UNDP has unveiled its 2008 Crisis Prevention and Recovery Report, focused on Post-Conflict Economic Recovery, with a discussion at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace today. This is an important area for CIPE (see Building Democracies and Markets in Post-Conflict Settings), so several of us attended this event. First, I’m glad to see UNDP emphasizing economic growth and its importance in post-conflict recovery. It also emphasizes the importance of local ingenuity and knowledge in designing and implementing recovery plans. It addresses economic opportunities, jobs, financial resources, and institutions in addition to the more typical infrastructure and human capital issues. Bringing these issues to the fore is a huge step forward in the thinking on post-conflict reconstruction.
The Carnegie audience found nothing to disagree with in the report. That’s wonderful in that it means some previously overlooked issues of economic growth are now part of the mainstream discussion on post-conflict recovery. On the other hand, it’s also indicative of dealing in generalities that may generate more discussion and disagreement in later specifics. One of the early questions in today’s discussion, in fact, sought to tease out the generally acceptable exhortations to ground efforts in local realities and work with local leaders and the local private sector: how do you do this in situations where you’re dealing with issues such as clientelism, for example?
CIPE now has 25 years of experience in dealing with just this sort of question, and the answer lies in part in differentiating the local private sector. There is no “business community” per se. There are quite a few segments of the private sector, which all have different incentives to reform approaches:
• the segment that thrived on high-level relationships—clientelistic, oligarchic, corporatist
• those that profited from conflict
• those that are (or want to be) engaged in international trade
• the state-owned companies or those that have the state as their main customer
• the leading-edge innovators and growth industries
• industrialists/manufacturers
• retail/service sector
• formal small businesses
• the informal sector, which itself may be composed ofo survivalists who really want a job
o entrepreneurs who want to grow
These are just some of the ways that the business community can be considered not as a monolith but as constituencies with clearer interests. When CIPE works in a country, this is just one piece of a comprehensive analysis that leads to determining entry points, wedge issues, decision-making leaders, community influencers and other keys to designing a successful approach for local realities and capacities. Learn more about this in our Guide to Governance Reform.
Published Date: May 21, 2009