taking a closer and dispassionate look, are there at least two possible silver linings to this cloud?
First, this kind of behaviour by governments and international agribusiness creates just the kind of situation around which civil society activists in Africa can mobilise, and demand a higher level of transparency and accountability of their leaders. Because it touches on land – something dear to the heart of many people at a very cultural level – it is an issue around which it’s possible to mobilise a wide constituency of opinion, including influential civil society in capital cities, as well as in rural communities more closely affected. Governance improvements emerge, it seems to me, when citizens pull together in support of a real common interest, rather than when they get together to “improve governance” for its own sake in the abstract.
Second, and no doubt more controversially, perhaps this is just the kind of opportunity through which the rural sector of some poor African economies can begin to be modernised, making agriculture more efficient. This might in its turn mean that more people would move to the cities, which would certainly create new social and political challenges. But there are also far greater opportunities in cities than in the countryside for women and men, young and old, to engage in civil society in pursuit of their interests. In this way, a secondary impact of the change could be a reinforcement of the kind of citizen-state relationship which is needed for governance to improve, and which is often so lacking in rural parts of the continent.
It’s dangerous to generalise, and I don’t mean to claim that land grabs are an inherently good thing. But nor would I want to be the one trying to make the argument that peasant agriculture in marginal parts of Africa is a sustainable basis for a growing economy. Something has to give.
World Development Report 2011 – will it make a difference?
The World Bank released its latest World Development Report (WDR) this week. It does this every year and few people usually pay much attention, unless their job requires it, and/or they are development nerds. Often the best thing about WDRs is that they are just the right thickness to place under the leg of a wobbly table; otherwise, they tend to gather dust on the book shelf.
But WDR 2011 is different, and it is well worth paying attention to. Indeed, given the subject matter and quality of the document, which contains a great deal of primary research and analysis, it should become a seminal text guiding development thinking and practice for years. The focus this year is Conflict and Security, and the report does a good job of explaining, using a lot of data and analysis, why the development community has to find better ways to work in conflict-affected and fragile contexts. According to the report 1.5 billion people’s lives are affected by conflict, and it provides plenty of evidence to back up what’s obvious anyway, that violent conflict is a huge drag on development. For example the average civil war sets back GDP growth by about 30 years, while countries lose about 0.7% of GDP growth per year while their neighbours are in conflict.
The 2011 WDR makes a convincing case that international development institutions are failing the people who live in countries affected by conflict. Not a single low income fragile or conflict affected country has achieved a single one of the Millennium Development Goals. And the report provides new data about recurrent conflict, showing that 90% of new violence onsets in the decade after 2000 occurred in countries with a history of previous conflicts, even as the total number of violence onsets declined, indicating how hard it is to break the cycle of violence that keeps people poor.
There’s nothing particularly new about the link between violent conflict, insecurity and lack of development. It’s not only intuitive but has been written about for years. What’s of interest about the WDR is that it’s the World Bank – perhaps the leading development institution, by size and influence – which is saying it; and that the report offers some intriguing lessons drawn from conflict affected countries suggesting how the problem can perhaps be overcome. The report is full of these, and International Alert has produced a more thorough review of the report but I pick six of them to highlight here.
1. It’s the institutions, stupid
As Deborrah Baksh and I argued in our paper last year one of the keys to development progress is the presence of effective institutions within society. These are formal institutions like parliaments, governments, courts, stock exchanges etc., and informal institutions which are harder to see, and which have been called “the rules of the game” – the norms and values which guide and govern how people live together. The WDR argues convincingly that violent conflict occurs when a society’s institutions are inadequate to deal with the internal and external stresses placed upon them. An obvious example of this is in Côte d’Ivoire, where the organisation of elections unsupported by the institutionalisation of democracy within society led to a breakdown of law and order and civil war.
So what comes across very clearly in the report is that if international development institutions – WB, UN, donors, NGOs, and so on – are to contribute more effectively to development in fragile and conflict-affected countries, they need to learn how to promote and enable the emergence, strengthening and transformation of institutions. This is far easier said than done, and it certainly is not what most such institutions are well versed in. They may be good at putting into place the formal mechanisms, in ministries, courts, parliaments and commissions, etc. But the role of transforming institutions, encouraging the emergence and internalisation of democratic values, and of allowing innovative and context-derived institutions to evolve, is not yet the stuff of World Bank training courses or how-to manuals.
