1 00:00:00,270 --> 00:00:08,190 Bill and I are really part of a research project where we're looking at the stabilisation discourse and measuring effect. 2 00:00:08,190 --> 00:00:14,080 So really with dividing up, it's often session between us where I look at the stabilisation discourse and beyond. 3 00:00:14,080 --> 00:00:19,650 We'll pick up the theme of measuring effectiveness. 4 00:00:19,650 --> 00:00:28,850 The work really began in Helmand last two years ago now where we helped draught the U.K. plan for Helmand. 5 00:00:28,850 --> 00:00:37,080 A revised plan for Helmand from one of the greatest difficulties that we had was identifying how you measure progress on stabilisation. 6 00:00:37,080 --> 00:00:42,780 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. 7 00:00:42,780 --> 00:00:53,100 And the second was, was really how do you actually begin to conceptualise measuring progress towards an ideal state of stability for my paper? 8 00:00:53,100 --> 00:00:54,660 It's it's worth setting a context. 9 00:00:54,660 --> 00:01:04,650 The stabilisation discourse where stabilisation becomes a specific activity, a specific label really begins at the end of 2003. 10 00:01:04,650 --> 00:01:12,540 It's a product of the failure to bring stability, particularly to Iraq, but also the increasing instability in Afghanistan. 11 00:01:12,540 --> 00:01:14,850 And what we see is governments developing procedures, 12 00:01:14,850 --> 00:01:21,360 processes and institutions to try and manage the various levers of government so that intervening parties, 13 00:01:21,360 --> 00:01:30,540 particularly the Americans and some of the Western Europeans and the Canadians, are more capable of producing more coherent responses, 14 00:01:30,540 --> 00:01:35,790 more capable of delivering what the U.S. Institute of Peace would describe as a viable peace. 15 00:01:35,790 --> 00:01:39,080 And you saw in the U.K. in early 2004, 16 00:01:39,080 --> 00:01:45,850 an attempt to create a post-conflict reconstruction unit were tried diplomatically between the Foreign Defence Development Ministries. 17 00:01:45,850 --> 00:01:49,760 But you saw parallels in the United States with the office, 18 00:01:49,760 --> 00:01:58,200 the SARS in Canada with staff and also development ministries in Holland and Denmark that sought 19 00:01:58,200 --> 00:02:05,790 to identify the instruments and approaches in fragile states and post-conflict environments. 20 00:02:05,790 --> 00:02:12,840 There are really two parts to this agenda. One is the institutional changes that we see on the set, 21 00:02:12,840 --> 00:02:17,100 which relates to what the MTD often described as the comprehensive approach attempt 22 00:02:17,100 --> 00:02:21,770 to bring together those three governments parliaments into some sort of coherence. 23 00:02:21,770 --> 00:02:27,690 And there's also a sense of looking at the instruments of intervening in fragile states within the UK. 24 00:02:27,690 --> 00:02:34,530 I think it's fair to say that the three developed the three ministries that often found themselves in stabilisation, 25 00:02:34,530 --> 00:02:41,490 post-conflict environments, enmity, foreign office and development. The appetite for the stabilisation discourse is very different with the energy, 26 00:02:41,490 --> 00:02:48,480 probably the the hungriest for this policy discourse reflecting its experience of counterinsurgency in the late, 27 00:02:48,480 --> 00:02:52,920 heavy civilian component politically led counterinsurgency, 28 00:02:52,920 --> 00:03:03,420 but also the sense that cementing peace in the Balkans and in Iraq required the transformative effect of development of political intervention. 29 00:03:03,420 --> 00:03:11,520 The military tool on its own was insufficient in some way. But it also reflected the military sense of the causality of conflict here. 30 00:03:11,520 --> 00:03:20,370 One could argue that they were infected with the discourse of the human security agenda and the idea, the politics that development, underdevelopment, 31 00:03:20,370 --> 00:03:25,980 poor development and equitable development was a significant cause of conflict and that 32 00:03:25,980 --> 00:03:33,210 the development issue was an agenda was key to establishing a more Jews during stability. 33 00:03:33,210 --> 00:03:38,730 Some meat on the idea of a comprehensive tried EPOP mental approach was really 34 00:03:38,730 --> 00:03:43,920 developed with the creation of the post-conflict reconstruction unit in 2004. 