68643 Accidental Partners? Listening to the Australian Defence and Police Experience of the security-development nexus in Conflict-Affected and Fragile States a work product of the Trust Fund cooperation between AusAID and the World Bank‟s Fragile and Conflict-Affected Countries Group (OPCFC) prepared on behalf of the World Bank by Karene Melloul October 2010 Contents Executive Summary Introduction I. Two Australian cases integrating security and development II. Knowing each other would support working together III. Turning boundaries into bridges would increase our effectiveness: Working the entry points A. International vs. local intent: striking a united balance B. Renewed counterinsurgency and stabilization doctrines C. Security Sector Reform: Critical challenge of state building D. Police as a bridge Conclusion and recommendations ii Acknowledgement We would like to thank all the organizations and individuals who generously gave their time to provide information and support for this project. All of them engaged ‘beyond borders’ and by doing so, they have already turned boundaries into bridges. Particular thanks go to and the Asia-Pacific Civil-Military Center for Excellence for their outstanding guidance and continuous support as well as to Michael Holzmann for his exceptional advice. iii Executive Summary Though the spheres of security and development significantly overlap in fragile and conflict-affected countries, the respective responses remain largely disconnected. As an international group engaging more than USD$3 billion aid in fragile and conflict-affected countries, the World Bank recognizes that it is only by securing development that we can put down roots deep enough to break the cycle of fragility and violence. Firstly, to facilitate the transition from war to peace and later, to embed stability so that development can generate progress over a decade and beyond. In order to do this, we believe all development actors need to rethink development assistance creatively as well as learn from ‘the other side’: security-focused operations and programs. This paper reports on a consultative dialogue between the World Bank and Australia’s whole-of-government spectrum of institutions, with a focus on development actors ‘hearing’ the security perspective. In this, we join a growing process of dialogue between ‘accidental partners’ – development and security actors, unfamiliar with each other but faced with the same challenge of being engaged in fragile and conflict-affected environments. From our perspective, engaging in thinking about integration or coordination between development and security embarks on largely unknown territory. However, over the last fifteen to twenty years, Australia has engaged in several unprecedented models of crisis response, integrating security and development, and we welcome the opportunity to bring that experience into the broader global discussion. The objectives of this dialogue are:  To bring a security and rule-of-law perspective to the debate on statebuilding and peace-building, and  To anchor the World Bank’s thinking in a richer and security focused understanding of the dynamics that influence external actors’ interventions. Our hypotheses, tested through this dialogue are:  Knowing Each Other Would Support Working Together  Turning Boundaries into Bridges Would Increase Our Effectiveness This paper presents the results of this consultative dialogue: (1) describing models of engagement from Australia’s operational experience integrating security and development, extracted from the experience in Solomon Islands and Bougainville (2) raising issues about knowing each other and working together, and (3) identifying emerging themes at the junction of security and development, and offering practical ideas to take further. The first section briefly outlines two case studies of Australia’s approaches to integrating development and security. Because of the distant location, the low coverage in international media and the small size of the countries involved, cases of Australia’s engagement in the Asia-Pacific region have been largely neglected in the global dialogue. However, challenges faced in these countries are in fact very relevant and as a multilateral agency with global reach, the World Bank strongly feels that Australia’s experience and lessons should be widely understood. The section ‘Knowing each other would support working together’ focuses on cooperation between military, police and development organizations and personnel, which is the practical face of the security-development nexus. The common experience is that we mainly view each other through misperceptions and stereotypes, based on ignorance. Basic cross-information of how military, police and development work would be an extremely helpful starting point. Acknowledging differences and similarities as well as similar challenges should also help initiate constructive dialogue. To address the absence of a common language, several ideas were developed around joint workshops, exercises and training. Relevance and feasibility of shared planning and assessment were also analyzed in detail. ‘Turning boundaries into bridges’ means identifying areas within and at the margin of the security and development mandates, where responsibilities may overlap. Identifying boundary areas would require systematic mapping efforts from both security and development actors, including a detailed review of missed opportunities and successful cases of cooperation. All organizations involved in fragile and conflict-affected settings share the common challenge of understanding the ‘context’ – can our respective strengths and perspectives be aggregated to create an optimal assessment of a complex situation? It was suggested that such questions could be addressed in a sustained and iterative workshop format, maybe under the auspices of partnering multilateral and/or regional organizations from both sides of the security-development nexus. iv International vs. local intent: striking a united balance. How do external actors contribute to statebuilding? Launching reconstruction and ensuring security are seen as primary means of extending state visibility and authority; for external actors, a central challenge is the paradox of intervening efficiently while aiming to leave. This raises a number of questions and tensions, inherent to the nature of international interventions. How to intervene effectively but not weaken local institutions or make oneself indispensable? How to balance mission scope and objectives, yet not infringe on the local community process of determining their own priorities and direction? Is politics the missing link? The question of who holds (and should hold) ultimate responsibility for outcomes when multiple actors, agencies and countries are involved raises the issue of sovereignty. This raises many questions, and answers few, at this stage. Common ways forward were suggested: more realistic timeframes, mutual agreement between external and local partners, focus on technical strength and improving our understanding of local leadership. Renewed counterinsurgency and stabilization doctrines merge security and development into a single approach. It may or may not expand the soldier’s role into development areas but it certainly proposes a new form of engagement, encompassing development, politics and security, risking ‘blurring the line’. If armed soldiers not only patrol the streets but also heal the sick and deliver schoolbooks, how do traumatized populations learn to support and trust in civilian institutions, and what do they expect of their own military once the external