2. Security and justice for citizens, not subjects
The WDR uses the word “citizen” a great deal, as a way to stress repeatedly the importance of responsive states for peaceful development, where people have a voice, and live securely within the rule of law. Insecurity holds society back in so many ways. It creates a climate of fear, which can easily be exploited by those with the capacity to protect themselves and to either provide or withhold protection from others. The Mungiki gangs of Kenya have shown this – running protection rackets in Nairobi for years. All too often the mechanisms of the state are intertangled with such rackets: in Kenya the protection rackets run by the Mungiki for matutu taxi operators have now been officialised and legalised under the cover of compulsory Savings and Loans schemes. But they are still protection rackets, still run by the same gangs.
Insecurity also holds back economic development because those who feel insecure tend to be risk averse, unwilling to take business risks, seeing their assets as savings, rather than investment capital; and obviously when people lose their assets, due to criminality or political violence, they have to start again at zero.
Again, if the international development organisations wish to make a difference, they need to find ways to create and improve confidence by improving security and fair access to justice. This too must be viewed through the institution-building lens, and represents a huge challenge. This is all the more true in many African countries, where one of the legacies of colonial and post-colonial history is frequently a repressive and corrupt security culture, whose transformation into policing by consent within the rule of law is not a project for the faint-hearted.
3. Jobs (not growth)
GDP growth remains central to international development orthodoxy, even after years of counter-argument, and evidence of the importance of factors such as remittances. Of course economic growth is essential to provide for the needs of growing populations, and ultimately it’s got to be at a rate which exceeds demographic growth if per capita income is to rise. But the WDR comes out firmly in favour of choosing the right kind of growth. This means for example that in Sierra Leone, where the role of under-employed youth in the genesis of civil war is well-known, it is not enough to rely on boosting GDP through mining and mechanised agriculture, since neither of these sectors will provide enough jobs or self-employment opportunities to go round. Goodness knows that the Niger Delta provides sufficient examples of how oil – or for that matter mining – can contribute to long-term unrest as much as it does to GDP.
Another part of orthodoxy of the past few years has been that economic development must be “sustainable”. Yes, that’s important, but what’s the point of developing “sustainable” economies which will be torn apart by civil war or undermined by the shadowy and violent narcotics trade? The international institutions have got to accept that long-term subsidies for labour-intensive public sector work can be a good investment in the sustainability of the polity itself, and thus a “good”, rather than an unorthodox skewing of the economy and thus a “bad”.
Meanwhile, the same institutions need to find creative ways to support the emergence of a less corrupt political economy, where mining and oil are less likely to lead to criminality and violent conflict.
4. Rome was not built in a decade…
We’ve known it for years, but the WDR says it loud and clear. It takes at least two generations to establish the foundations of the kinds of institutions that allow progress to be made peacefully. Even the “fastest” countries to do this are claimed in the report to have taken over 40 years to establish the basic rule of law. So we’ve got to come terms with a longer time frame, using a vision-based approach, and measuring progress towards that vision, rather than trying to create perfect institutions in five or ten years. It means we’ve got to learn to do what works in the context, rather than trying to fit the context to international project planning cycles. That will allow space for innovation, for the right processes and institutions to emerge, if the right incentives and support are provided.
This also means that we have to resist the over-simplification in which Burundi, after decades of troubles, is now seen by its government and by the international institutions as having “graduated from peacebuilding to development”. The difference between peacebuilding and development a false dichotomy, since without peace you can’t have much development. But by any sensible measure estimation, it is unlikely that a country in like Burundi can become stable and democratic, ready for economic take-off, after a couple of elections. All those interested in Burundi’s continued development, wether Burundians or outsiders, need to see the context for what it is, and act accordingly, rather than determine their strategy and approach according to a categorisation based on a combination of bueaucratic and political compromise.
5. … and was built by the Romans
The Romans built their state, and then expanded it to be their empire. The international community just has to accept that the establishment and emergence of institutions and values is almost entirely an endogenous one – unless it plans to build an empire, that is. The role of international institutions is one of supporting, incentivising, advising and promoting. It cannot make institutions happen, only do what it can to enable them to happen. A major part of this is to avoid getting in their way, by purposely or inadvertently reinforcing the institutions which block them. It’s easy to see how the international community has done this in North Africa over the past few decades, for example strengthening the role of an Egyptian state which denied the opportunity of citizenship – as understood in the WDR – to Egyptians for years.
