Summary of prior best practices
conferences
The conference hosted at
the University of California, Irvine on October 21 – 23,
2004 was an extension of discussions and learning from
four prior research
conferences:
-
Reflecting
on Peace Practice project (CDA Inc.);
-
New
Paths to Peace: Collaborative Post-Conflict Reconstruction
(University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee);
-
USIP
Track One - Track Two Cooperation Symposium (US Institute of
Peace); and
-
Best
Practices Conferences (University of California,
Irvine)
Summary of this
conference
The main goals of the conference were to
collect lessons learned and best practices in planning and
implementing peacebuilding processes from participants who
have considerable experience doing such work in various
conflict zones and analyze which lessons in cross-sector
collaboration are applicable to the Afghan and Iraqi
contexts.
Participants at the conference had
experience in working in Afghanistan, Iraq, and/or other war
torn regions.
They work in various professional sectors including
grassroots conflict resolution, official diplomacy, security,
humanitarian relief, civil society development, and political
development (including political party, parliamentary, human
rights, constitutional and rule of law development). They came from both
public and private organizations in the United States as well
as Northern Ireland.
They represented such official actors as the US
Military and the National Security
Council.
Over the course of the conference a
couple of major topics were highlighted in the
discussions.
Paradigm
shift for peacebuilding since September 11th. The question was
raised about whether Iraq, and to a lesser degree Afghanistan,
should be seen as unique cases or whether the experience there
has changed significantly the way peacebuilders will go about
their work in the future. Especially poignant in
those related discussions was the question of security and
whether the post-September 11th War on Terror has
created a paradigm shift in changing the calculations of NGOs
and their relationship to the military in their post-conflict
recovery work.
The participants (both military officers and NGO
members) expressed that the “new” security situation in
Afghanistan and Iraq was difficult for both sides.
Most NGOs are not trained or accustomed
to operating under such extreme security situations and are
not effective in conducting their work from safe compounds
without being able to act in the field. They also have
difficulties in carrying out their daily work when accompanied
by armed guards or military personal. This new relationship
to or interaction with the military challenges their own
understanding of their role and the perceived neutrality they
are accustomed to operating with. This raises the
difficulty that up until now many NGOs used their distance
from the military or state run institutions to further their
trustworthiness among locals.
o
“It’s hard to do
anything when you have to travel around Iraq like this
accompanied by two tanks.” (Major Joseph
Kopser)
o
“If you
don’t talk to
the security people you can’t get anywhere” (Bill Stuebner)
o
“Many NGOs have seen
more combat than many in the military. Now we’re hearing
about them pulling out – has there been a shift in the risk
analysis?” (Major Schweiss)
o
“It’s hard for anyone
from within our community to associate with the military since
anyone who would do so could therefore be seen as possibly
being a collaborator.” (Liam Maskey)
o
People
on the ground are leery of the role of the US “neutral” humanitarians
versus the military intervention. Example: PRT doing
visibility patrol and then seen in Hummers giving out
backpacks to school children. Military out of
uniform taking on reconstruction
projects.
In addition, the kidnapping of foreigners
in Iraq and Afghanistan has complicated the situation even
more. Though many
of the NGO workers would like to stay in the crisis region and
continue their work, their home offices and governments are
requesting them to leave because of the potential danger and
cost that might result.
Jim Prince and Caesar Sereseres explained that many
NGOs which have been confronted with a kidnapping situation
are now unwilling to take another risk. Moreover, the apparent
lack of concern for or ability to stop the occurrences of
kidnappings has a damaging effect on the local level where
NGOs are operating far from their headquarters in either the
US or Europe.
Politics prevail.
Headquarters do not want problems in the field that
could affect long-term revenue
collections.
o
“Where is Margaret
Hassan, today?
When the Iraqi Director of CARE was kidnapped it didn’t
even reach the papers here. This is seen as very
significant to Iraqis.
