Developing Effective Conflict Prevention Strategies

Conflict prevention and mitigation aim to move a country or region along the continuum to durable peace. This requires more than an understanding of policy tools. Effective interventions are based on strategies that specify objectives, policy tools and timeframes for action. While circumstances clearly vary from country to country, we offer an eight-step approach to devising a coherent conflict prevention and peacebuilding strategy for a conflict setting.

Anticipating and responding to incipient violent conflicts begins by understanding a country’s status on the road to durable peace, including any reasons for a slide toward violence. This means assessing progress in creating the building blocks of durable peace: material prosperity through economic growth, a participatory political system, an active and responsible civil society, human rights, social equity, a sustainable natural environment, and effective, legitimate government institutions. These elements do not occur simultaneously; a nation may be progressive in economic policies while retrograde in popular participation in government. Internal development can be uneven, with some regions advancing faster than others.

TABLE 4-2: ASSESSING A COUNTRY’S STATUS IN THE SPECTRUM

FROM DURABLE PEACE TO ALL-OUT WAR

Answers to the following questions help analysts place a country on the spectrum between durable peace and all-out war.

§ Economically, how prosperous is the country? Is it endowed with human, capital and natural resources on which it can draw to increase the population’s well-being? Does it have competitive, market-governed processes for production and distribution of commodities, land and labor services?

§ Socially, how widely distributed are possession of resources and the ability to control the means to produce wealth? Are the society’s economic, ethnic, religious, regional, occupational and other groups organized into active associations or other institutions that protect and advance their interests while offering opportunities for individuals to move in and out of particular groups?

§ Politically, how responsive is the regime to citizens’ needs? Is it pre-democratic, democratizing, consolidating democracy, or an institutionalized democracy? Are there civic associations and social institutions that are independent of the regime? Are provisions in place for multi-party elections, with an institutionalized ability to establish political parties and field candidates?

§ Governmentally, does the political regime embody representation, collaboration and mechanisms for negotiation among diverse social forces, or is the government dominated by one party or social group? Do knowledgeable, trained civil servants staff central and local government?

Durable peace means internal peace and prosperity, and, ideally, an active role in achieving peace in the country’s region and elsewhere—Tanzania comes closest to this model in the Greater Horn region. Other societies are democratic and peaceful, though not especially regional or international leaders. Others are not fully democratic but provide relatively well materially for their people and are not threats to their neighbors. In these cases, no drastic economic or political change is immediately necessary for human survival; instead, interventions should support long-term movement towards the practices and institutions of sustainable democracy that assure long-term stability and citizens’ well-being over time. In other nations politics are dominated by one group that represses others and subjects them to widespread human suffering. In such instances political change is imperative to alleviate economic suffering. Other countries are "rogue states," repressing their own people and presenting a threat to their neighbors, as does North Korea. Active containment is likely to be advisable when a country poses an immediate threat to another.

Movement towards durable peace cannot be achieved without strain; the uncertainty and instability inherent in political and social change can tax a society’s capacity to adjust and increase the chance of violent conflict. Analyzing the country or region’s status along the spectrum from peace to war allows strategists to pinpoint imbalances, strains, issues, sectors and areas calling for priority attention. Goals will typically be to reduce negative factors and enhance positive conditions in a combination that reflects the particular conflicts’ stage and causes. These objectives should be linked to overall movement towards durable peace, with indicators established for measuring progress in each area.

Priorities in war will be to de-escalate fighting and lower hostilities at least to the level of crisis and confrontation while meeting affected populations’ needs. In areas of unstable peace, objectives will be to prevent violent outbreaks to achieve the conditions of durable peace. When the potential for conflict is real but remote in time, strategies will focus on addressing the long-term systemic causes of violence as discussed in Part II above.

TABLE 4-3: WHEN STRATEGIC GOALS COMPETE

Movement towards durable peace involves goals in conflict prevention and peacebuilding.

These goals are not always compatible.

§ Goals in conflict prevention include anticipating and heading off mass violence, arming of militias, and suppression of minorities. Peacebuilding further entails human rights, democratic processes, economic growth, and environmental protection. These goals can be fully compatible and overlap; occasionally, they compete or are incompatible.

