*** Please help with the Big Catch Up! ***

From Never Again

Gareth Evans (CEO of International Crisis Group) talking about "Preventing Deadly Conflict" at International House, NYC, 15 November 2005.

Seven lessons for effective conflict prevention

1. Conflict prevention does actually make a difference

Evidence: Declining number of conflict since the 1980s; Trend decline in battle deaths; also increase in number of conflicts that have been resolved through negotiation and mediation. Bad news is many high causalities in terrorist attacks. Why this decline?

• End of colonial wars.
• End of Cold War (no more proxy wars funded by USSR/US)
• Huge increases in formal activity by international community: peace keeping, peace making, peace building.

So, we need to acknowledge what has gone right.

2. One-size fits all analysis doesn’t work

Every conflict is different. Helpful for focusing the mind, but one must appreciate different factors at work in different conflicts. ICG emphasises the diversity of the particular conflict situations. Can’t make generalised assumptions.

3. Conflict is cyclical in character

Can’t think of it in a linear way. The key is breaking the cycle. Underlying factors have to be well resolved that the cycle doesn’t start again. Peace building. Best single indicator of future conflict is past conflict. The concentration on getting post conflict peace building right:

• E.g. Rwanda in 1990s.
• Arusha – led to self congratulation and the whole thing broke down within a year.
• Angolan civil war seemed to come to an end in 1990. Exploded later as a result of ineffective follow through.
• Haiti and Afghanistan after Russia left are also examples of lack of follow-through.

Huge amount of effort needed for all this.

4. Conflict prevention requires complex strategies and multiple tools

It can’t be one-dimensional. Conflict prevention: short term and long term measures – dealing with short term imminent conflicts and longer term structural measures. Tools:

• Political/Diplomatic
• Legal/Human Rights strategies
• Economic
• Military
• He didn’t mention education!

5. Conflict prevention requires effective institutional structures at global, regional, national and local levels

There are several things which need to be done institutionally to make conflict prevention more effective:

• Necessity to do something more effective about failed, failing and fragile states especially in post-conflict environments. There is little international capacity to do anything about these states. Establishing the UN Peace Building Commission is a good move, but there is still a long way to go before this is actually implemented. He briefly mention that the US is holding this Commission hostage – the US is linking this development to issues of management reform and is insisting that nothing moves until the issue of management is solved. So the Peace Building Commission is effectively being held hostage.
• Composition of the Security Council. The make-up of the Security Council has serious implications for the credibility of the UN. Hard for the moral authority of the Security Council to prevail when it is so unrepresentative. These reforms came close this year, but fell-though because of internal African conflicts.
• Secretariat Reforms. Also hugely important. Some lip-service being paid to this. Capacity of the Secretariat to effectively deliver operationally needs to be strengthened. Too much micro-management.

6. Application of Resources

There is a need for institutional structures, but also resources. It is difficult to get public sectors into giving money for conflict prevention (prevention works when nothing happens, and this is not what governments like – they like visible results). Cost/Benefit analysis can be used to make the argument for contributing to conflict prevention – it is much cheaper to prevent, rather than mop up afterwards. The issue is about resource availability and resource priorities.

7. The Political Will

Political will is needed in order to translate resources, tools and institutions into effective conflict prevention. But we can’t just lament the absence of political will – we need to think about how to create it, generate it. We have to chase this political will. Evans argues that this can be done with a combination of good institutional structures and good arguments. We need to provide arguments that can’t be ignored such as:

• Moral arguments. Governments like these.
• Financial arguments. Prevention cheaper than post-conflict involvement.
• National interest arguments.
• Domestic political arguments.

Question

Marian introduced herself and said she was a member of Never Again, an International Youth Network that has the majority of our members in Rwanda.

Marian asked him for a comment about education. She explained how important she thinks education is when it comes to conflict prevention. Both in post-conflict societies when we are talking about tools for peace building and breaking cycles of violence, education must surely play an extremely important role. But she also stressed how important education is when we are talking about creating political will. In a structural and long-term way we can create political will if we educate our children to be informed voters who also feel the responsibility to protect.

He answered that he couldn’t make the point about the importance of education any better than Marian :o). And he said that lobby groups like Never Again are very important for keeping education on the agenda and to keep up the good work!