35 00:03:43,920 --> 00:03:48,150 But the idea that this would somehow deliver an authoritative voice in government that would drive 36 00:03:48,150 --> 00:03:54,780 the three departments of State into some form of integrated approach was never to be achieved. 37 00:03:54,780 --> 00:03:59,490 The principal idea, the principal reason for this difficulty is that the post-conflict reconstruction 38 00:03:59,490 --> 00:04:04,440 unit reported to the very ministries that it was intended for it to coordinate, 39 00:04:04,440 --> 00:04:11,580 and it reported to a managing board and two star civilians from differed from the FCO and from the A.D. 40 00:04:11,580 --> 00:04:20,430 So the idea of a strident coordinating role within government was lost in this much weaker institutional mechanism for coordination. 41 00:04:20,430 --> 00:04:26,960 That said that there were serious attempts to improve horizontal working across government and the PCI. 42 00:04:26,960 --> 00:04:33,780 You did play an important role in bringing together those governments and creating a platform by which they could produce 43 00:04:33,780 --> 00:04:42,720 a joined up government plan rather than stapling together three separately produced plans for Iraq and Afghanistan. 44 00:04:42,720 --> 00:04:51,410 There was also an attempt to give incentives to the three government departments to work horizontally and collaboratively. 45 00:04:51,410 --> 00:04:58,500 And we could see this in a rather bureaucratic but quite important development to match the creation of public service agreements. 46 00:04:58,500 --> 00:05:05,060 Originally, 1998. Simple device, a contract between the Treasury and the delivery departments in which departments 47 00:05:05,060 --> 00:05:10,730 undertake to deliver certain public services and they are given a certain amount of money. 48 00:05:10,730 --> 00:05:16,790 By 2007, these public service agreements had changed. 49 00:05:16,790 --> 00:05:19,520 Some of them were crossfield governmental requiring. 50 00:05:19,520 --> 00:05:25,880 In the case of CSA 30, which was to reduce the impact of conflict through enhanced UK and international efforts, it had a forell. 51 00:05:25,880 --> 00:05:29,980 His lead, but deferred andere may be responsible for delivery, 52 00:05:29,980 --> 00:05:35,780 and elements of bringing together the joint federal government were to be delivered 53 00:05:35,780 --> 00:05:40,760 largely through the facilitation role of the post-conflict reconstruction unit. 54 00:05:40,760 --> 00:05:48,680 So some of these bureaucratic measures help with the idea of a comprehensive approach to delivering stabilisation. 55 00:05:48,680 --> 00:05:54,230 The BSA 30 came with a financial coup as well. 56 00:05:54,230 --> 00:06:00,710 A new fund called the Stabilisation Aid Fund, 269 million pounds, 57 00:06:00,710 --> 00:06:05,330 which was really created by the combination of the pre-existing global and Africa 58 00:06:05,330 --> 00:06:11,420 conflict prevention pools so that conflict prevention work with ring-fence financially. 59 00:06:11,420 --> 00:06:18,440 In the new conflict prevention pool and stabilisation work was subject to the Stabilisation Aid Fund. 60 00:06:18,440 --> 00:06:20,810 Sadly, I think there are some issues with it. 61 00:06:20,810 --> 00:06:26,660 Some Treasury officials, officials argued that this was a mechanism to preserve conflict prevention investments. 62 00:06:26,660 --> 00:06:28,820 Others saw it more in more realistic terms, 63 00:06:28,820 --> 00:06:36,530 which was that this was really the short term political imperatives of Iraq and Afghanistan during off along with them. 64 00:06:36,530 --> 00:06:45,980 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. 65 00:06:45,980 --> 00:06:57,490 The 2007 with the creation of PSA 30 and the Stabilisation Eight Fund, you also saw a renaming of the post-conflict reconstruction unit. 66 00:06:57,490 --> 00:07:03,190 It was it was labelled as the stabilisation unit for really two quite important reasons. 67 00:07:03,190 --> 00:07:10,930 And there is quite a lot in a name. The first was that Iraq and Afghanistan, its main efforts were not post-conflict environments. 