Business for peace?

It is difficult to avoid being swept up in the current tide of optimism about Africa and resource development. For once, Africa is not only portrayed by outsiders as a continent of poor people suffering and fighting over civil wars and dependent on good will and aid.

 

At the same time, the new, positive single story narrative (see, for instance, Robert Rotberg's recent book Africa Emerges) is based on a set of potential futures which read as if the international business community had discovered a new El Dorado of investment opportunities in Africa.

So let us focus on resource extraction. The storyline is that Africa is broadening the new frontiers of resource development, shifting the geo-strategic energy and mineral map of the world – from sizeable new finds of off-shore oil and gas in East and West Africa, to iron ore reserves in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Congo and Central Africa.

The story goes on to say that a significant proportion of these new resource developments are in contested areas, in regions with a history of conflict.

Optimism – but what has changed?

While not disputing these new developments, the problem with this new narrative is its lack of historical depth. What has really changed? Is it about intensity and volume of revenues? Are these new investments increasingly reaching into so-called fragile countries and in particular remote areas? And perhaps more importantly, are resource developments happening in response to increasing demand, or is this a resource boom and a situation of over-supply? One participant in a recent meeting I attended at Chatham House suggested that the reason why the Kenyan government is racing so urgently to develop the Turkana oil reserves is precisely because they fear the discovery of cheaper new oil reserves elsewhere.

The answers to this set of questions would enable us to properly understand the extent to which the situation has really changed.

This resource boom narrative is now often associated with an optimistic approach that attempts to criticize or transcend the 'resource curse' story. So how beneficial are natural resources for development and peacebuilding? The problem is that experts are struggling to find good examples. The Indonesia-Aceh peace process or the South Sudan 'well planned but badly implemented' process are often referred to as good examples, but with limited enthusiasm.

'Business for peace'

It is not surprising that the potential for business to play a role in peacebuilding, and the conditions under which this can happen, is becoming a key policy debate – given the so-called resource boom and its focus on 'fragile states'. The fact that resource extractive businesses are the first type of business to get involved in post-conflict (if not conflict) situations is also used as another justification to think about their potential role.

The slogan 'business for peace' raises a few eyebrows, questioning whether businesses could do anything more than corporate social responsibility. In fact, as another delegate at the Chatham House meeting mentioned, sticking to the 'do no harm' rule would already be a considerable advance.

The point here is not to be overly critical about business, but rather to question the expectations and responsibilities put upon 'business for peace' narratives.

Conflict sensitivity is not a realistic option for businesses as, very much like donors, they are political actors. Their business operation forces them to align with one or other of the parties in the conflict. Business cannot truly be perceived, or act as, an honest independent broker. Although one should encourage any moves towards peacebuilding, the narrative 'business for peace' may be harmful in hiding the responsibilities of governments (and potentially donors) to work for redistribution and social cohesion.

Jeremy Allouche is a Research Fellow at IDS and has recently begun working on a new project, Large development investments and local peacebuilding in Africa: Building and sustaining peace at the margins.

Photo: Sudanese Oil Workers by ENOUGH Project on Flickr (by-nc-nd)

　

Ending sexual violence in conflict means looking beyond the ‘warzone’

Effective action will mean challenging assumptions about the location of conflict, and paying closer attention to the socio-economic and legal contexts in which survivors and perpetrators of sexual violence navigate their lives.

With the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict taking place this week, much needed attention will be firmly focused on how to put an end to this pervasive problem.  The widespread use of sexual violence has been reported in Liberia, Northern Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sudan, Iraq, Libya and Syria and Rwanda - where in the 100 days of the Rwandan genocide, an estimated 500,000 women were raped.

Effective global action on sexual violence will need politicians, civil society and local communities to be prepared to challenge a number of commonly-held assumptions about where and why sexual violence takes place beyond the misleading focus on the false binary of the ‘victim’ and the ‘perpetrator’.

The majority of victims of sexual violence are women and the perpetrators mostly men.  Yet a newly published IDS Rapid Response Briefing, Addressing sexual violence in and beyond the ‘warzone’, highlights a growing body of research that shows that sexual violence is experienced by both men and women.  Almost 24 per cent of men in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo reported sexual violence at least once in their lifetime, including being forced to watch their female family relatives being raped, or being raped themselves. 

As we have also seen recently, with the abduction of the group of school-girls by the militant Islamic group Boko Haram in Nigeria, sexual violence is not only perpetrated by states and militias but also occurs at the hands of militant factions. 

In the build-up to the summit there has been a significant focus on the use of sexual violence as a ‘weapon of war’ within conflicts.  Yet, high levels of conflict-related sexual violence take place outside of internationally recognised conflict zones, particularly within Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps or in urban areas where the majority of civilians seeking refuge from conflict flee.  One in five female refugees or IDPs living in camps or urban areas worldwide has experienced sexual violence while displaced.  High poverty levels, an absence of security and pernicious, frequently gendered, power dynamics mean that migrants and refugees in these settings are particularly vulnerable to sexual violence.  These intersecting problems are further exacerbated by the fact that while international humanitarian law applies to areas of conflict (like refugee camps), it does not apply outside of armed conflict-zones (like IDP camps and urban areas to which conflict-migrants have fled).   

It is often the socio-cultural norms underpinning entrenched gender inequalities that are the hardest to shift and that pose the greatest obstacle to tackling sexual violence.  But they must shift if any real traction in is to be achieved, and as our research into collective action to tackle sexual and gender based violence in Kenya has shown any initiatives must involve men.  It is frequently the case that the very areas that civilians seek refuge from conflict are those same areas where gender inequalities continue to be reinforced through practices such as forced marriage and female genital mutilation, and where levels of domestic violence are extremely high. 

Recent IDS research in South Sudan shows how men, seeking to reassert their authority after the civil war, have imposed rules that have reduced women’s mobility and prevented them for carrying out their usual responsibilities such as collecting wood and water. As a result women have faced the dual risks of being punished by men in the community for not completing their duties, and of being beaten by their spouses for breaking these rules. 

The participants at the forthcoming summit have an essential role to play in tackling these challenges. The first step is in helping the international community to develop a more nuanced approach that looks beyond the ‘warzone’ to achieve real and urgently-needed action on sexual violence irrespective of how, where and by whom it is perpetrated.

By: Hannah Corbett, Public Affairs and Policy Officer, IDS

New UK climate envoy, Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti, on climate change and conflict

Today's Guardian reports comments on climate change as a global threat from the first interview with the UK's interim Special Representative for Climate Change, Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti, since he took up his post.

"Morisetti's central message was simple and stark: "The areas of greatest global stress and greatest impacts of climate change are broadly coincidental."

He said governments could not afford to wait until they had all the information they might like. "If you wait for 100% certainty on the battlefield, you'll be in a pretty sticky state," he said.
The increased threat posed by climate change arises because droughts, storms and floods are exacerbating water, food, population and security tensions in conflict-prone regions."

As Damian Carrington, the article's author, mentions, the military has been making links between climate change and security for some time. It's a theme that was explored at a STEPS/SOAS symposium on the water, energy and food nexus last October.

With an increasing recognition that energy, water and food (among other things) are linked and put under strain by changes in the environment, it's understandable that potential conflicts over access to these resources should have come under attention from the military.

Indeed, some advocates pushing for climate change to be higher up the policy agenda may welcome this interest, but it may come at a price. Framings of climate change as a 'security' issue not only have an influence on foreign policy, but make their way into public statements - in some cases, justifying military or diplomatic engagements with countries or regions which are seen to be under potential or actual stress.

This article was originally posted on The Crossing.