security forces are gone? New actors unskilled in development climb up their own learning curve, possibly duplicating, creating dependencies or hindering long-term sustainable change. The Australian COIN and stabilization approach takes on this challenge through a whole-of-government engagement. Such a comprehensive approach recognizes that warfighting is different from statebuilding and raises questions about how security and development overlap, complement and (maybe) contradict. Security Sector Reform: Critical challenge of statebuilding. At the crossroads of security and development, Security Sector Reform (SSR) is about applying the development process to security and justice. SSR is one aspect of a wider political and social process, at the heart of social contract and as such a crucial component of development and statebuilding. As part of the public sector, SSR also addresses capacity, institutions and systems building If not addressed, unmanaged and uncontrolled security sectors in fragile and conflict-affected settings will inevitably trigger the next conflict or tension. By sidelining the security sector, as a result of both development and security community practices, we are hindering its development and therefore the future of the partners we are trying to assist. Police as a bridge. Police and justice are part of a continuum, a ‘value chain’ that bridges development and security. In all cases, policing must shift from a militarized organization to a community-based one. A key part of the social contract, police should mirror people’s intent; by enforcing and supporting rule of law, police allow development activities to occur in a non-violent environment. Police are the ones who should and can ‘hold’, once the military has ‘cleared’, in order to allow development to ‘build’. But policing is still an underfunded and somewhat ‘taboo’ topic in the development community, tarnished by association with repression and corruption in fragile countries. In many respects, we lack appreciation that socially stable and economically viable communities require enforceable rule of law and legal systems that reflect agreement within society, enforced by police and maintained by the justice sector. Recommendations Despite obvious differences, this consultative dialogue provides striking evidence of need and appetite for improved coherence between the development and security communities. The questions raised focus on what do we need to know, to remember, and to action? The recommendations are the following: For Australia 1. Seek a systematic way to institutionalize the experience of RAMSI initial phase and the PMG in Bougainville, into shared knowledge and improved future decisions. 2. Network the defense, police, foreign affairs and aid people who have experienced the security-development nexus to create knowledge. v For the leading international development and security international organizations, such as the UN, the World Bank and NATO Develop a joint ‘growth-path continuum’ to jointly define the content and limitations of working together 3. Engage jointly in identifying ‘boundary’ areas through systematic joint mapping efforts 4. Organize joint workshops on differences and similarities, entry points, shared tools 5. Set up joint exercises to simulate interventions and identify issues that have to be addressed 6. Explore joint training, evaluations, assessment tools and guidance notes 7. Identify entry points between development post-conflict planning frameworks such as Transitional Results Matrices and PCNAs and military planning 8. Develop a joint work program on shared assessments 9. Initiate a process to categorize information and establish frameworks and arrangements for sharing information and efforts Engage in joint research programs to explore the following ‘boundary areas’: 10. Sovereignty and responsibility in an intervention context: Setting the stage for an open and constructive dialogue 11. Process of statebuilding and ‘Resilient State’: Definitions 12. Capacity Building in Security and Development: Adapted approach timeframes and limits 13. Mutual agreements: How to develop mutual responsibility and accountability, from both the foreign organizations and the partner country in both security and development 14. Technical strength: In ‘overlapping areas’, how to be more responsive in providing technical expertise in a timely manner 15. Local leadership: What is it? Where does it come from? How is it nourished? How is it perceived in a specific context? 16. COIN Establish a common platform to ensure that Security Sector Reform is an integral part of development assistance and benefits from both perspectives 17. Ensure that donors and financial institutions are present at a very early stage to consider post-conflict security sector issues from a wider, development perspective 18. Ensure that SSR ‘institution building’ is driven by ‘institution building’ expertise 19. Ensure that DDR programs are suggested when appropriate and that organizations experienced in DDR are engaged early on through the creation of a joint DDR task force 20. Integrate SSR to public sector programs 21. Integrate SSR to the Public Financial Management 22. Ensure that Rule of Law and police ‘secure’ development 23. Ensure that Police are part of a ‘value chain’ linked to justice and corrections 24. Indentify opportunities to constructively and innovatively link youth and police programs vi Introduction ‘Our appreciation of how best to secure development – to synthesize security, governance, and economics to be most effective – is still modest. I have been encouraging development and finance ministers, policy scholars, and practicing professionals to consider new policy frameworks for fragile states – and to reach out to other disciplines.’ Robert B. Zoellick, President of the World Bank January 8, 2009 Though the spheres of security and development significantly overlap in fragile and conflict-affected countries, the respective responses remain largely disconnected. Understanding how the two spheres are intertwined and cross feed each other has been at the heart of the research on conflict and fragility. Operationally, bringing security and development together has been one of the toughest challenges for organizations involved from the two areas. However, promoting coherence between civilian, military and police efforts is fundamental to providing effective international support in fragile environments. As an international group engaging more than USD$3 billion aid in fragile and conflict-affected countries, the World Bank recognizes that it is only by securing development that we can put down roots deep enough to break the cycle of fragility and violence. Firstly, to facilitate the transition from war to peace and later, to embed stability so that development can generate progress in the long term. To do this, we believe all development actors need to creatively rethink and learn from ‘the other side’: security. Over the last fifteen to twenty years, Australia has embarked in several unprecedented models of crisis response, integrating security and development. Australia has been in the lead in pursuing a whole-of-government engagement, both in the institutional approach in Canberra and in the on-the-ground operations and deployments. Since the diplomatic victory with the first UN transitional authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), through a civilian- military monitoring mission in Bougainville – Papua New Guinea to multi-agency post-conflict assistance missions in Solomon Islands, Australia has developed a wealth of experiences in practical integration of security and development agencies in responding to fragile and conflict-affected countries. In recognition, and also to further such integration, the Australian Government opened the Asia Pacific Civil-Military Centre of Excellence (APCMCOE) in November 2008, anchoring the national effort to integrate perspectives and innovate. The Centre’s mission is to support the development of national civil-military capabilities to prevent, prepare for and respond more effectively to conflicts and disasters overseas. Though scale and conflict intensity may render replication challenging, Australia’s experience brings important lessons about the challenges and what it takes to integrate security and development into one engagement and a single strategy. This paper reports upon a consultative dialogue between the World Bank and Australia’s whole-of- government spectrum, with a strong focus on the security perspective. In this, we join a growing process of dialogue between ‘accidental partners’ – development and security actors, unfamiliar with each other but faced with the same challenge of being engaged in fragile and conflict-affected environments.  