§ Policy-makers must be aware of the ways that violence prevention can compromise other worthy goals such as progressive political change. Militant promotion or enforcement of democracy and human rights against non-democratic regimes or in fragile liberalizing societies can increase violence and require costly international remedial efforts. Policy-makers must face these trade-offs forthrightly when formulating country- and locale-specific strategies and adopt appropriate balancing and modulating tactics.

§ It is good to adopt the medical profession’s principle of "do no harm." Whatever actions we take, the first obligation is to avoid exacerbating tensions that could break out in violent conflicts.

§ No single goal can be universally applied as an end in itself, be it states’ territorial integrity or peoples’ full self-determination. Effective conflict prevention and peacebuilding require that preventing violence be balanced against promoting peaceful socio-economic and political transformation.

This is not a rationale for the entrenched to hold onto power without the legitimacy and accountability that must accompany it. Oppressive policies and gross economic and political inequalities should not be tolerated for the sake of preserving order. An appropriate definition of democratization and other ultimate goals must integrate notions of sustainability and orderly transition.

Once trade-offs are identified and priorities are determined, the next step is to identify specific tasks to achieve stated goals in each sector.

Analyze available national resources and existing programs. New actions and may be required to achieve the strategic goals. However, conflict prevention strategies can build on existing resources and initiatives where these can be shown to support the desired results. This means that existing local and regional programs and institutions should be inventoried for their conflict prevention record and potential.

TABLE 4-4: CONSIDER EXISTING ACTIVITIES FIRST

Two critical factors should be considered

in determining tasks to achieve conflict prevention goals.

§ Existing programs should be inventoried and evaluated so that these programs can be supported where warranted rather than reinventing the conflict prevention wheel for each conflict. Analysts should examine the following questions for each program:

· Is the program realistic in view of the conflict?

· Does the existing program have explicit conflict prevention or mitigation goals?

· Does the program have conflict prevention programming components relevant to the strategic goals?

· What is the program’s impact on the distribution of benefits among actual or potentially conflicting parties? Is the program likely to worsen or ameliorate group socio-economic disparities?

· Is the program’s timetable appropriate to help reduce tensions?

· What is the local context’s capacity to handle the social and other changes the program will cause? Can these changes be handled non-violently?

· Does the process for implementing the program help foster reconciliation or does it widen divisions?

· Does the program’s timetable—implementation and results—match the timing of the course of conflict identified during the initial conflict analysis phase?

· To what extent can anti-conflict efforts be integrated into the program?

This program-by-program analysis provides policy-makers with a global perspective on existing programs and their capacity to support or hinder conflict prevention efforts.

§ Local and regional resiliency should be assessed to determine whether there is indigenous capacity to support change and reduce conflict. This step means examining the local, national and regional capacities, resources and political will that can be leveraged to move the country towards durable peace. Local resources can be more efficient and cost-effective than third party interventions.

Define tasks. Specific tasks can often be identified in terms of one of five principal bottlenecks to resolving conflict as shown in Table 4-5 below.

TABLE 4-5: ILLUSTRATIVE TASKS FOR CERTAIN CONFLICT CHARACTERISTICS
Bottlenecks to Resolving Conflict	Illustrative Tasks
No restraints on violence—inadequate limitations on parties’ ability to resort to armed force to achieve demands.	· Suppress or contain violence or the threat of violence. · Deprive parties of arms. · Provide protection against the use of arms.
Lack of a process—weak or no procedures or institutions through which to discuss the dispute and seek solutions.	· Engage parties in communication and dialogue. · Create channels and processes for discussion and negotiation. · Set up or strengthen permanent political institutions.
Lack of solutions—parties are at the table, seem willing, but lack mutually acceptable proposals to settle the issue.	· Address particular disputes. · Generate a range of possible settlement options.
Lack of incentives—solutions abound but the parties lack sufficient motivation to accept any of them.	· Provide positive and negative inducements for parties to adopt solutions.
Lack of trust—parties’ negative attitudes mean they can’t move beyond feelings to consider or comply with solutions.	· Provide mutual assurance. · Change attitudes and perceptions. · Reduce tensions when they arise.

