Bill and I are really part of a research project where we're looking at the stabilisation discourse and measuring effect.
So really with dividing up, it's often session between us where I look at the stabilisation discourse and beyond.
We'll pick up the theme of measuring effectiveness.
The work really began in Helmand last two years ago now where we helped draught the U.K. plan for Helmand.
A revised plan for Helmand from one of the greatest difficulties that we had was identifying how you measure progress on stabilisation.
And there were two two problems here. One was the difficulty of defining what it meant by stabilisation, which is what I'll address now.
And the second was, was really how do you actually begin to conceptualise measuring progress towards an ideal state of stability for my paper?
It's it's worth setting a context.
The stabilisation discourse where stabilisation becomes a specific activity, a specific label really begins at the end of 2003.
It's a product of the failure to bring stability, particularly to Iraq, but also the increasing instability in Afghanistan.
And what we see is governments developing procedures,
processes and institutions to try and manage the various levers of government so that intervening parties,
particularly the Americans and some of the Western Europeans and the Canadians, are more capable of producing more coherent responses,
more capable of delivering what the U.S. Institute of Peace would describe as a viable peace.
And you saw in the U.K. in early 2004,
an attempt to create a post-conflict reconstruction unit were tried diplomatically between the Foreign Defence Development Ministries.
But you saw parallels in the United States with the office,
the SARS in Canada with staff and also development ministries in Holland and Denmark that sought
to identify the instruments and approaches in fragile states and post-conflict environments.
There are really two parts to this agenda. One is the institutional changes that we see on the set,
which relates to what the MTD often described as the comprehensive approach attempt
to bring together those three governments parliaments into some sort of coherence.
And there's also a sense of looking at the instruments of intervening in fragile states within the UK.
I think it's fair to say that the three developed the three ministries that often found themselves in stabilisation,
post-conflict environments, enmity, foreign office and development. The appetite for the stabilisation discourse is very different with the energy,
probably the the hungriest for this policy discourse reflecting its experience of counterinsurgency in the late,
heavy civilian component politically led counterinsurgency,
but also the sense that cementing peace in the Balkans and in Iraq required the transformative effect of development of political intervention.
The military tool on its own was insufficient in some way. But it also reflected the military sense of the causality of conflict here.
One could argue that they were infected with the discourse of the human security agenda and the idea, the politics that development, underdevelopment,
poor development and equitable development was a significant cause of conflict and that
the development issue was an agenda was key to establishing a more Jews during stability.
Some meat on the idea of a comprehensive tried EPOP mental approach was really
developed with the creation of the post-conflict reconstruction unit in 2004.
But the idea that this would somehow deliver an authoritative voice in government that would drive
the three departments of State into some form of integrated approach was never to be achieved.
The principal idea, the principal reason for this difficulty is that the post-conflict reconstruction
unit reported to the very ministries that it was intended for it to coordinate,
and it reported to a managing board and two star civilians from differed from the FCO and from the A.D.
So the idea of a strident coordinating role within government was lost in this much weaker institutional mechanism for coordination.
That said that there were serious attempts to improve horizontal working across government and the PCI.
You did play an important role in bringing together those governments and creating a platform by which they could produce
a joined up government plan rather than stapling together three separately produced plans for Iraq and Afghanistan.
There was also an attempt to give incentives to the three government departments to work horizontally and collaboratively.
And we could see this in a rather bureaucratic but quite important development to match the creation of public service agreements.
Originally, 1998. Simple device, a contract between the Treasury and the delivery departments in which departments
undertake to deliver certain public services and they are given a certain amount of money.
By 2007, these public service agreements had changed.
Some of them were crossfield governmental requiring.
In the case of CSA 30, which was to reduce the impact of conflict through enhanced UK and international efforts, it had a forell.
His lead, but deferred andere may be responsible for delivery,
and elements of bringing together the joint federal government were to be delivered
largely through the facilitation role of the post-conflict reconstruction unit.
So some of these bureaucratic measures help with the idea of a comprehensive approach to delivering stabilisation.
The BSA 30 came with a financial coup as well.
A new fund called the Stabilisation Aid Fund, 269 million pounds,
which was really created by the combination of the pre-existing global and Africa
conflict prevention pools so that conflict prevention work with ring-fence financially.