Our hypotheses are: 1) Knowing each other would support working together, and 2) Turning boundaries into bridges would increase our effectiveness  This paper presents the results of a consultative dialogue: (1) presenting two cases of engagement from Australia’s operational experience integrating security and development, (2) raising challenges and way forward about knowing each other and working together, and (3) identifying emerging themes at the junction of security and development and offering practical ideas to take further.  The approach and methodology were designed to be consultative and focused on security. In a listening mode, the objective was to learn from the people who had first-hand experience and responsibility of security in conflict-affected and fragile settings. This work is not an academic research project or a policy review but a consultative dialogue, listening to the experience, lessons and recommendation from the security perspective. This allowed the World Bank an opportunity to extract knowledge in order to provoke discussion and support dialogue. Through a detailed set of questions, we wanted to test our hypotheses and identify workable entry points. More than 100 semi-structured interviews were undertaken with key security personnel who have peacebuilding and peacekeeping experience, facilitated by the Asia Pacific Civil-Military Centre of Excellence (interview guide in annex 1). Key personnel experienced in post-crisis and fragile states and involved in the security-development nexus contributed to this project, including people from the Australian Defense Force, the Australian Federal Police, AusAID, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the justice sector and academia.  Geographical scope: The results of this consultative dialogue presented in this document are based on the experience of defense and police personnel in Cambodia, PNG, Solomon Islands and Timor. However, it is obvious that the cases of Iraq and Afghanistan are shaping the current thinking, the way people present their experience and have therefore strongly influenced the discussions.  With a ‘development’ ear. This paper excludes relevant questions on humanitarian aid, as the Bank mandate does not cover this type of assistance, although this intersection has been discussed in other wider forums.  This learning project is part of the Australia-World Bank partnership to advance international donor effectiveness in fragile and conflict settings. It comes under a work program financed partially by a trust fund through which AusAID provided resources to the Fragile and Conflict-Affected Countries Group at the World Bank. This program aims to improve our understanding of statebuilding in fragile and conflict settings. It provides a unique opportunity for us to access a range of views, expertise and experience, including political economy analysis and security sector perspectives, not traditionally found within the World Bank. The objectives of this dialogue are:  To bring a security and rule-of-law perspective to the debate on statebuilding and peace-building in fragile and conflict settings, and  To anchor the World Bank’s thinking in a richer and security-focused understanding of the dynamics that influence external actors’ interventions. One of the key early findings, which colored the development of this project, was a ‘mirroring’ flaw of classifying anything that is not ‘us’ under an imaginary entity: Aid has developed the concept of the security- development nexus, which classifies the military and the police on one side, clustering anything that has to do with security under a single entity with unitary behavior, perceptions, and capacity that does not really exist. A similar bias is expressed in the civilian-military concept, developed by the military, which perceives as ‘civilian’ an artificial monolithic entity, expected to reflect the military structure. We have each raised expectations about an ‘entity’ that does not exist. This mirroring flaw creates mirrored frustration on both sides, and hinders our ability to work together and learn from each other. This paper does not systematically address this flaw, but does attempt to nuance the understanding of development actors like the World Bank towards the world of security institutions and individuals. Engaging in thinking about integration, coordination or at least coherence between development and security embarks on largely unknown territory. Mixing development and security actors and goals may be playing ‘Dr Frankenstein’ – creating a hybrid entity with a ‘life’ of its own. While we will do our best to model the likely outcomes of such an action, the full impact would be impossible to predict. At a minimum, such a process requires substantial planning and sophisticated monitoring. The number of questions opened by this paper speaks to the complexity of the ‘Accidental Partners’ relationship. Shared premises in cross-discipline dialogue on fragile and conflict-affected countries:  Learning across disciplines is a serious challenge that requires serious investment for very uncertain results. It lacks solid methodology, sufficient reference frameworks, agreed conceptual frameworks and paradigms. However, by stepping out of our respective comfort zones, such an exercise allows practitioners to perceive and appreciate a different reality that their familiar programs or approaches would not reveal.  Politics is the sensitive ‘heart’ of the security-development nexus: The aid approach depoliticizes national and local political entities while military interventions place the politics up-front (although they too can be uncomfortable acknowledging the political impact of military strategic and tactical decisions). Similiarly, by operating on the ‘rule of law’ concept, police methodology contains politics upfront. The political concept of state is based on sovereignty, challenged by foreign interventions and immediately polarizing positions.  Fragile and conflict settings are complex and unique, as are our responses to them. Security and development are interdependent, affected by multiple and intertwined political, social and economic factors, and attribution is difficult. From the beneficiaries’ perspective, the dividing line may be even more blurred. Security and development may not be two different entities, they may not be provided by different actors, they may be so intertwined as to be indistinguishable. Missions and programs are networks of complex, ambitious, and interdependent objectives from diverse external actors responding to their own corporate pressure. As a result, it is now widely acknowledged that neither purely military nor purely development solutions are adequate. 