The policy-maker’s next step is to select policy intervention tools that will fulfill the conflict prevention and peacebuilding strategy’s goals. The choice of policy tools should be governed by certain principles:

The tool profiles in Part III.D above show that tools vary greatly according to factors such as cost, expected outcome, timeframe to see results, and effectiveness at various stages of conflict. Judging which policy tool or combination of tools is most appropriate to a given conflict depends on the specific situation; a cookbook approach that prescribes tools without regard to individual circumstances is utterly inappropriate.

Match tasks and tools. Choosing policy tools to achieve strategic goals in light of a conflict’s cause and stage requires matching tools to the conflict prevention tasks identified during the prior analysis. Table 4-6 below offers an approach to matching policy tools to a conflict’s characteristics.

TABLE 4-6: ILLUSTRATIVE TOOLS TO ACCOMPLISH TASKS ACCORDING TO CONFLICT CHARACTERISTICS
No restraints on violence—inadequate limitations on parties’ ability to resort to armed force to achieve demands.
Tasks:	Suppress or contain violence or the threat of violence; deprive parties of arms; provide protection against the use of arms.
Tools:	Preventive peacekeeping force; targeted deterrence; enforceable demilitarized zones; safe havens; emergency measures; protectorates; war crimes tribunals; military assistance.
Lack of a process—no procedures or institutions through which to discuss the dispute and seek solutions.
Tasks:	Engage parties in communication and dialogue; create channels and processes for discussion and negotiation; set up or strengthen permanent political institutions.
Tools:	Good offices; mediation; peace conferences; arbitration; adjudication; institution-building; problem-solving workshops; democracy-building; trusteeship.
Lack of solutions—parties are at the table, seem willing, but lack attractive proposals to settle the issue.
Tasks:	Address particular disputes; consider a variety of policy options; generate a range of possible settlements.
Tools:	Brainstorming; case studies; menus of alternative options for governance from similar places and conflicts.
Lack of incentives—solutions abound but the parties lack sufficient motivation to accept any of them.
Tasks:	Induce parties to adopt solutions.
Tools:	Positive inducements (security guarantees; aid); negative inducements (coercive diplomacy; sanctions; threats of force; exclusion from international organizations; deprivation of aid).
Lack of trust—parties’ negative attitudes mean they can’t move beyond feelings to consider or comply with solutions.
Tasks:	Provide mutual assurance; change attitudes and perceptions; reduce tensions as they arise.
Tools:	Non-official dialogues; educational and informational efforts; media programs; aid to implement peace process.

Match tools to the stage of conflict. The stage of conflict or peace is one of the most powerful determinants of the choice of policy tools. This factor determines the main prevention or mitigation needs, the working environment, the conflict’s amenability to outside influence, the extent of cooperation that can be expected from the conflicting parties, even third party willingness to become involved and expend resources to support an intervention. Policy-makers and administrators in the field should resist pressure to apply interventions with worthy labels like "democracy-building" or "conflict resolution" and be careful not to overlook this critical element. Resource-constrained international and domestic bodies place a high premium on cost-effective actions, and history offers numerous examples of tools failing because they were applied in unsuitable contexts.

Table 4-7 below matches the stages of peace and conflict with illustrative policy tools to prevent or mitigate conflict at each stage. Table 4-7 divides conflict into the seven stages discussed in Part II (stable peace; unstable peace; crisis; war; post-conflict crisis; unstable peace; and back to stable peace). For each stage of peace and conflict we have defined the characteristic environment, the timeframe for action (ranging from short- to medium- to long-term), and primary objectives for policy interventions. We then enumerate a range of policy tools that could be applied to that stage of conflict, organized according to the same functional categories as the tools presented in Part III.D above. Table 4-7 presents these categories of analysis in seven sub-tables numbered Table 4-7-1 through 4-7-7, one sub-table for each stage of peace or conflict. The following graphic illustrates how Table 4-7 is organized.