In the new conflict prevention pool and stabilisation work was subject to the Stabilisation Aid Fund.
Sadly, I think there are some issues with it.
Some Treasury officials, officials argued that this was a mechanism to preserve conflict prevention investments.
Others saw it more in more realistic terms,
which was that this was really the short term political imperatives of Iraq and Afghanistan during off along with them.
Conflict prevention funding. And this is a theme I'll pick up at the very end where I look at the distorting effect of the stabilisation agenda.
The 2007 with the creation of PSA 30 and the Stabilisation Eight Fund, you also saw a renaming of the post-conflict reconstruction unit.
It was it was labelled as the stabilisation unit for really two quite important reasons.
And there is quite a lot in a name. The first was that Iraq and Afghanistan, its main efforts were not post-conflict environments.
And secondly, the idea that you brought stability through reconstruction was a distortion of really what was going on.
What you're seeking to do is to build the legitimacy of the state. And the stabilisation programme wasn't a process of managing reconstruction.
It was a process of engaging and creating some form of political settlement.
So the renaming from SEIU reflected both a different environment and also a different activity.
The UK model for stabilisation also began to change.
I think some of it reflected the experience of the Balkans, where Balkans stabilisation was defined in fairly simple terms,
which is essentially the imposition of a military stability by an outside forces like were asked for,
and then the delivery of core infrastructure and critical public services.
And these were seen as the core contributions from the international civilian community.
I think by the time we see Helmand in 2007, we see a much more nuanced approach to what the stabilisation discourse means.
And it's somewhere between the counterinsurgency literature ministry of Defence and it's
somewhere adopting many of the principles that we see that work on fragile states.
And it's beginning to represent some of the best, the best practise of development ministry.
So it's a hybrid approach. The stabilisation unit produce something called the whole stabilisation paper.
And this conceived as stabilisation, aiming to support places that were emerging from violent conflict towards a period of peaceful development,
often through external military and civilian support for the weak host government,
and the support focussed on extending the legitimacy and capability of that government and providing immediately tangible benefits
to the population or quick wins that underpin their confidence in the state and the political process that it represented.
Stabilisation activities explicitly were intended to impact positively upon formal and informal political
dynamics at all levels and to contribute to a non-violent political settlement or interim accommodation.
In simplistic terms, what this meant was an increasing focus on extending the legitimacy and capabilities
of the state as opposed to international provision of critical infrastructure.
That's an emphatic change. I think three things emerged out of this discourse.
Development Stabilisation is focussed on creating some form of political settlement between parties competing for power.
It sought to support the extension states legitimacy through creating core functions such as territorial control,
but also deeper functions such as control of the state's finances and also facilitating the legitimate government's ability.
Deliver what's expected by the population. And what gives them authority to represent them?
So there were inherent within this model. Accountability, legitimacy, public service delivery and a key set, of course, functions.
Nevertheless, whilst the British talked in terms of very broad principles, I think it's fair to say that there was no prescriptive model.
And this was very different from, for example, Canadian and the American approaches where there were generic,
almost chapuis of activities that if you followed almost slavishly, they would deliver stability.
Instead, you saw a set of general principles from the British where a stabilisation programme would reflect the core drivers of conflict.
The public expectations in the area which was being stabilised and a great sense of pragmatism.
And that meant that your stabilisation programme, whether it was Somalia, Sudan,
Lebanon or Afghanistan, Iraq, would look probably quite fundamentally different.
And there would be a different balance between supporting the political process
attempts to impose a degree of security and reconstruction development programmes.
So perhaps the core problem with stabilisation is that the principles lead to enormous diversity in that stabilisation.
Looks like that said, stabilisation programme would always have an inclusive political process at its heart.
And if they didn't, stability would almost certain hollow.
There would always be a security dimension where security is focussed on individual security and there would also be an attempt
to reconstruct the state's ability to deliver core infrastructure and services in pursuit of extending its legitimacy.
The role of external actors in this discourse was often far less than perhaps many would argue.
The idea being that whilst the state could, the internal external actors could not impose a political settlement in Afghanistan or in Iraq.