6. Creating an enabling international environment
Lastly, but far from least, what the international institutions can indisputably do more of is create a better enabling environment both regionally and more broadly. The elements of this have been well-rehearsed, and they include issues such as free movement of people within regional economic blocs, a fairer playing field for trade, a greater effort to stamp out cross-border flows of illegally-obtained money, and a more thoughtful and strategic international approach to narcotics. A particularly important element of this is to strengthen the regional institutions themselves: formal institutions such as ECOWAS and the AU, as well as informal institutions – the rules of the game – which have allowed people like ex-president Gbabgo to be protected and treated with impunity by fellow heads of state over the years.
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Challenging our assumptions
Those who know the international development institutions well will see straight away that the messages of the WDR represent a major challenge. If taken seriously, this report changes the very nature of how international development is conceived and delivered, at least in conflict affected and fragile contexts and thus in much of Africa. It raises as many questions as it answers. Indeed, if taken seriously it undermines some of the comfortable assumptions which have underpinned most international development thinking and action for the past fifteen years. For example:
- That legitimate development progress is based on a partnership between the international community and the government in power in a fragile state – which in practice can exclude the people whom the government is supposed to represent, but seldom does
- That institution building can be limited to formal institutions, without including informal institutions and values; and without recognising that this a task of transformation, not just incremental improvement
- That domestic institutions are built through technical assistance in making their mechanisms work better, without also improving their legitimacy and levels of participation
- That it is OK to focus on only some aspects of reform, such as fiscal systems, while ignoring more difficult issues such as land tenure, which has huge implications for conflict in rural economies
- That economic growth, rather than broad participation in a growing economy, is the key to progress
- That working on the symptoms of underdevelopment (hunger, sickness, etc., i.e. the MDGs) will somehow address the causes
- That change can be accomplished at a pace defined by the international community’s need to show results, rather than at a pace defined by local factors and which recognises the historical reality that building a new relationship between citizen and state takes many decades – probably at least half a century to be confident it is sustainable.
Unlike some of the institutions in fragile contexts, the institutions of the development sector are highly resilient. When under pressure they heal as quickly as a wound in the mouth. I mean both the formal institutions – look how hard it was for Wolfensohn to change the World Bank – and the “rules of the game”. While it would be entirely wrong to say that international aid instutitions are doing nothing right in conflict-affected countries, it is nevertheless true to say, as does the WDR, that they need to do much better and that this means a complete rethink in their approach.
But institutions don’t readlily rethink their own approach. It’s just not what most institutions do. So it is of tremendous importance that over the coming months, those who believe that this WDR contains important truths about doing development in the conflict-affected and fragile contexts where 1.5 billion people live, take every opportunity to keep this discussion alive. Read the report and check out the live webcast on thursday this week. And if you see this WDR being used to stop a table from wobbling, put it back up on the table in full view, where it belongs.
The UN Security Council has put itself and others in a difficult spot over Libya. This is because it has mandated those of its Member States who are operational in and around Libya to take all necessary measures to protect civilians, when the avowed policy intention of so many of them is in fact regime change. France, the UK and the USA to name three of the governments most involved in military action, have all in different ways said so. Just to be clear, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Channel 4 News last night that he saw no future in a partitioned Libya, and did not expect others at today’s international summit in London to see it as a desirable outcome. So what we are witnessing and many are celebrating is surely a UN-mandated operation expressly designed by those planning and implementing it (whatever the actual intentions of those who voted for it), to help lever Gaddafi from power. This may well result in a political vacuum, in a fragile state whose political institutions are inadequate to deal with this kind of massive change, and thus the distinct possibility of further conflict in the months and years after he’s gone.
Of course, it looks clear that proportionally more violence against civilians is being conducted by Gaddafi’s forces than by the opposition. So, for now at least, it’s easy for NATO and its members to justify a military action which so far is entirely targeting one side in Libya’s civil war, in terms of UN SCR 1973. I’ve limited knowledge or understanding of the nature of the Libyans and Libyan groups taking part in the uprising, so no way to know how likely they are (whether now, fighting against Gaddafi, or later in a possible future fight among themselves) to commit atrocities against civilians. On the basis of the news currently emerging, they seem to be conducting themselves more decently than Gaddafi’s people. So intervening on their side seems virtuous. But it’s important to look at this on a longer-term and a wider canvas.