1 I. Two Australian cases integrating security and development This section outlines two case studies extracted from Australia’s approach to integrating development and security. Both were unique and unprecedented regional interventions, the first because it was police-led, the second because it was unarmed. The brief notes below are not an evaluation and do not present a comprehensive documentation of what worked and what did not. Based on the interviews of some of the members of these interventions, they simply present practical elements that make these interventions unique in terms of a comprehensive approach to security and development. They present the first phase of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands 2003-2004 (A) and the Peace Monitoring Group on Bougainville in Papua New Guinea 1998-2003 (B). Both interventions drew legitimacy from being ‘requested’, by the Prime minister for the first and the fighting parties for the second. Both also appear to have been particularly well-designed to address the level of intensity of the conflict and root down sustainable transitions. They adopted bold approaches and their leadership developed unique methods that should be strongly considered for future interventions. Historically disregarded, cases in the Pacific region are very relevant to improving the integration of security and development. Because of the distant location, the low media coverage in international media, the relatively low- level intensity of the conflicts and the small size of the countries involved, cases of Australia’s engagement in the Asia-Pacific region have been largely neglected and not properly integrated in the global knowledge on fragile and conflict-affected countries. However, challenges faced in these small but very unstable countries have wide relevance and lessons should be widely understood. In addition, the cases below demonstrate that by radically adapting the design of the mission to the conflict cycle (unarmed mission) and the nature of violence (police-led), such external interventions can be more efficient than blueprinted peacekeeping missions. The results are important enough for Australia to seek a systematic way to institutionalize these experiences into shared knowledge and improved future decisions. As a multilateral agency with global reach, the World Bank strongly feels that Australia should turn the creativity and legacy of these high quality HQ and field-based decisions into ‘operating manuals’ or at least detailed documentation of lessons learnt - while acknowledging the limitation of generic lessons when applied to new and equally unique situations. The processes, which were developed by having the right personalities in the right place at the right time, should be made accessible for incorporation and adaptation in future situations. One way to learn from them is to institutionalize them through developing documentation of modalities that translates individuals’ skills into role definitions or at least set of required competencies. In some cases, the ‘culture of work and engagement’ remained, but in others it was lost by the 3rd or 4th rotation, demonstrating that the exceptional quality of people at the beginning cannot be the sole ingredient for success. A. Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI Phase I) Main characteristics of the Country and the Conflict Critical context  A number of state institutions had ceased to function  Severe ethnic and criminal violence had brought state to verge of collapse, involving mainly two fighting groups  The government requested international intervention  A previous peace agreement reduced widespread ethic tensions but did not address general lawlessness and other issues  The police force was an integral part of the problem, as some of its members joined the militias Country basics  Spread and disconnected geography  Population approximately 600,000 inhabitants  120 languages/groups, 9 regions with strong regional identity Conflict basics  Low intensity fighting, very centralized to one region, sliding into criminal activities  Relatively small number of deaths  High impact on society – most basic activities disrupted (markets, schools, hospitals etc)  Major disruption to economic activity – verge of economic collapse 2 As a police-led mission, the main objective of the RAMSI intervention was to restore security by prosecuting criminals and focusing on justice. Both designed and led by Australia, but also comprised of a minority of other Pacific countries, RAMSI had a regional and strong legal mandate that included police executive powers, addressing justice and prosecuting criminals and support to the correctional system. These key aspects related to justice are often disregarded in immediate post-conflict and are never part of the initial response. In Solomon Islands, a very accurate analysis of the conflict and its transformation led to the bold decision to focus on these issues. They had tremendous impact on the population and the overall transition. RAMSI’s first phase was genuinely multidisciplinary and integrated The uniqueness and effectiveness of Australian experience in the case of RAMSI stems the fact that from the outset it was a multi-disciplinary and an inter-agency intervention, composed of members from the Police (300), the Military (1700), Foreign Affairs and Aid. With a single set of agreed objectives, each component had a clearly define role. RAMSI’s initial coherence was deliberately planned. The unity of purpose was forged before the personnel set foot in the Solomon Islands. The participating departments and agencies nominated their participants in this effort sufficiently early for them all, including the very most senior levels, to participate fully in a six week intensive pre- departure off-site planning seminar. During these precious weeks participants from the four main departments were able to clearly define their different but complementary roles. Whole intervention was structured around three phases: restoring security, restoring governance and building capacity. The Australian interagency response regrouped Police, Military and Aid, under the leadership and co-ordination of the Department of Foreign Affairs through the person of the civilian special coordinator.  The Military was to provide logistical and security support for the mission as a whole. Their presence was also identified as a strong deterrent to militias seeking to escalate the level of violence. Paradoxically, it was also determined that the strength of the deterrence was inversely proportional to its usage. These insights later produced innovative practice, described below.  The Aid community was to stabilize the public financial management, revitalize the justice sector, and provide overall support to state building and economic re-launch. Once again the selection of these program components was an interagency decision based on a shared understanding of what constitutes critical triggers and fundamental causes of present and further conflict.  