They could support the extremely weak domestic institutions,
but also supported the development of a narrative about the benefits of peace that would
support the political process and develop momentum towards buy time for political processes.
So in this model, the stabilisation process was not about sustainable development, say.
It was about creating the conditions under which the population would have its trust in the political process consolidated.
An international role was often one of creating a vision of what might be achievable.
The EU integration anchor offered Bosnia, Kosovo a good example,
as is the extension of Afghan government capable of providing essential public services in the Pashtun belt so
that that Long-Term Vision of what is possible for engagement in that process is it is significantly important.
Um, I'm going to be running out of time,
so I want to switch really to some controversies at the end of the paper and also to plug the paper a little bit.
It'll be published by the Overseas Development Institute, Humanity and Policy Group, probably the next couple of months or so.
But some conclusions about the stabilisation discourse.
What stabilisation has meant is that the British press,
the stabilisation is about creating a political settlement or a social contract between the population and its government.
It's much more politically nuanced than, for example, the American approach in Afghanistan,
which tends to reflect the infrastructure plus the degree of security will buy you a rather automatic form of loyalty from the Pashtun population.
I think there are real problems with that, with that method.
But the British approach, the idea that you are engaged in what is quite clearly a liberal peacebuilding agenda at the substate level,
at district and community levels, I think represents a particular conflation of UK interests and values.
And one wonders whether that political space is still as vibrant as it was in the Blair administrations period.
Whether or not that will be sustainable and whether or not the idea idea of stabilisation as a policy discourse will survive the rise of new powers,
particularly China, where the sovereignty norm is perhaps more resistant to the type of social engineering stabilisation represents.
I think that's also a challenge with the stabilisation model, with its focus on the state building,
a social contract between some form of reformable state that was willing to deliver public service benefits and to be accountable and representative.
And one wonders whether that focus on the state is highly appropriate in places such as Somalia or Sudan,
but also the level of ambition of the stabilisation agenda as well.
There've been significant difficulties in understanding what it is that the Pashtun population.
Would need to have an order to legitimise the extension of Kabul's control.
What exactly is the critical path and the processes and the stages towards a sustainable or viable peace?
And I think it's taken the UK from 2006 and Helmand until probably around now to understand really what that critical path will be.
So the interesting argument is,
while stabilisation as a response as opposed to the misappropriation of humanitarian tools or simply a military response
to a crisis stabilisation is this great policy discourse that offers a new vision of how you bring about stability.
But it seems to require a degree of knowledge about a society and its political dynamics.
That's beyond the capacity intervening states to apply in that stabilisation phase of the first of the three yet.
There's also finally another problem related to the governments of stabilisation within the UK.
Stabilisation is owned by the counterinsurgency Mulvane, the Ministry of Defence.
It's owned by the Franker States element in the development ministries and it's owned by the Foreign Office.
But the language of stabilisation is almost identical to other policy discourse.
For example, the NDP early recovery discourse talks about almost identical things.
Early recovery is the process of recovery that begins in a humanitarian setting off in a war or a natural disaster.
But it's guided by development principles as it's stabilisation.
Seek to build on humanitarian programmes and catalyse sustainable development opportunities to generate a self-sustaining,
nationally own resilient process the Post.com crisis recovery.
So the the theory of early recovery led by the UN is almost identical to the state that interest based stabilisation agenda.
UN Olcha had a slightly different definition of stabilisation,
which shares many similarities with stabilisation from governments from the UK and to a lesser extent, the United States.
And then finally, the NGO discourse.
The World Bank and USA discourse on community driven reconstruction has exactly the same mechanisms, a stabilisation element.
So who should control these processes? What role is the U.N.? What does this mean?
The instrumental realisation of humanitarian organisations in stabilisation strategies.
How much politics does this inject into the humanitarian community?
And does it extinguished forever the flame of independent, neutral and impartial humanitarian assistance?
So I think the stabilisation agenda, whilst it's powerful policy discourse,
whilst it becomes dominate debates in Iraq and Afghanistan, and whilst it will,
it will be with us for at least the next five years or so,
I think there are significant challenges both to operationalising it and to the other actors involved in a stabilisation environment.