Under new leadership, the UK Department for International Development is emphasising results and accountability. And as part of that, the big multilateral beasts of development – to which the UK gives £3 billion a year – are coming under the efficiency microscope. It will be good to assess them not just for efficiency but for impact, and especially their impact on peace and conflict because it is the thing they have trouble taking into account. (more…)
Entries categorized as ‘Conflict & peace’
The big beasts of development… – and peace
July 5, 2010 · 1 Comment
Categories: Conflict & peace · International development
Tagged: fragile states, peacebuilding, UN, DFID, World Bank, Liberia, Andrew Mitchell, UK government, UN Peacebuilding Fund, Burundi, Somalia, PRSP, multilateral agencies
UK development aid: First major government speech
June 5, 2010 · 1 Comment
Categories: Conflict & peace · International development
Tagged: 0.7%, Andrew Mitchell, DFID, fragile states, human security, poverty
Water, conflict and peace
June 3, 2010 · 5 Comments
Water is a basic condition of life. We depend upon it for daily use, for agriculture, for industry and infrastructure. A shortage, an excess and deficient quality can all undermine welfare, impair human security, hold back economic development and in some circumstances generate conflict. The London-based Foreign Policy Centre has published Tackling the World Water Crisis, an edited collection of articles in which mine looks at the peace and security issues around water. (more…)
Categories: Climate change · Conflict & peace · International development
Tagged: food security, Climate change, poverty, fragile states, human security, peacebuilding, China, adaptation, Yemen, India
After the UK election (2): Three questions on international development
May 20, 2010 · Comments Off
What does the advent of the new government mean for UK policy on international development? (more…)
Categories: Conflict & peace · International development · The economic crunch
Tagged: food security, Climate change, poverty, fragile states, human security, peacebuilding, UN, DFID, Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Andrew Mitchell, coalition government, UK government
EU’s External Action Service: options remain open
March 28, 2010 · Comments Off
This past week the EU High Representative Catherine Ashton presented “her” proposal for the new European External Action Service (quotation marks on “her” because, of course, it is not hers alone – even in draft it is already a compromise). So far she has not won all her battles but nor has she lost them. In fact, those battles are not over. All options are open still and those of us who want a genuine Action service need to keep our sleeves rolled up and engage in the arguments ahead. (more…)
Categories: Conflict & peace · Power
Tagged: Ashton, EU, EU External Action service, European politics, human security, international politics, peacebuilding
Obama, 1 year in: flaws aren’t failure – but there are new risks in policy towards Iran
February 1, 2010 · Comments Off
President Barack Obama has handed himself his sharpest challenge yet: a year of showing his unclenched fist to Iran has produced nothing and now he is toughening up his stance with a missile shield for the US naval forces in the Gulf. What will this do to his presidency? There was so much hope and much of that energy remains, even if it is not being so effectively tapped, but in confronting Iran, might Obama seriously lose his way?
Categories: Conflict & peace · Power
Tagged: Bush, Clinton, IAEA, international politics, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Middle East, Nixon, nuclear weapons, Obama, Palestine, Reagan, UN
“Militarising aid” vs. “Running away from conflict”
January 27, 2010 · 3 Comments
The battle lines are starting to be drawn over how development assistance and peacebuilding do or don’t support each other, or can or can’t be made to work together, and about whether bad governance and insecurity are the right targets for international development policy and assistance. (more…)
Categories: Conflict & peace · International development
Tagged: DFID, fragile states, governance, human security, peacebuilding, poverty
In memoriam: Jean Charles de Menezes, 1978-2005 – and the insidious nature of conflict
January 7, 2010 · 2 Comments
This morning in sub-zero temperature, a permanent memorial for Jean Charles de Menezes was unveiled to a small crowd. Mis-identified as a terrorist suspect, he was killed by London police officers on 22 July 2005 at Stockwell tube station. That’s the local stop for where I work and I went along to the ceremony.
Categories: Conflict & peace
Tagged: Jean Charles de Menezes, Metropolitan Police
Obama in power (13): is the war in Afghanistan a Just War?
December 15, 2009 · 2 Comments
President Obama used the occasion of his Nobel lecture as he accepted the 2009 Peace Prize in Oslo on 10 December to defend the idea that war can be a legitimate means of upholding the larger peace, and specifically to argue that the US and allied war effort in Afghanistan is a just war. Did he convince? (more…)
Categories: Conflict & peace
Tagged: Afghanistan, Bush, human security, Iraq, Just War, Nobel Peace Prize, Obama
Copenhagen: time to re-think? Or just keep thinking!
December 6, 2009 · Comments Off
As thousands of negotiators, activists, diplomats, scientists, politicians and journalists start pouring into Copenhagen for the climate summit – formally said, the 15th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – the question has been raised whether we should want them to succeed or fail. Which, of course, begs the next question: what is success at Copenhagen?
So is Copenhagen not the time to seal a new climate deal after all? Is it time for a re-think? My own view is that it’s best never to stop thinking, then you don’t have to make the effort to start up again. (more…)
Categories: Climate change · Conflict & peace · International development
Tagged: adaptation, Bush, carbon emissions, carbon trading, Copenhagen, development aid, green economy, International development, international politics, peacebuilding, UN