68 00:07:10,930 --> 00:07:18,230 And secondly, the idea that you brought stability through reconstruction was a distortion of really what was going on. 69 00:07:18,230 --> 00:07:26,750 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. 70 00:07:26,750 --> 00:07:31,400 It was a process of engaging and creating some form of political settlement. 71 00:07:31,400 --> 00:07:38,720 So the renaming from SEIU reflected both a different environment and also a different activity. 72 00:07:38,720 --> 00:07:42,890 The UK model for stabilisation also began to change. 73 00:07:42,890 --> 00:07:50,840 I think some of it reflected the experience of the Balkans, where Balkans stabilisation was defined in fairly simple terms, 74 00:07:50,840 --> 00:07:57,680 which is essentially the imposition of a military stability by an outside forces like were asked for, 75 00:07:57,680 --> 00:08:01,970 and then the delivery of core infrastructure and critical public services. 76 00:08:01,970 --> 00:08:06,620 And these were seen as the core contributions from the international civilian community. 77 00:08:06,620 --> 00:08:16,210 I think by the time we see Helmand in 2007, we see a much more nuanced approach to what the stabilisation discourse means. 78 00:08:16,210 --> 00:08:20,750 And it's somewhere between the counterinsurgency literature ministry of Defence and it's 79 00:08:20,750 --> 00:08:26,840 somewhere adopting many of the principles that we see that work on fragile states. 80 00:08:26,840 --> 00:08:32,960 And it's beginning to represent some of the best, the best practise of development ministry. 81 00:08:32,960 --> 00:08:40,890 So it's a hybrid approach. The stabilisation unit produce something called the whole stabilisation paper. 82 00:08:40,890 --> 00:08:48,230 And this conceived as stabilisation, aiming to support places that were emerging from violent conflict towards a period of peaceful development, 83 00:08:48,230 --> 00:08:53,840 often through external military and civilian support for the weak host government, 84 00:08:53,840 --> 00:09:00,710 and the support focussed on extending the legitimacy and capability of that government and providing immediately tangible benefits 85 00:09:00,710 --> 00:09:07,850 to the population or quick wins that underpin their confidence in the state and the political process that it represented. 86 00:09:07,850 --> 00:09:14,390 Stabilisation activities explicitly were intended to impact positively upon formal and informal political 87 00:09:14,390 --> 00:09:20,750 dynamics at all levels and to contribute to a non-violent political settlement or interim accommodation. 88 00:09:20,750 --> 00:09:26,220 In simplistic terms, what this meant was an increasing focus on extending the legitimacy and capabilities 89 00:09:26,220 --> 00:09:32,040 of the state as opposed to international provision of critical infrastructure. 90 00:09:32,040 --> 00:09:38,690 That's an emphatic change. I think three things emerged out of this discourse. 91 00:09:38,690 --> 00:09:46,670 Development Stabilisation is focussed on creating some form of political settlement between parties competing for power. 92 00:09:46,670 --> 00:09:53,390 It sought to support the extension states legitimacy through creating core functions such as territorial control, 93 00:09:53,390 --> 00:09:59,680 but also deeper functions such as control of the state's finances and also facilitating the legitimate government's ability. 94 00:09:59,680 --> 00:10:05,460 Deliver what's expected by the population. And what gives them authority to represent them? 95 00:10:05,460 --> 00:10:14,940 So there were inherent within this model. Accountability, legitimacy, public service delivery and a key set, of course, functions. 96 00:10:14,940 --> 00:10:23,800 Nevertheless, whilst the British talked in terms of very broad principles, I think it's fair to say that there was no prescriptive model. 97 00:10:23,800 --> 00:10:29,010 And this was very different from, for example, Canadian and the American approaches where there were generic, 98 00:10:29,010 --> 00:10:36,330 almost chapuis of activities that if you followed almost slavishly, they would deliver stability. 99 00:10:36,330 --> 00:10:45,770 Instead, you saw a set of general principles from the British where a stabilisation programme would reflect the core drivers of conflict. 100 00:10:45,770 --> 00:10:51,710 The public expectations in the area which was being stabilised and a great sense of pragmatism. 