The Police Force was to establish the rule of law by disarming and prosecuting criminals, as well as improving the quality and credibility of the local police force. This latter objective led to the dismissal of over four hundred local police force members (25%), after investigation and due process. The same individuals who had spent six dense weeks trying to understand the true constrains and challenges of the mission to come, were also the ones first deployed. The representatives from the involved agencies had the necessary level of delegation to be able to take decisions on the ground and forge working relationships that addressed the challenges stemming from the differences internal to the Australian contingent. Even if this planning was extremely effective, participants identified several challenges. The difference in resourcing had been quite apparent from the very first days of planning. The military had the necessary active workforce to be able to provide a strong head-count to represent them. Agencies also differed significantly in the amount of money available and the level of discretion that could be exerted with regard to spending. In addition, it became very apparent from the start that the members of this expedition were advancing in the absence of a common framework for defining the situation, and did not possess any existing common work processes and procedures to streamline implementation. RAMSI forged a single identity ‘on the ground’. The ‘single’ internal reporting system was not geared towards compliance, but was designed as to oblige the diverse RAMSI parties to communicate and think with each other. The RAMSI ‘single’ reporting approach was designed to forge and maintain a ‘united front’ both externally and internally towards their Canberra based masters, which was challenging at times. Indeed the team on the ground had to manage the potentially conflicting institutional identities, constraints and bureaucratic hurdles. It took the shape of a single and consolidated report signed off and owned by all four agencies (with some exception for Defense related ‘spot- reports’), thus serving the purpose of an ‘on-the-ground’ consensus building tool. The frequency of internal communications was dynamic and responsive to the needs of the mission. For the first six months, all senior members 3 meet twice a day in order to exchange sufficiently for the agencies to acquire the ability to act as one. Over time, these important meetings reduced in frequency to weekly. External communications were strictly a joint task. All discussions with local leaders involved the four representatives: Foreign Affairs, Police, Aid and Military; reinforcing the perceived unity of intent. Each of these coordination mechanisms were designed as ‘common sense’ by the first multi-disciplinary team deployed. Strong and coherent support from the HQs back home was another important factor of success. The multiagency intervention was mirrored in the composition of the Canberra based interdepartmental committee that met as frequently as weekly throughout the initiation phases. This gave the initiative the necessary visibility and ‘voice’ in Australia to assure wide support for a sustained effort. This committee was defining necessary policies and objectives in pace with the evolving situation in Solomon Islands. However, the implementation was one in which RAMSI members ‘on the ground’ were empowered to take the initiative and adapt sufficiently for the strategic intent to be truly met. Australia’s level of commitment to achieving results was demonstrated by the high level monthly Ministerial meetings dedicated to RAMSI, as well as the numerous ‘thematic’ committees dedicated to coordination at different levels of the administration. This constituted a formalized and robust oversight and decision making mechanism capable of harnessing local ‘on the ground’ initiative. RAMSI focused on achieving immediate, visible and stabilizing results. The preparation paved the way for early wins in the security realm. Advance planning achieved two nearly unique feature of this mission. Firstly, police and military personnel were out on patrol, fully briefed, the very day of their arrival. Secondly, police outposts were established in all regions, no matter how remote they were, within the first six months. The Security strategy did ‘hit the spot’. The RAMSI patrols were joint patrols, including unarmed local and Australian police as well as Australian military. The unarmed nature of the police on these patrols sought to reduce the resort to armed violence to create law and order. The police had full leadership of these patrols; with the military providing support as determined by the police patrol commander. The approach to deterrence was also a fresh take on the subject. The back-up was composed of military and heavily armed police. These capabilities, the advanced weapons and weapon systems, were displayed to the public during the very early ‘open days’. This might was only displayed, and never used in combat. Even when the Navy and the Air force had to take to the waves and to the airs, their presence was dissuasive enough to engender the voluntary demobilization of militias in the targeted areas, without firing a shot. This was a relief to the Australian military, who had deemed the effectiveness of their forces as moderate in the case of prolonged, jungle based guerilla warfare. RAMSI took Public Relations and Communications seriously and imprinted trust, credibility and impartiality. Public reactions and communications were consistently and tightly managed at all levels of the organization at all times. The mission made it abundantly clear from the beginning that it would stay for ‘the duration’ needed. The population would be secure until the situation was stabilized and would not find itself exposed to retaliation. This message was reiterated by all parties. Responsiveness and relevance of communication at a local level was achieved by patrols being encouraged to engage with their host communities and take on the responsibility of bringing a coherent response back to emerging questions. In order to assure a consistent response to recurring questions (FAQs), daily ‘cue cards’ were issued to all personnel all the way from Chief Coordinator to the constable, private and Aid worker. Early successes were carefully orchestrated and communicated to achieve maximum impact at critical moments in the stabilization process. For example, all weapons collected from militias and police were publicly destroyed, and high profile arrests were carefully timed to affect both sides simultaneously. Finally, beyond the communication needs of the Solomon Islanders, such a strong internal communication did ensure that the staff ‘on the ground’ clearly understood their role and the need to work effectively in an inter-agency environment. The exceptional quality of the first Australian contingent, from the four agencies made the difference. All of the above was designed and implemented by the same team, who shaped a shared vision and used their institutions to best serve it. It seems that in addition to technical and political skills, one key lesson is that leaders deployed must have the ‘right’ level of ego. Indeed, self-confidence is strongly required to take bold decisions shaping the future of another country, set ambitious objectives and take responsibility for success. At the same time, it requires humility to 4 acknowledge that shared decisions across agencies are best and to empower the staff in real contact with the population as they are the ones making or breaking the transition. B. The Peace Monitoring Group (PMG) on Bougainville in Papua New Guinea Main characteristics of the Country and the Conflict Critical context  Localized insurrection that became secessionist war since 1988, triggered by disputes over mining revenue (one of the largest copper and gold mines in the world), claims not met, mine was destroyed. PNG govt responded by blockade, which contributed to a huge decrease in health and education services.  