Iraqis wonder the consequences of a peaceable woman
kidnapped and no one can do anything about it.” (Jim Prince)
o
“When UN bombing
occurred then there goes coordination and it had a great
impact on the NGOs.
The bombing of the Red Cross was also a blow to NGOs on
the ground. Since
9/11 security has risen to top priority. Save the Children, for
example, had armed guards. We’re dealing in a new
era; the UN had been funding a lot so when they pulled out so
did the NGOs.” (Adib Faris)
From the military perspective the
situation is complicated as well. In the past, the
military was able to concentrate its work mainly on providing
overall security and coordination. It now must provide
more and more of the social services and peace-building that
NGOs are no longer able to offer due to the increased
risks. This means
that the military has to supervise projects, serve as judge
of
confrontations between local groups, etc. However they are
not usually trained for these operations, “the only folks we have
who have a clue that there are other people are the civil
affairs guys … who are only 15 in Afghanistan meaning 3 guys
responsible in a 100 mile radius” (Major Schweiss). There needs to be a “mental shift between Warrior and Diplomat” (Major
Schweiss). Many
of the younger recruits want to stay in their “safe” complexes
instead of going out to play social worker and justice of
peace with the local civilians. Major Schweiss and
Kopser also pointed out (emphasizing the situation in Iraq)
that there are too few troops to take care of the additional
peacebuilding tasks normally performed by NGOs and other
groups. They also
explained that the military leadership has the added pressure
of peacebuilding in the midst of a serious security threat
during this new situation and that often the leadership in
this area has to make the difficult choice between one or the
other. Many
believed “real men don’t do peacekeeping” (Major Schweiss),
but especially the situation in Iraq is making headway towards
a change in the military culture. (Major Schweiss and
Kopser)
The new security situation in Iraq and
Afghanistan, where we are still in an active stage of war and
the US is a combatant, will necessitate collaboration between
civil and military interventions. Cross-sector
collaboration is possible where some NGOs will hire security
and intelligence organizations to protect property and staff
working in the field.
Summary of conclusions from break-out
sessions on collaboration efforts:
o There needs to be a
clearinghouse between the NGOs and military. USAID can serve that
purpose. Although
others expressed that USAID is problematic because it is a US
government agency with an agenda. “Can’t have good
peacekeeping without civil society development.” (Major
Kopser
)
o
There needs to be a
means to convey the lessons learned. The UN has already
done it with an online database of who is working where AREU
(Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit). It does the analysis
for policy makers on issues of transitional justice, impunity,
land reform, health, women and children’s rights.
o
Coordination requires
two levels of information: (1) who is out there; (2) something
else is needed at a local level to initiate
cooperation.
o
Awareness needs to be
raised between conflicting groups of each other. Interaction between
conflicting groups, perhaps coordinated by an outside group,
can lead to more understanding and tolerance. (Liam
Maskey)
o
From military
perspective liaison Civil Affairs Officer (from Reserves) is
seen as irrelevant, out of their area of expertise, and
therefore marginalized.
Result – all NGO work is done with interaction with
the War Fire Center, not civil affairs. NGOs seen as just
another item to be concerned with from a safety point of
view.
o
When the interaction
works well: private security forces work with the military and
the civil-military cells track locations of the
NGOs.
o
There
is a common culture among the military of any country and most
don’t have
a clue that there are other people involved. (Tina Schweiss)
o
We need risk-takers
on both sides, civilian and military, to reach out to each
other.
o
Oftentimes
communities are on opposite sides of the conflict, which makes
it that much more difficult to cooperate. (Paula
Garb)
o
NGO’s
can help build trust for the security forces.
o
We should not blur
the lines between what the military is doing versus what
humanitarian aid organizations are doing. “The military should
not be involved in the non-military issues such as civil
society building, etc.” (Adib Faris)
o
Consistency is a
problem because personnel are rotated in and out every 6
months, and relationship building in the Arab world is
especially important. (Milt Lauenstein)
o
Coordination between
sectors is severely complicated because of constant rotations
and changes of staff within each sector. Maintained exchange
and collaboration is extremely important but difficult. (Paula
Garb)
Importance
of timing for political development and democratization. The issue of
democratization was also discussed at length by the
participants, and whether the timing was ripe for that type of
citizen peacebuilding.