101 00:10:51,710 --> 00:10:58,080 And that meant that your stabilisation programme, whether it was Somalia, Sudan, 102 00:10:58,080 --> 00:11:03,300 Lebanon or Afghanistan, Iraq, would look probably quite fundamentally different. 103 00:11:03,300 --> 00:11:06,780 And there would be a different balance between supporting the political process 104 00:11:06,780 --> 00:11:11,580 attempts to impose a degree of security and reconstruction development programmes. 105 00:11:11,580 --> 00:11:19,650 So perhaps the core problem with stabilisation is that the principles lead to enormous diversity in that stabilisation. 106 00:11:19,650 --> 00:11:26,370 Looks like that said, stabilisation programme would always have an inclusive political process at its heart. 107 00:11:26,370 --> 00:11:29,510 And if they didn't, stability would almost certain hollow. 108 00:11:29,510 --> 00:11:36,630 There would always be a security dimension where security is focussed on individual security and there would also be an attempt 109 00:11:36,630 --> 00:11:46,440 to reconstruct the state's ability to deliver core infrastructure and services in pursuit of extending its legitimacy. 110 00:11:46,440 --> 00:11:53,100 The role of external actors in this discourse was often far less than perhaps many would argue. 111 00:11:53,100 --> 00:12:01,410 The idea being that whilst the state could, the internal external actors could not impose a political settlement in Afghanistan or in Iraq. 112 00:12:01,410 --> 00:12:05,990 They could support the extremely weak domestic institutions, 113 00:12:05,990 --> 00:12:10,500 but also supported the development of a narrative about the benefits of peace that would 114 00:12:10,500 --> 00:12:17,010 support the political process and develop momentum towards buy time for political processes. 115 00:12:17,010 --> 00:12:22,290 So in this model, the stabilisation process was not about sustainable development, say. 116 00:12:22,290 --> 00:12:31,560 It was about creating the conditions under which the population would have its trust in the political process consolidated. 117 00:12:31,560 --> 00:12:37,270 An international role was often one of creating a vision of what might be achievable. 118 00:12:37,270 --> 00:12:41,340 The EU integration anchor offered Bosnia, Kosovo a good example, 119 00:12:41,340 --> 00:12:47,840 as is the extension of Afghan government capable of providing essential public services in the Pashtun belt so 120 00:12:47,840 --> 00:12:55,690 that that Long-Term Vision of what is possible for engagement in that process is it is significantly important. 121 00:12:55,690 --> 00:12:57,510 Um, I'm going to be running out of time, 122 00:12:57,510 --> 00:13:04,350 so I want to switch really to some controversies at the end of the paper and also to plug the paper a little bit. 123 00:13:04,350 --> 00:13:12,120 It'll be published by the Overseas Development Institute, Humanity and Policy Group, probably the next couple of months or so. 124 00:13:12,120 --> 00:13:16,020 But some conclusions about the stabilisation discourse. 125 00:13:16,020 --> 00:13:18,600 What stabilisation has meant is that the British press, 126 00:13:18,600 --> 00:13:25,440 the stabilisation is about creating a political settlement or a social contract between the population and its government. 127 00:13:25,440 --> 00:13:29,820 It's much more politically nuanced than, for example, the American approach in Afghanistan, 128 00:13:29,820 --> 00:13:40,710 which tends to reflect the infrastructure plus the degree of security will buy you a rather automatic form of loyalty from the Pashtun population. 129 00:13:40,710 --> 00:13:45,210 I think there are real problems with that, with that method. 130 00:13:45,210 --> 00:13:51,830 But the British approach, the idea that you are engaged in what is quite clearly a liberal peacebuilding agenda at the substate level, 131 00:13:51,830 --> 00:13:58,500 at district and community levels, I think represents a particular conflation of UK interests and values. 132 00:13:58,500 --> 00:14:07,500 And one wonders whether that political space is still as vibrant as it was in the Blair administrations period. 133 00:14:07,500 --> 00:14:15,780 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, 134 00:14:15,780 --> 00:14:27,330 particularly China, where the sovereignty norm is perhaps more resistant to the type of social engineering stabilisation represents. 