Cease-fire agreement reached  Fighting parties request for international assistance in progressing towards peace  Previous failed peace attempts  Initiated in support of a locally-grown peace process Country basics  Mineral-rich, relatively isolated islands, populated by 200,000, 4% more than 5 million  Fragmented/tribal population identity – diversity within diversity, matrilineal society in most part of the province  Very weak central structure  Main social structures still based on customary principles and tradition. Conflict basics  Decade long conflict, relatively isolated to one province. In that province: - Widespread deaths (approx 10% of population) - Approx a third of the population displaced, ¼ in „care centers‟ - Severely damaged infrastructure, cease in formal economic activity  Escalation of conflict centered around secessionist movement, but multiple underlying causes, tribal and colonial. Major grievances about poor distribution of mineral revenue (national vs. provincial), non-local labor, and environmental impact. PMG had a well-defined mandate and was unarmed. This was a regionally constituted peace monitoring operation initiated by New Zealand and then passed on to Australia. A three hundred strong contingent of unarmed military, police and civilian personnel from Australia, New Zealand and other Pacific nations was deployed for a 5-year mandate. The force had no specific legal powers but a ‘Peace Monitoring’ mandate from the UN Security Council and a regional organization. Unprecedented, the mission was set to be unarmed. The rationale was that it was primordial to project neutrality to support disarmament, leave the responsibility of security within the community and defuse the delicate situation. Facing an unarmed mission, the cost of fighting groups to attack them would have been extremely high. Such a courageous decision was uneasy to accept through the whole-of-Government Australian structures but was eventually adopted. Though the mandate was only to monitor peace, the mission rapidly focused on facilitating dialogue to make peace ‘stick’. Insufficiently prepared, PMG created an emergent operational structure and identity that were very adapted. The mission was led by the military and included civilians from police, aid and foreign affairs, deployed in a highly decentralized structure. Though the commander was a military officer, he had to report to an Interdepartmental Committee, composed of the agencies involved. The focus on the mission was to patrol the province, to engage with communities, share and gather information about the peace process. Because of the geography of the place, the quasi- absence of roads, joint foot-patrols in small units became the main activity. Between military and civilians, a modus operandi emerged from the process of mutual adaptation and support during the joint patrols. The prolonged isolation imposed the high level of autonomy that was to set these units apart. The civilians were clearly not prepared for the military command and control structures of these patrols, and the military personnel initially perceived the civilians only as burden. In addition, as military units, they had to struggle with the fact that the survival of members was left to the ‘bon vouloir’ of their temporary hosts in villages. The need for pre-mission preparation eventually took the organizational shape of clearly articulated roles and expectations, through which teams could mold their unique and adapted features. The civilians became indispensable to facilitate dialogue with the communities, while the military could focus on security. Experiences were systematically shared and each unit became more equipped and responsible to face the task at hand. The highly decentralized nature of mission meant individuals ’on the ground’ gained a deep understanding of the situation and role, needed to effectively exercise high level of autonomy It is very interesting to 5 note that for all the personnel posted, military and civilians, there was a very widely shared sense of achievement, which is not commonly found in other missions. Aid was part of the Peace Deal. The Aid component was not part of the PMG and it was never intended to formally and structurally integrate it. However, people on the ground quickly designed strong coordination mechanisms. The idea was to use the intense ‘consultation’ mechanisms that these small units represented to engage the community in their development needs. By adopting a community-driven development approach towards communities most affected by the conflict, their confidence in the PMG and the peace process increased and had a spill-over effect. By engaging in the peace process and laying down the weapons, communities had access to the first peace dividends in the form of small projects they did own. To build trust with the communities, culture was at the heart and the mind of the mission. Overall success really hinged on the individual patrol’s level of engagement with the local community. Common practice was to sleep in villages and share meals. This was done in order to show the a priori trust placed in the host and the local ability to uphold security for its guests. Patrol members also attended church, as religion was an omnipresent part of local identity, as well as providing a privileged vantage point on the development of local dynamics. The personnel were exceptionally well prepared in terms of cultural awareness. Cultural adaptation was not only an external relations issue as every patrol was multi-cultural and included at least one female member. Diversity came in the form of gender, institutional belonging, as well as country culture of origin. The ability to engage with a ‘not white faces only’ patrol, and the presence of at least one woman in a matrilineal culture, were important factors. This also meant that the individuals taking part had to build a strong cultural awareness and tolerance. Cultural engagement was about more than handing out information; the approach was truly developed in a listening mode. Respect for local values and value systems had radical consequences for the mission. This was the first mission that was a completely dry mission, with total ban on pornography and a zero tolerance threshold leading to immediate repatriation in case of transgression. Dialogue facilitation was central to the nascent peace process and therefore to the mission. Military logistical support was focused on shuttling the dialoguing parties to face-to-face meetings. The distinctly red painted helicopters and boats of the Transport Peace Fund enabled dialogue in an environment deprived of transport infrastructure. Peace came to be seen as flowing naturally from genuine dialogue. Long-term commitment ‘packs a real punch’. UN peace monitoring and peace keeping mandates seldom come in five year tranches. The time horizon of the PMG signaled clear commitment of the international and the regional communities to creating a sustainable and peaceful solution in this remote area. This was further reinforced when after three years following the cease-fire; a comprehensive peace agreement was reached and signed. The political agreement paved the way for immediate disarmament and the implementation of enhanced autonomy, while putting the final status questions on hold for at least a decade. 