I’m personally an agnostic on the question of whether the international military intervention is the right thing to do, simply because I have insufficient knowledge of Libya to be able to estimate the most likely results of such an action over the medium and longer term. And after the revelations of Coalition ignorance about the Iraq they decided to invade, and the lack of forethought about what to do about the crockery they were about to break, I’m somewhat afraid that the UN and its Member State governments also lack the detailed intelligence to enable them to make an informed assessment of what might happen next in Libya. But I certainly back the principle of the international community intervening militarily under its Responsibility to Protect, provided the justification for doing so is based on solid intelligence that allows it to fulfil the requirements of a just war.
A Just War – jus ad bellum – paraphrasing St Thomas Aquinas and others, is one which is waged with legitimate authority, with just cause and “right intention”. It must be likely to result in the restoration of law and order and the conditions for the fulfilment of human rights; it must be a last resort; and it must be fought proportionally. Finally, it must have a high probability of success: be winnable in the shortest possible time causing the minimum amount of harm.
We can of course be wary of a set of rules drawn up by the mediaeval Catholic Church to provide its secular co-establishment – the kings and princes of mediaeval Europe – with a religious justification for their military exploits. Nevertheless, jus ad bellum was not entirely cynical in its origins, has evolved over the intervening centuries, and continues to provide a basis on which to consider the ethical dimensions of something – waging war – which will always be a predominantly political enterprise.
The difficulty in the case of the international engagement in Libya is obvious. Its legitimacy is in doubt, since it appears to be premised on a confusion: on the one hand, the UNSC – the supreme authority – has mandated operations to protect civilians; on the other, the governments with authority over NATO forces have declared that their policy goal is Gaddafi relinquishing power. Sophistry aside, it’s hard to separate the one goal from the other.
The actual political goal of the action therefore seems to be regime change. Can this be considered Right Intention? I’d say yes, given the Gaddafi regime’s record of poor governance and abuse of rights – and its own flagrant abuse of the rules for waging war, jus in bello : proportionality, distinction between military and civilians, and military necessity. But with one caveat: will the regime that replaces Gaddafi be significantly better than his regime, and will that improvement be worth the death, suffering and damage incurred? On balance, the answer seems likely to be yes.
However, it also behooves us to look at this on a wider canvas. Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is still very new. It says that:
“Each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, including their incitement, through appropriate and necessary means. We accept that responsibility and will act in accordance with it…
“… The international community, through the United Nations, also has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in accordance with Chapters VI and VIII of the Charter, to help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. In this context, we are prepared to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council, in accordance with the Charter, including Chapter VII, on a case-by-case basis and in cooperation with relevant regional organizations as appropriate, should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities manifestly fail to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity…”
R2P was adopted as a text by the UN General Assembly in 2005, which may well be seen by historians in the future as a critical point in the evolution of global governance to rival St Thomas and his Just War ideas. But it will take time for this principle to become a genuine part of international doctrine. For that, the R2P needs to be cited in important decisions, and a body of precedence in its use needs to be accumulated, so that decision makers in the future – be they heads of state making decisions about how to treat their citizens, or internationals deciding whether to intervene on behalf of those whose governments fail to protect them – have an operational framework to go by.
Libya is perhaps the first time R2P has been invoked so publicly, on such a scale, and used within the UNSC to justify a major military action. So the way it is framed and the way it plays out take on an importance even greater than the well-being of Libyans; affecting the well-being of future populations whose governments fail to live up to their responsibility. Getting it wrong may mean years of delay in turning R2P into a doctrine that’s widely accepted and provides legitimacy to protect civilians elsewhere, and in the future.
I understand that it’s naïve to think we can divorce weighty decisions like suspending the sovereignty of a UN Member State, from issues of realpolitik. Nor is this blog an argument against the international action in Libya. But we must be wary of the kind of dishonesty inherent in the international system, which allows powerful Member States to lead the way in persuading the UN-SC to mandate violent action against a regime which those same States have already declared needs changing, using the language of R2P.
In Iraq, the arguments about invasion hung mainly on two hinges: getting the UN’s blessing, and the presumed existence of WMD. What was too often missing in public discourse was a frank discussion about the real objectives and plans. This would have allowed people to make an informed political and ethical judgement. The righs and wrongs got lost in the fog of sophistry. In the future, if we are to evaluate the rights and wrongs of international intervention being proposed under R2P, it is of utmost importance that the language used to frame and justify the intervention is as honest and frank as possible, both at the UN and in the parliaments and public discourse of those doing the proposing. It seems a pity that this lesson hasn’t yet been learned; or that the system and culture of international governance still makes frankness such a rare commodity.
Phil Vernon 