135 00:14:27,330 --> 00:14:33,300 I think that's also a challenge with the stabilisation model, with its focus on the state building, 136 00:14:33,300 --> 00:14:41,640 a social contract between some form of reformable state that was willing to deliver public service benefits and to be accountable and representative. 137 00:14:41,640 --> 00:14:49,820 And one wonders whether that focus on the state is highly appropriate in places such as Somalia or Sudan, 138 00:14:49,820 --> 00:14:53,520 but also the level of ambition of the stabilisation agenda as well. 139 00:14:53,520 --> 00:14:59,630 There've been significant difficulties in understanding what it is that the Pashtun population. 140 00:14:59,630 --> 00:15:06,330 Would need to have an order to legitimise the extension of Kabul's control. 141 00:15:06,330 --> 00:15:15,390 What exactly is the critical path and the processes and the stages towards a sustainable or viable peace? 142 00:15:15,390 --> 00:15:23,760 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. 143 00:15:23,760 --> 00:15:25,110 So the interesting argument is, 144 00:15:25,110 --> 00:15:33,420 while stabilisation as a response as opposed to the misappropriation of humanitarian tools or simply a military response 145 00:15:33,420 --> 00:15:40,620 to a crisis stabilisation is this great policy discourse that offers a new vision of how you bring about stability. 146 00:15:40,620 --> 00:15:45,120 But it seems to require a degree of knowledge about a society and its political dynamics. 147 00:15:45,120 --> 00:15:52,650 That's beyond the capacity intervening states to apply in that stabilisation phase of the first of the three yet. 148 00:15:52,650 --> 00:16:01,530 There's also finally another problem related to the governments of stabilisation within the UK. 149 00:16:01,530 --> 00:16:06,690 Stabilisation is owned by the counterinsurgency Mulvane, the Ministry of Defence. 150 00:16:06,690 --> 00:16:12,360 It's owned by the Franker States element in the development ministries and it's owned by the Foreign Office. 151 00:16:12,360 --> 00:16:17,820 But the language of stabilisation is almost identical to other policy discourse. 152 00:16:17,820 --> 00:16:24,150 For example, the NDP early recovery discourse talks about almost identical things. 153 00:16:24,150 --> 00:16:34,380 Early recovery is the process of recovery that begins in a humanitarian setting off in a war or a natural disaster. 154 00:16:34,380 --> 00:16:37,590 But it's guided by development principles as it's stabilisation. 155 00:16:37,590 --> 00:16:44,490 Seek to build on humanitarian programmes and catalyse sustainable development opportunities to generate a self-sustaining, 156 00:16:44,490 --> 00:16:48,300 nationally own resilient process the Post.com crisis recovery. 157 00:16:48,300 --> 00:16:58,730 So the the theory of early recovery led by the UN is almost identical to the state that interest based stabilisation agenda. 158 00:16:58,730 --> 00:17:03,720 UN Olcha had a slightly different definition of stabilisation, 159 00:17:03,720 --> 00:17:12,120 which shares many similarities with stabilisation from governments from the UK and to a lesser extent, the United States. 160 00:17:12,120 --> 00:17:14,340 And then finally, the NGO discourse. 161 00:17:14,340 --> 00:17:23,730 The World Bank and USA discourse on community driven reconstruction has exactly the same mechanisms, a stabilisation element. 162 00:17:23,730 --> 00:17:28,450 So who should control these processes? What role is the U.N.? What does this mean? 163 00:17:28,450 --> 00:17:33,780 The instrumental realisation of humanitarian organisations in stabilisation strategies. 164 00:17:33,780 --> 00:17:38,280 How much politics does this inject into the humanitarian community? 165 00:17:38,280 --> 00:17:47,470 And does it extinguished forever the flame of independent, neutral and impartial humanitarian assistance? 166 00:17:47,470 --> 00:17:51,810 So I think the stabilisation agenda, whilst it's powerful policy discourse, 167 00:17:51,810 --> 00:17:57,120 whilst it becomes dominate debates in Iraq and Afghanistan, and whilst it will, 168 00:17:57,120 --> 00:18:00,750 it will be with us for at least the next five years or so, 169 00:18:00,750 --> 00:18:08,731 I think there are significant challenges both to operationalising it and to the other actors involved in a stabilisation environment.