All potential partners bring strengths and weaknesses. Some lack the resources to perform certain tasks; others differ in their perceived legitimacy in the eyes of the conflict parties. These assets and liabilities must be considered in assessing implementing actors and their utility for meeting the specific needs at hand.

The choice of conflict prevention implementors can affect the course of the conflict. To avoid encouraging higher levels of conflict as a result of the third party’s efforts, the kinds of governmental and non-governmental actors should be carefully considered for appropriateness to the scale and nature of the conflict. Involvement by high-level officials (such as the US Secretary of State) or bodies (such as the UN Security Council) may be counterproductive in suppressing low-level conflicts: these presences can raise the stakes and increase incentives for conflicting parties to "grandstand" instead of resolving their dispute.

Responsibilities should be assigned among the local, national, regional and international players who will implement the strategy. These assignments should reflect other parties’ willingness and capacity to perform the tasks to achieve the stated goals. The following discussion reviews the major generic advantages and disadvantages in conflict prevention and mitigation of the United Nations, regional organizations, non-governmental organizations, and individual third party states.

The United Nations. The UN is the single institution that includes virtually all countries of the world and that already carries out various functions in conflict management and peacekeeping, chiefly through the activities of the Security Council and Secretary-General.

TABLE 4-8: THE UNITED NATIONS: ASSETS AND LIABILITIES

IN CONFLICT PREVENTION AND MITIGATION

The UN brings assets in conflict prevention and mitigation.
The UN can:

§ Use the resources of its worldwide organizational network.

§ Call upon the experience and services of a wide variety of ancillary UN programs and specialists (humanitarian, human rights, arms control, development).

§ Bring issues or conflicts to the world stage through the Security Council or Secretary-General.

§ Focus the international community’s moral pressure on the parties in dispute.

§ Bring parties together through the Secretary-General’s good offices.

§ Rally major powers’ political power and resources behind formidable preventive measures.

UN early warning and preventive action have drawbacks.

§ The Secretary-General’s and Security Council’s agenda are overloaded, with limited resources.

§ This overload means that the UN tends to focus on major problems that have already reached a crisis and limits the UN’s ability to operate simultaneously in multiple regions

§ The Security Council must approve major preventive actions, raising the possibility of a veto and constraining the UN’s ability to act. Even actions such as sending observer missions require General Assembly approval and therefore support from a large number of countries.

§ The UN has difficulty addressing claims and conflicts involving non-official groups such as grassroots political movements and opposition parties because the UN deals mainly with disputes among states and governments—even though the UN Charter allows it to act on any potential threat to peace.

§ By raising a conflict to world visibility, the UN can inadvertently widen a conflict by internationalizing it, creating incentives for the parties to become more combative and encouraging other parties to take sides.

§ States may be reluctant to bring their disputes to the Security Council or the Secretary-General because of this visibility and exposure.

§ Many UN policy tools (such as sanctions) are coercive and inflexible by nature.

§ UN intervention may be seen as intrusive and therefore politically unpalatable.

§ The UN still suffers from major organizational inefficiencies and a poor image. Requests for more resources at this time seem politically infeasible.

Regional organizations. Some would like to transform existing regional organizations such as the OAU and OAS into centers for early detection and preventive response in their respective regions. Mechanisms for conflict prevention and management have been created in the OSCE, OAS and OAU and are being developed by sub-regional organizations such as ECCAS and IGAD; ASEAN and other regional organizations have taken initiatives in dispute resolution.

TABLE 4-9: REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS’ STRENGTHS

AND WEAKNESSES IN CONFLICT PREVENTION AND MITIGATION

Regional organizations have advantages.

