Obstacles to Peacebuilding by del Castillo Graciana; & Soto Álvaro de

Author:del Castillo, Graciana; & Soto, Álvaro de
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Routledge

It’s the Economy, Stupid

If I were to coin a term for Secretary-General António Guterres on what is really missing from the UN peacebuilding agenda that could help countries overcome the high risk of conflict, I would paraphrase James Carville: “It’s the economy, stupid.”56

By rehashing old arguments, the 2015 Report detracted from its own conclusion that, ten years after the creation of the peacebuilding architecture, there was a need to take a “fresh look” at the “whole approach” to peacebuilding – not at the concept itself.57 This is something that Secretary-General Guterres must seriously consider as soon as feasible.

By arguing that “[o]vercoming socio-economic grievances, offering populations the means to earn livelihoods and creating the foundations for inclusive, broad-based economic growth … integral to any transition from conflict to normalcy,” the 2015 Report has touched on a particularly important point.58

As Tony Addison warned in 2003, “well-designed economic reforms raise the chances that recovery will be broad-based, instead of narrow, in its benefits” but “badly designed policy change can be an impediment to the implementation of the peace process.”59 Over a decade later, the UN in general, and the Commission in particular, continues to ignore such an important paradigm.

Indeed, the Commission and Support Office have flagrantly ignored the need for inclusive economic and social policies as a key ingredient of peacebuilding. Lack of inclusion not only contributes to the high risk of conflict but creates a breeding ground for pandemics such as Ebola, which has affected three of the six countries on the Commission’s agenda.

In these countries, failure to utilize aid effectively and inclusively has led to decrepit infrastructure and poor health systems that breed both disease and discontent among the large majority of the population. Instead of acting preventively in advocating improvement in basic conditions in countries under its watch, the Commission reactively put his efforts into fighting Ebola after it had hit three countries on its agenda by marshalling financing for it.

The issue that the UN membership and other foreign interveners should be debating is precisely this: how to support policies that can help overcome some of the major obstacles to peacebuilding which have been impairing the UN record over the last quarter of a century. Most importantly, the debate should focus on how to discourage current policies that lack inclusion and interfere with UN peacebuilding efforts at all levels.60

Criticisms of the lack of country diversity on the Commission’s agenda (all six countries are from Africa) and the fact that no new country was selected in the past four years should not be disparaged.61 However, a more critical question is why the Commission has failed to attract countries (on the Security Council agenda or not) at an early stage of the transition to peace or at a later stage in countries about to exit from the Council, where it is clearly where it can have an impact.

In countries exiting the Council, the transition from reconstruction to normal development has proved particularly difficult because of the ineffective and fragmented support that these countries get from the UN development system.

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