The Nobel Peace Prize Committee has not done either President Obama or itself any favours by awarding him this year’s prize. It’s an award for promise rather than achievement. Read the citation and it sounds pretty much like saying, ‘We award the prize to the most popular man in the world because we like his views.’ Continue reading
Conflict & peace
Reintegrating ex-fighters is about more than the ex-fighters
A few years back, the universally acknowledged truth in peacebuilding was that, for a country to move from a peace agreement on paper into a real and sustainable peace process, the fighters had to disarm, demobilise and re-integrate – DDR. It was high priority on the ground, backed by a deal of international activity to learn lessons and sort out best practice. Lately, the energy seems to have drained out of DDR. It is time to renew it. Continue reading
Economic recovery and successful peacemaking: two irritating footnotes on DFID’s white paper
DFID’s impressive White Paper came out in July; it marks a major step forward in thinking and policy-making on international development (see my post on 21 August). But there are at least a couple of points that deserve a second, sceptical look. Without detracting from the achievement registered with the White Paper, but just to have it on record in a quiet way, DFID takes an unguardedly if necessarily optimistic view about recovery from the recession and over-states the success of peace agreements quite dramatically. Continue reading
Development thinking develops – DFID’s white paper and what comes next
It can be safely predicted that ideas and the terms of discussion about international development will change fundamentally in the coming five years. A major policy statement from the UK Department for International Development (DFID) marks an important milestone on this road, though it’s a long way from being the endpoint. In this very long post, I explore the white paper and a way of taking DFID’s logic forward. Continue reading
More on climate change and conflict, peacebuilding and adaptation
The level of understanding about the human and social impact of climate change is steadily increasing. A staggering estimate from the Global Humanitarian Forum in Geneva is that climate change already leads to 300,000 fatalities per year, among over 300 million people seriously affected. Continue reading
Climate, conflict, peacebuilding and adaptation: a need for leaps and links
To assist poor countries facing the double and connected problems of climate change and violent conflict, adaptation to climate change has to be combined with peacebuilding. For this to be possible, organisations – governmental, inter-governmental and non-governmental alike – that work on development, the environment and peace issues have to move out of their boxes and make more than one leap of imagination and policy so the links are visible between both problems and solutions. It is not inevitable that the Obama administration will succeed in this. Help is needed! Continue reading
Headline thoughts on climate change, conflict risk and adaptation
It is an increasingly familiar argument that the consequences of climate change will interact with key features of the social, economic and political landscape of countries in such a way that, especially among the poorer countries in the world, the risk of violent conflict will rise significantly. The policy agenda for addressing this problem is a combination of peacebuilding and adaptation to climate change, both of them involving a combination of international support for nationally coordinated action that engages the participation and energy of ordinary people and communities. During the week of 8 to 12 June I was in Washington DC gauging how these issues are viewed there.
Here are some headline thoughts, recorded by the Environmental Change and Security Programe at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in DC in connection with a talk I gave for them: (click here). Go to the New Security Beat web-site (see my log roll on the lower right of this home page) for more.
Obama in power (10): Cairo – brilliant speech but that awkward question persists
President Obama’s speech in Cairo on 4 June offers further evidence of his unrivalled communication skills and of his will and capacity to address thorny issues by reframing and reshaping them in a way that offers new openings for change and improvement. As an opening to the Muslim world, is it possible to imagine an American president doing better given the realities in which he works? For many of the issues he raised, the question is if interlocutors and counterparts will step forward able to use the opportunities he is creating. And over Israel and Palestine, that is a familiar and awkward question. Continue reading
Counting the most peaceful countries – and the least
How do you recognise how peaceful countries are and systematically compare them to each other? And how do you work out what makes countries peaceful? And if we all knew the answers to these questions would we be more able to make the world more peaceful? Figuring the answer to the third question is yes, the Global Peace Index tries to answer the first two. It is now published for the third successive year. Continue reading
Obama in power (9): To strengthen peace in the Middle East, the first big step is in the US
It’s a big week for US policy and the Middle East, a defining moment for the Obama administration’s impact. What happens this week will not alone be enough to achieve regional cooperation with the US on peace and security but, if it goes wrong, that will be enough to make that cooperation next to impossible for several years again. Continue reading
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