6 II. Knowing each other would support working together This section focuses on ‘cooperation’ between military, police and development organizations and personnel, which is the practical face of the security-development nexus. The Australian experience, even within well- developed whole-of-Government mechanisms, reveals numerous barriers and challenges to effective cooperation and coordination. Mutual ignorance, misunderstanding and misperceptions color the interactions, to the detriment of all. Significant barriers still remain and major steps must be taken to break down the stereotypes, develop a common language and recognize the common challenges. Through this process, the dual objective would be to build more effective, mutually respectful communication and develop a richer and shared thinking process. Notable successes, such as the early phase of RAMSI, bring interesting lessons for a wider community of practice. Applied at the international level, in terms of institutional ‘partnership’, key players such as the World Bank, the UN and NATO should engage in defining the content and limitations of working together. This will raise major organization and knowledge engineering issues that need to be addressed. Knowing each other We view each other through misperceptions and stereotypes. Both the development and security communities are ignorant of other actors’ role, capacity and interest. Based on hands-on experience in Timor and the Solomon Islands, this seems like the strongest challenge to dialogue and engagement. Assumptions and stereotypes drive a form of paralysis and constantly reinforce the status quo. Between the ‘naïve tree-huggers’ and the ‘brainless bullies’ it is difficult to even start the conversation. However, basic cross-information of how military, police and development work easily breaks down the stereotypes. Roles, tools, objectives, values, ethos/guiding belief of institutions, underlying drivers of behaviors (motives), methods, etc. are radically different between these communities. From the military and police perspective, development appears to be a very organic, disorganized community tied by financial links and ideals. The ungraspable mix of NGOs, academics, bankers, social scientist, hard-core economists and activists still leaves the ‘security’ community perplexed. The absence of a sole entity or readily accessible structure is one of the toughest challenges they experience when engaging with development partners. Finally, the fact that ‘development’ covers every aspect of life and focuses on processes rather than outputs (ideally) is a major challenge from the security community’s perspective. Cross-presenting the defining elements of each institution seems like an obvious start and it has been achieved in some cases such as in Timor or Cambodia. However, the knowledge gap has not yet been addressed institutionally. Acknowledging differences and similarities initiates constructive dialogue. The security and development communities active in fragile and conflict-affected environments are very different but they find themselves in the same risky situations, at similar moments in time. One commonly suggested starting point is to articulate and acknowledge the differences and similarities between the two groups, ideally in a workshop setting. The table below lists some of the differences and similarities perceived by military personnel experienced in engaging with development partners. The recognition of striking similarities such as strong drive and dedication, and the need to ‘make a difference’, should form a common ground for open and constructive dialogue. It was also suggested that a similar exercise could be done on cross-assumptions, listing how each actor perceive the other and confronting the results. 7 Differences Similarities - Role - Vocation-based careers - Values - Strong sense of „making a difference‟ - Ethos/Guiding belief of institutions - Dedicated and goal-driven profiles - Underlying drivers of behaviors (motives) - High expectations from the job - Methods - Experience of hardship - Approach to solving problems - Posting-based experience - Culture of work - Turnover, cycle of „naivism‟, individuals‟ learning curves - Resources - Jargonized and acronym intensive language - Manpower: people on the ground and at HQ - Different environment that the one they originate from - Hierarchy-based decisions - High expectations from the job - Decision-making process - Institutional and ideological strong identity - Degree of organization and planning of activities - Face similar challenges - Time and resources to train before deployment - Deal with overambitious objectives - Homogeneity of training - Some similar skills required: emotional intelligence, need for - Frequency of turnover quick assessment, ability to identify local processes. - Time-frame - Seek acceptance by the local population - Danger to which soldiers are more compelled - Successes are largely based on perception A similar approach can and should be applied to the nuances of the ‘security’ block of the security- development nexus, including from within. Military and police are fundamentally different and have not yet designed or agreed upon shared frameworks of engagement, though many processes have started in Australia. Police and Military wear uniforms and share the ‘monopoly of the use of lethal force’ but they are radically different, with comparative advantages that are complementary in fragile and conflict-affected settings, at different stages or in different contexts. A better understanding of their respective roles and impact on development is needed. Police Military Problem solving, negotiation-oriented, influencing people, Implementing plan, self-contained, mission-oriented, heavy flexibility, agility, responding to changing circumstances. footprint, great planning capacity, show of force, fire power, holding ground, doctrine, multiple and diverse capabilities. Speaking a common language to ‘define’ the content and limits of working together The absence of basic common definitions and the multiple paradigms hinders dialogue. Military concepts of stabilization and security are very specifically defined, as is ‘Rule of Law’ for Police. Still, they may differ from one country to another. While most actors involved in fragile and conflict-affected settings use these terms, there is no common understanding. While engaging in such dialogue and even writing this paper, using words from a paradigm understandable and acceptable to both security and development actors is in itself a challenge. What should we do? Developing a joint ‘growth-path continuum’ would allow us to define the content and limits of working together. As it was the case with the RAMSI initial joint planning, experience shows that putting the different actors in the same place and assigning them work on a basis of their respective skill-sets is not only feasible but effective. Most people set aside their prejudices and envisage a wider perspective if given the chance to find out about the reality of the other services. Experience also shows that though initial dialogue and information exchange are necessary, being engaged in robust and clear joint programs through joint teams constitutes the tipping point. The figure below presents the main ideas developed to build a growth-path continuum towards optimal cooperation. 