The group agreed that forcing political development was
a major source of the failure in Iraq. Nancy Bearg posed the
question whether Iraq is ready for citizen peacebuilding. This line of debate
lead to a series of questions being raised about the
conditions that need to be in place for citizen peacebuilding
to be effective.
Several political and strategic decisions and events
that further weakened the situation for peacebuilders were
enumerated.
There was a window of opportunity, which
was not used; there was a time period after victory was
declared when the hearts and minds of the local people were
not in question.
There was a time when reconstruction was possible (Jim
Prince). However,
without a clear strategy on how to stabilize the situation in
Iraq (Major Kopser) or a plan on how to deal with the Northern
Alliance / Warlords in Afghanistan (Major Schweiss, David
Poplack) instability and subsequent insurgency was only a
matter of time.
Some wondered if it is possible to fight an insurgency
at the same time you are
nation-building.
o
“Nation-building is
rooted in our reserves, not combat troops. The US military reserves and national guard units are
made up of medics, teachers, construction specialists,
psychological operations and civic action units, and military
police.
Most of those in Iraq
doing these jobs are reserve or national guard personnel.” (Caesar
Sereseres)
o “Military
has to do everything in uniform, not pretend to be something
else.” (Bill Stuebner)
o
“Who
wins on the battlefield is not relevant compared to political
will. The military and
police of the state can consistently “defeat” insurgents and
terrorists, but the long run decides the “victor” – this is
about political win and less about the number of “wins” on the
battlefield.” (Caesar Sereseres)
o
“The Northern
Alliance is running Kabul. There is no
infrastructure in Afghanistan. People are tired of
war. In Iraq,
they are angry from being under the thumb of a dictator. The will of the people
in Afghanistan may adapt to democracy.” (David
Poplack)
o
“Some
NGOs thought Iraq was going to be like Afghanistan and thought
it would be
difficult for awhile, maintain a small presence, but things
got worse, much worse.
NGOs were caught off guard, didn’t know what was
happening on the ground, they wanted the big money that USAID
was offering.” (Adib Faris)
The high expectations established,
especially in Iraq, particularly in the areas of
democratization and security were unrealistic. This automatically put
all actors on a pre-programmed path of failure. (Major
Schweiss, Jim Prince)
Adib Faris spoke about this in light of the financial
shortcomings and problems and the consequent difficulties that
result when trying to involve local organizations and
groups. The shift
in funding priorities by USAID impeded the work of
peacebuilders on the ground. NGOs were forced to
change from local rebuilding and community work to voter
education and political party development. This caused distrust and the end of work with many
local groups, and the eventual departure of many NGOs who were
not able to support voter registration programs (Adib
Faris).
o
“Elections don’t equal
democracy; we need to grow a sense of democracy.” (Major Tina
Schweiss)
o
“We put the cart
before the horse and began training in campaigning instead
of discussing what kind of democratic system they want. You can’t have
military people talking about democracy. Electoral policy does
not equal democracy.” (Jim Prince)
o
“In Iraq,
peacebuilding hasn’t been put into the Iraqi context; without
voter education then it’s meaningless.” (Jim Prince)
o
“Security, jobs,
services – elections are way down on the priorities.” (Rebecca
Linder)
o
“We need
to look at timing and how you determine when is the right time
to do
what kinds of work; there is evidence that you have to have
lengthy periods of other kinds of development, peacebuilding
and democratization work before you can hold elections without
doing harm.” (Bruce Hemmer
)
o
You can
organize at the street level but once you interject political
party
development and preparations to hold elections, the progress
breaks down.” (Adib Faris)
Role of
donors in collaboration efforts. The participants
discussed the need for an incentive, most notably financial,
to encourage coordination or collaboration of efforts on the
ground. When an
NGO first enters the field they want to know the who’s who,
but once a project gets underway you become a slave to it and
the reporting process to headquarters. It is typically not an
institutional goal to coordinate; it is more dependent upon
the interest of the manger to pursue. There has to be a
financial component in order to get the NGO to collaborate,
and this will have to come externally from the funder (Paula
Garb, Adib Faris).