Their geographical proximity to developing conflicts may make them more likely to learn of disputes before they have reached crisis levels and more likely to respond before they adversely affect the interests of the organizations’ member states.
With fewer actors needing to form a consensus in favor of action and fewer items competing for attention on their agendas, regional organizations may be able to respond more quickly to a problem than, for example, the United Nations.
Regional organizations can bring "peer pressure" from regional states to bear on the parties to a conflict. They can evoke the region’s pride in handling its own affairs rather than having to seek solutions outside the region.
The preventive methods they use and norms they espouse may be based on regional cultures, customs and practices and be more acceptable to conflicting parties than methods and norms imposed by outside forces.
Regional organizations can provide a legitimizing vehicle through which major outside powers can effectively support dispute settlement.

Regional organizations have shortcomings as well.

They have been ineffective in some regions (such as the Middle East) and are not really placed to assume major conflict prevention responsibilities.
Even where regional organizations are relatively strong, they rarely have the financial, logistical, and manpower resources necessary for substantial preventive action.
Regional organizations have comparatively little experience in conflict prevention and mitigation.
Because actions often require unanimous consent and regional organizations generally don’t have bodies similar to the UN Security Council, regional organizations cannot easily mobilize joint military forces for peace enforcement, sanctions, or other coercive actions.
Regional organizations are often constrained by their member states’ fierce determination to maintain individual sovereign national prerogatives.
Regional organizations are not always impartial in a conflict; they may themselves reflect disputes and clashes of interests among their members.

Non-governmental organizations. NGOs active in humanitarian affairs, conflict resolution and democracy-building enjoy some advantages over multilateral and single-state governmental entities.

TABLE 4-10: NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS

ARE INCREASINGLY RECOGNIZED IN CONFLICT PREVENTION

NGOs offer:

§ Extensive grass-roots contacts and intimate knowledge of a country or area, fostering a keen awareness of local disputes’ trajectories and chances of violence erupting.

§ The ability to at least engage parties to a conflict, including opposition or "rebel" groups, in informal, low-key, non-threatening dialogue, where they can discuss their disputes free from pressure to commit themselves to binding agreements or to play to their respective constituencies.

§ The capacity to forge a variety of direct links between professional and commercial bodies and other NGOs that bypass governments and cut across national boundaries.

§ A wealth of professional, specialized, often low-cost, generally highly motivated personnel who tackle labor-intensive tasks.

NGOs have disadvantages as well.

§ NGOs are usually short of resources, financially dependent on their donors, and may not have the staying power in a conflict area that official entities would.

§ NGOs cannot build up the same high-cost communications and logistical capabilities as states and large multilateral organizations.

§ NGOs do not carry the financial and military "clout" of the UN or powerful individual states. They cannot provide guarantees or inducements that will prompt disputing parties to come to an agreement and cannot ensure local and regional security by means of strong economic or military instruments.

There is room for creativity in choosing NGO partners for conflict prevention and mitigation. Political and peace NGOs are clear choices. Countries or regions in conflict may also have other active groups such as women’s groups, religious groups, business or labor organizations that could be tapped to achieve conflict prevention goals.

Individual third party states. Some individual states, especially major or medium-sized powers, have advantages over multilateral organizations in conflict management and preventive diplomacy.

TABLE 4-11: THIRD PARTY STATES HAVE A ROLE TO PLAY

IN CONFLICT PREVENTION AND MITIGATION

Individual states’ strengths:

§ Individual states may have a direct interest in another state’s stability and be strongly motivated to prevent disputes there from escalating beyond control.

§ States can respond more quickly than a multilateral organization to an international problem without the time-consuming process required to gain international consensus for action.

§ Powerful states have formidable diplomatic resources, military forces and technical resources.

Conflict prevention and mitigation action by individual states have drawbacks.

§ States are unlikely to act to prevent a particular dispute from worsening unless they have strategic, economic, or other interests in the dispute or situation.

§ States may be unable to act until they have secured public and/or political support, especially in cases where a nation’s military forces will be involved.

§ States often approach a conflict in a way that favors their national interests and which may not be in the international community’s broader interests.

§ Individual states may be unwelcome in a country or region for historical reasons and may therefore lack the moral legitimacy necessary to gain conflicting parties’ respect and cooperation.

