Transcript Lessons from Rwanda

Lessons from Rwanda
Peter Uvin
Development aid , not humanitarian aid , not
foreign policy or peacekeeping, but
development practice narrowly conceived
 they are there, in large numbers, before
violence and soon thereafter
 Written as part of the system, not critical
outsider (genocide survivor)
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Long live the JEEAR, BUT
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in the country of the thousand technical
assistants, easily 3/4 of the bazungu that lived
there before the genocide were in development –
and yet, the JEEAR devoted no space to it at all
Reflected broad sense that there was no relation
at all (UN and OAU report too)
“development to relief continuum”
This has now totally changed
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The deliberate blindness I dissected in my book
has disappeared, and almost all are trying to see
now
those now working in Rwanda are aware of the
social and political challenges facing the country
and seek to reflect on their agency’s impact
thereupon. Many spend money in explicit attempts
to influence core social and political dynamics of
governance, reconciliation, justice, security, etc.
A lot has changed since 1994
 JEEAR in part, but more
 The Rwandan development, foreign policy,
humanitarian crises themselves
The on-going post Cold-War change in
international political climate favoring more
forceful interventionism
The longstanding debates about more
holistic definitions of “development”
POST-CONFLICT AGENDA
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The addition of new fields of work –justice, policy
and security reform, demobilization, disarmament
and reintegration, reconciliation and exclusionary
values, and a few not so new but still very much
strengthened areas such as inclusive
governance, respect for human rights …
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Funding of conflict resolution organizations and
projects –some very new and good stuff… . In
Burundi’s, take radio Ijambo or the Burundi
Leadership Training Project, for example.
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(masquerading as conflict prevention)
Budgets of organizations such as IA or CMG have
risen dramatically, mainly paid for on development
budgets.
Funding goes to interesting local organizations like
POLE Institute in Goma, or the IRDP in Kigali
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But the agenda is also about doing the existing
stuff, the old issues, differently, with a better sense
of their impact on conflict --rural development, for
example, or education, or even reconstruction
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Tools were developed, although they tend to be
weak: scientifically not solid, superficially
implemented, under-discussed (especially
transparently), without much impact on actual
policy…
Difficulties
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Hard to assess situation & trends
time horizon way too short, and financing+ project
tools even shorter.
Goals and objectives of donors are not
necessarily clear, shared, consistent, or coherent
(incl. self-interested goals)
Same holds for recipients
Heavy footprint of the system
In conclusion
1. disjuncture between breadth of mandate and
absence of prioritization + paucity of
resources
 donors fund a bit of everything
 the total is less than the sum of the parts
2. new agenda is not contextualized and
unrealistic
 deep imbalance between far-reaching
aims and limited resources + knowledge
3. post-conflict agenda grants unconstrained
license to intervene, devoid of tools for making
choices about priorities or under conditions of
scarce resources or conflict
 need to define an approach that minimizes the
reach of the international community, leaving as
much as possible to local actors, while being
principled and providing a real value-added
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Until now: post-conflict agenda.
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Widely implemented (too many countries in or out of
war)
Although with enormous difficulties in terms of impact
The more important agenda, however, is the
conflict prevention one, which is very rarely
implemented –although an enormous amount of
lip-service is paid to it
CONFLICT PREVENTION
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It remains extremely difficult to get serious
investment and attention to preventing conflict
before it broke out... Although there is a lot of talk
about a culture of prevention and how efficient
and humane it would be to invest more in CP,
there is little practice in this regard.
One of the few exceptions: Burundi
There are good ideas around (Bernard Wood’s
paper for UNDP for ex.), but they have a hard
time getting attention…
Known difficulties
 lack of political will of donors
 lack of urgency for IC policy-makers
 lack of interest of most poor country
governments (unwarranted interference in their
internal affair)
 Turf wars about control & resources
 lack of quality knowledge a) about the situation,
and b) about what can be done
e.g. international community in Rwanda before genocide
LESSONS NOT LEARNT
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Choice: no mechanisms for choice anywhere.
JEEAR and its 10-years later report never
mention choices: they just pile on great things
to do, as if time and money and energy were
limitless.
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Realism: an enormous amount of what we are
doing in the PCP agenda is deeply normative,
essentially a copying of a pluralist, liberaldemocratic market + democracy system. This
stands not the slightest chance in many PC
countries.
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Ottaway: “the international community needs
to rethink its approach, starting not from what
the ideal end goal should be, but from what
can realistically be achieved with the
resources that are likely to be available and
taking into consideration the real distribution
of power that exists in the country. We
cannot hope to impose an ideal solution on
all countries.”
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Staying the course: much of what is being
asked for is very complicated political
judgment, and a willingness to pursue a path
for the long turn, taking risks, understanding
that the changes required will not happen
rapidly, the process wil not always be
forwardsh
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Self-constraint: they also contain no sense
of what one should not do, how to limit one’s
power, how to cut down on the deep
interventionism inherent in the agenda. This
may entail working in fewer areas, leaving
entire fields off the map of our
interventions….
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Organizational focus: too little on the way
the incentive structure that prevails within
organizations militates against most of what
is required. Focus is only substantive, and
interesting, for sure, but without critical
analysis of personnel, budget, accounting,
knowledge management, and other
organizational polices, little will change.
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Dealing with politics: OECD 1999 Synthesis report
on “the use of incentives & disincentives for peace”:
All aid, at all times, is political –recognized or not,
deliberate or not…
PC agenda and a fortiori CP one are even more
political –they seek to affect local actors’ aims,
powers, relations, etc.
 We cannot admit it, and cannot cope with it
At the end of the day, then,
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I think we cannot prevent conflicts at this time. We
have neither the knowledge, nor the power, nor
the flexibility, nor the stamina, to prevent conflicts
(if local people aren’t doing it).
Would need a different world
where the weak and the poor have equal voices,
Where governments represent all (incl survivors)
Where people are committed to peace
Case of Burundi
 significant change in international
infrastructure required
 stronger principled behavior, presumably
based on human rights conditionality
(although…)
 All the rest is long-term muddling through by
local actors, who can be supported