One suggestion posed was an inter-donor dialogue to
share the political context and collectively determine how to
structure funding to an area to obtain
coherence.
Recommendations
The participants voiced some suggestions
on how to proceed given the current situation in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Major Kopser pointed out that citizen peacebuilding in
Iraq could immediately begin in the Green Zone. Liam Maskey suggested
bringing people out of the country and training them in other
countries much like the EU did during the conflict in Northern
Ireland. Adib
Faris encouraged the group to think of primarily working with
local groups and staff.
He related his positive experiences in working with “community action groups” before
Catholic Relief Services had to leave Iraq. He
also mentioned, however, the challenges of performance control
in these projects, especially when NGO personnel cannot freely
travel to supervise the projects. Heidi Burgess sees a chance
in using more soft power and especially in collaborating more
closely with European experts, who have many experiences in
this area. Nancy Bearg sees a major opportunity in aiding
local operations by helping people to start their own small
businesses where NGOs provide the training and expertise
(“self-empowerment”).
The possibility of supervising
and leading projects from the “outside” through modern
communication was also raised and tentatively supported
by the
participants; however, several downsides to such an approach
were also voiced, namely the lack of local staff development
to adequately monitor projects with remote supervision
and no
assurance of financial accountability.
Next Steps
There was a strong consensus expressed
among the conference participants that one of the conference
goals was to come away with actionable conclusions,
publishable recommendations, and further research questions
for investigation.
Closing discussions focused on the need for another
gathering to move ahead on a set of focused policy
recommendations based upon the lessons learned and best
practices in planning and implementing cross-sectoral
collaborative peacebuilding processes.
Research topics still needing further
discussion and study included:
1.
the specific
lessons learned by NGOs operating in Iraq and
Afghanistan;
2.
the degree to
which social capital must be built before political
development should be pursued;
3.
the need to
develop alternatives to building security without the
military;
4.
the most
effective uses of soft power in light of the new age of the
war on terror;
5.
the nature of
evaluation, need for better measures of progress. How could we
refine our methodology and implementation
efforts?
There was much discussion about reframing
the role of the U.S. in peacebuilding from one of a neutral
third party to a conflictant. Paula Garb raised the
question, “Now I am a conflictant. As a peacebuilder in
the field what have I learned about people in conflict who
are
willing to take the risk of bridging the gap?” One notable action
item suggested was to develop an essay on the plans and
possible approaches (“a plan on the shelf”) to peacebuilding
from the perspective of a conflictant.
Another actionable conclusion raised was
to put together an edited volume consisting of general lessons
learned and specific case studies on cross-sectoral
collaboration.
All participants agreed that the
conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have brought new challenges
to peacebuilding, especially in terms of security and
military-NGO relations. It was decided that at future
conferences these topics need to be discussed and studied
further in order for citizen peacebuilding groups to train
their people and to develop strategies for dealing with these
new conflict forms and the unexpected challenges they
bring.
Future Plans
Inspired by the results of the conference
and further telephone-conferences and meetings afterwards a
preliminary action program has been established. It was agreed
that the projects to work on are a book publication about the
results of the conference as well as a conference in which the
possible authors of the book as well as well-known speakers
would present their thoughts on the lessons in collaborative
peacebuilding learned from Afghanistan and Iraq and possible
future consequences of this.
Preliminary Schedule for
2005:
October/November
Conference, Washington D.C. or near by
For more information please
contact:
Paula Garb
email:
pgarb@uci.edu
phone:
(949) 824-1227
Turning
research into action for a safer world 