Early intervention is critical to prevent conflicts; tools are available to prevent conflict from becoming violent or to keep extinguished conflicts from reigniting. Yet early intervention requires resources, especially political will, and experience shows it is often difficult to mobilize a national or international constituency before a conflict escalates into crisis. The timing for action is depicted in Table 4-7 above; set-up time and the timeframe policy-makers can expect for tools to show their intended impact are detailed in each policy tool profile in Part III.C above.

Country strategies are often developed and implemented by a single organization, with only its programs and objectives in mind. According to one analyst, in recent conflict interventions, "many of the organizations that intervene often do so with a strategy and presence that is ignorant of what has gone before them, unaware how their efforts might be consistent and supportive of the efforts of others, rather than independent or in competition with them." The international community can add to conflict rather than ameliorating it if local parties who are potential combatants are approached by third parties in partisan ways that exacerbate antagonisms with other indigenous groups.

§ Conflicts typically arise from various sources and offer different points of leverage to bolster peace.

§ Effective conflict prevention usually requires high-level, mid-level and grassroots action.

§ Joint approaches that knit together the various representatives of third parties and the range of tools at their disposal are most likely to be effective in preventing and mitigating conflicts.

§ Local, regional and international coordination in conflict prevention and mitigation should be planned, strategic, and integrated into individual conflict prevention programs.

TABLE 4-12: PARTNERSHIPS ARE MORE EFFECTIVE

THAN SINGLE PARTY INITIATIVES

The following actions should be taken wherever possible to maximize external intervenors’ roles in preventing and mitigating conflict.

§ Improve coordination within one’s own organization or government.

§ Enhance coordination, communication, and decision-making chains of command among agencies, both within a country and regionally.

§ Coordinate a rational division of responsibilities among governments and their respective agencies to avoid manipulation by warring factions over the placement of resources and other unintended consequences of large-scale responses.

§ Cooperate in jointly reviewing and evaluating proposals.

§ Consult with host governments.

§ Exchange information among agencies between countries, both bilaterally and through regional and sub-regional organizations.

§ Set aside political and bureaucratic obstacles.

§ Build on existing regional frameworks such as the Greater Horn of Africa Initiative.

Divide labor and negotiate responsibilities. Joint efforts do not mean that all agencies should undertake all preventive and conflict mitigation activities in a given nation or region.

§ Dividing up responsibilities begins with making coordination explicit among the range of governmental and non-governmental actors to be involved in the conflict prevention or mitigation initiative.

§ The decision to implement a common approach is followed by details of individual and organizational responsibilities in achieving the stated results.

Intervention in conflict prevention or mitigation must address issues of how third parties can limit their commitment to ensure that they can withdraw. This includes defining the circumstances under which the intervention would be terminated. Common elements that emerge in analyzing the factors associated with disengagement are discussed in Table 4-13 below.

TABLE 4-13: ELEMENTS AFFECTING DISENGAGEMENT

Criteria for disengaging from conflict prevention and mitigation activities should be pre-defined and explicit from the outset.

§ Truly preventive action limits engagement. The goal of preventive action is to avoid extreme intervention through selective and modest early engagement.

§ Ease of disengagement is determined by the nature of the intervention. Preventive action seeks to shore up—not replace—local, national and regional mechanisms to resolve disputes in vulnerable areas. Risks of inextricable involvement are relatively small where indigenous institutions and processes are in danger of breaking down but still exist. However, those risks increase significantly when third parties are required to restore law and order, create political institutions, foster social reconciliation, and assist in economic reconstruction. Difficulties in disengaging become more acute when a country has been involved in a violent conflict and third parties have intervened through military force.

§ Exit criteria emerge from the indicators and benchmarks associated with the goals and tasks defined during the analysis phase of developing the conflict prevention strategy. This systematic approach allows policy-makers to pre-define their exit strategy.

§ Exit criteria should be pre-defined and explicit. Limits and "sunset" provisions should be put on potential responsibility and financial costs. Sponsors of conflict prevention should identify in as much detail as possible the mutual obligations of local, regional and other parties and arrange strict quid pro quo contractual arrangements with the parties in conflict.

A Guide:
	Developing Effective Conflict Prevention Strategies