Day: October 24, 2012
From silos to networks
Who are peacebuilders? What do they do? Where do they come from? Do they work together, and if so, how? These are the questions that Peacebuilding 2.0: Mapping the Boundaries of an Expanding Field seeks to answer, according to Melanie Greenburg of the Alliance for Peacebuilding. The report, developed by the Alliance with help from the Joan B. Kroc Institute of Peace and Justice and the United States Institute of Peace, will be released this summer. On Friday, representatives of these groups launched the report with a discussion of its highlights.
We have entered a new era of peacebuilding, according to Necla Tschirgi of the Kroc Institute. Over the past decade the world has experienced prolonged conflict and militarization. By some measures, people may be less violent, but tensions have flared over environmental, food and energy issues. The funding for organizations like the United States Institute of Peace is at risk and more and more of the U.S.’s international aid is coming under the Department of Defense’s purview.
The Peacebuilding Mapping Project (PMP) administered two surveys for Peacebuilding 2.0. The first, given to Alliance for Peacebuilding members, received 44 responses and showed that peacebuilders work in 153 different countries in pre-conflict, conflict mediation, and post-conflict. Roughly 90% of the organizations surveyed focus on basic peacebuilding processes, like building trust and social cohesion, and they put these processes to work in a variety of areas, including women’s issues, youth issues, and development. Despite such a wide mandate, 60% of the organizations operate on a budget of less than $500,000 and 25% on a budget of less than $50,000.
The PMP gave the second survey to a wider range of organizations working in many different fields and 75 responded. Fifteen replied that they do not identify directly as peacebuilders, but eleven of these fifteen report that they have peacebuilding projects. Many of the organizations in this survey tend to be older and better endowed. Few have mission statements that include conflict-related language.
There are several important implications of this data. First, there are gaps in our knowledge. There is no clearly identifiable shared body of methodologies or principles. It is not clear how peacebuilding or peacebuilding-related organizations network and work together. Second, changes must be made to improve future peacebuilding efforts. Practitioners, academics, and politicians must recognize the wide range of organizations that are involved in peacebuilding and use a “conflict sensitive lens” for work related to conflict. The field must become more cohesive so that different organizations can easily collaborate.
A panel including Hrach Gregorian of Institute of World Affairs, Joceyln Kelly of Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Sharon Morris of Mercy Corps, John Agoglia of IDS International, and Paul Williams of Public International Law and Policy Group discussed the implications of Peacebuilding 2.0 in their own professional contexts. Morris explained that Mercy Corps projects are most successful where peacebuilding and development work are combined, but collaboration is difficult because the two groups of practitioners do not know how to talk to each other. Agoglia explained the need for greater cooperation between the Department of Defense and peacebuilding organizations. Williams agreed that communication is a problem and added that in conflict situations, there are often a number of organizations interested in helping, but officials are not able to coordinate so many players. Kelly concluded that transitioning from “silos” to “networks” is essential in order to address all of the problems people face in conflict zones.
Gregorian said that in the 80’s, people were wondering if peacebuilding was even a field. Today we are discussing the established field’s boundaries. This shows how far peacebuilding has come, but also shows what we need to work on in the future.
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Good news
It wasn’t just excess wonkiness that made me tweet about the World Bank’s “Doing Business” report website. It was this tidbit I found there: Kosovo jumped up 28 places in the rankings (from 126 to 98). Big improvements were in protecting investors, starting a business and dealing with construction permits. Serbia also saw a jump of 9 places in the rankings (from 95 to 86), with most of the improvement in starting a business and resolving insolvency.
I did my own unscientific survey last summer of a few entrepreneurs I met at a barbecue in Pristina. They all reported that it was easy to open a business and to operate one without serious problems. That’s better than I can say for my experience in DC.
This, to me, is very good news. It takes concerted effort to jump ahead the way Kosovo and Serbia have done. It also gets harder as you move up the rankings, for obvious reasons. I won’t be surprised if progress is uneven. The important thing is that both continue in the right direction.
Why is this important? Above all because it is the opening and growth of small businesses that will create stronger economies throughout the Balkans and raise the standard of living. Both Serbia and Kosovo have seen strong growth in recent years, but both appear to be slowing now due to the financial crisis plaguing all of Europe. Kosovo uses the euro as its currency, which in my way of thinking is a big plus since it eliminates monetary policy issues that are difficult to manage. But as a result, it cannot devalue to improve its trade position, as Serbia can.
The improvement in business climate is also an important indication that governance is improving. I’ll hope to see those improvements reflected in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index in the future. Neither Kosovo nor Serbia can be proud of their most recent (2010/11) scores there. In the long run, it is the willingness, or not, of Serbia and Kosovo to adopt the needed reforms to improve business conditions and governance that will determine whether and when they are ready to enter the European Union.
Of course there are other factors, not least the willingness of Belgrade and Pristina to normalize their relations and resolve the many outstanding issues between them. The meeting last week of the two prime ministers was a step in the right direction. Later, Serbian Prime Minister Dačić said that the issues to be discussed with Pristina
include missing persons, rights of the Serbs in northern and southern Kosovo, protection of the cultural and church heritage and property and privatization
This looks to me a good deal like former President Tadić’s four points. from early this year, which represented an effort to greatly reduce Serbia’s “asks” of Kosovo.
The big missing item is partition, which Dačić will more than likely raise again in due course. He is deeply invested in the idea. Neither Dačić nor Tadić has been prepared to put recognition of Kosovo’s sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as establishment of diplomatic relations on the table. Those things will come at the end of the process, not at the beginning, but come they must. The EU and U.S. will need to provide the leverage required to make Serbia swallow pills Belgrade has made much more bitter by its diehard resistance.
In the meanwhile, let’s celebrate what there is to celebrate: two countries that are moving, however haltingly, in the right direction. I wish I could say as much for my other friends in the Balkans, in particular Bosnia.
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