8 Dialogue & Common Shared Workshops Language Instruments • National (Whole •Tools of Government) Initial Joint •Training • International Exercises (NATO, UN, IFI, •Adapted etc.) Exercises Common • Academic Conceptual •Sector Guidance • Other Framework •Other Fig. 1: Potential growth-path continuum towards optimal cooperation The method of ‘joint workshop’ with clear objectives and part of medium-term programs seems to be the most appropriate to address issues effectively. As shown if figure 1, several ideas for joint workshops have been suggested: Initial mapping of differences, similarities and entry points, mapping of similar challenges (see annex 2), development of a common framework and language, definition of shared tools, and transition from security to development programs, sequencing and phasing of support between the security and development actors. Similarly, joint exercises provide an ideal platform to simulate interventions and identify issues that have to be addressed. This proposition was repeatedly put forward to respond to a need to create opportunities to exercise jointly. A simulation is useful to confront and resolve coordination issues that are secondary in real life. Either by using a past or created case, the practice of life-based situation would create a context in which to identify and resolve development-security issues and start engaging on a more practical level. Over time, the preparation and methodology of military exercise will have to be adapted to better include non-military issues into the context, the planning and the operations. Additional likely outputs of joint workshops and exercises, beyond the common framework, are joint training, evaluations, assessment tools and guidance notes. Ideally, the option of joint training on country context for staff from both communities prior to posting and deployment should be envisaged. In the case of Timor, the ‘transit house’ in Darwin, originally put in place for logistic purposes became very useful for building a common minimal base. Joint evaluations and lessons learned activities have not really taken place yet. They have been identified in several settings as a potential entry point but the need for agreed methodology and indicators became a deterrent to implementation. Existing modalities, practices and culture of cooperation, which are already being experienced can also be a starting point for ‘working together’. Police and military have developed the position of ‘liaison officers’ who establish and maintain relationships with similar and different entities. Military practices joint exercises with similar entities and has developed joint procedures in coalition. Development agencies have engaged in joint projects, funding mechanism and research with similar entities. Without replicating models, they can be analyzed across institutions. There is also a need to learn from our previous ‘integration’ or ‘harmonization’ challenges, such as donor harmonization and integration of three Forces (Air Force, Army and Navy) in the 1980s. Who should be involved? In such policy-driven environments (security and development), change requires both a top-down and bottom- up dynamic. At the national or the multilateral levels, agreements at the highest levels are a necessary starting point. The delegates who are seeking to develop mechanisms for ‘knowing each other’ will need the authority to facilitate the desired outcome. They must have mutually agreed outcomes from their organizations, and the authority and 9 resources to act upon the findings. However, content should also be defined by best practices on the ground. This is a relatively new and unexplored field, therefore there is a clear need for improving and institutionalizing lessons from experience. Stories from the field on modalities that worked and were developed on the ground, by unit commanders and NGO provincial coordinators, should be captured. How should we ‘work together’? What is the nature of the optimal partnership? What does ‘working together’ mean? Over the years, the terms ‘coordination’ and ‘integration’, as well as ‘collaboration’, ‘linkages’ and even ‘nexus’ have often been used interchangeably, with varying connotations and meanings. In terms of institutional ‘partnership’, defining working together raises organization and institutional engineering issues and their common understanding and expectations. Identifying critical processes is a major step to defining the optimal and feasible partnership. Based on discussions and experience since the UN mission in Cambodia, there seems to be a correlation between the ‘degree of fighting’ in the role of the external forces and the degree of cooperation they can have with development or humanitarian actors, therefore, at least in terms of civilian-military cooperation, Cambodia cannot be compared to Afghanistan. Defining working together implies addressing the following questions:  To what extent? What degree of partnership is both realistic and optimal? It was obvious to most people interviewed that within whole-of-Government bilateral agencies, aiming for integration could be envisaged. However, at the international level and with NGOs, coherence should be the minimum with potential for cooperation. - Alignment: assumes the need for coherence around a unique framework - Coordination: Sharing information between entities because there is a shared understanding of all entities‟ role in shared issues. - Cooperation: Communication and information exchange between entities for the purpose of simplifying the implementation of their respective programs, assuming mutual support. - Collaboration: Increased cooperation between entities, which, in addition to increased coordination, could include the sharing of resources or personnel and assume common goals. - Integration: Common goals, and maybe common tasks, integrated structures, shared processes, tools and procedures.  Where? The level or levels of partnership in an important parameter. Many links can be achieved at the very local level, thanks to actors’ pragmatism, as it was the case in Timor, while little policy alignment is obtained at higher levels. Conversely, significant policy dialogue can occur between headquarters with no real effect on the ground.  How much? The cost of coordination is rarely factored in budgets, processes and structures. As a result, there may be little appreciation of the financial implications (costs and gains) of participation in coordination mechanisms.  Should we continue? Monitoring and evaluation of coordination or integration is poorly developed. How can we measure the impact of working together, including externalities? Shared planning and shared assessment tools Sophisticated planning processes can offer entry points. As a starting point, can we use shared assessments as entry points to achieve common understanding of complex situations? All organizations involved in fragile and conflict-affected settings share the common challenge of understanding the ‘context’. In particular, the specific drivers of security and development. Knowledge is built with experience and years of presence but is poorly leveraged between and within the various agencies and partners. Can the respective strengths and perspectives of the various agencies be aggregated to create an optimal assessment of a complex situation? Can we have complementary quantitative and qualitative joint assessment tools? Would it improve our collective engagement? The section below presents the understanding and thinking of mostly military personnel engaged in planning and intelligence and how their tools and objectives could have been improved by cautiously integrating development inputs. It also raises many questions on how to implement shared planning and shared assessments. 10 Can we use engage in shared planning? Military institutions have developed exceptionally high capacity for, and focus on, planning. The strategic nature of war, where detailed planning and strategic thinking are crucial to success, has made planning a key area of expertise for military organizations. As raised earlier, exercises, by simulating conflict situations, are ideal preparation to fine-tune planning. In principle, this creates an opportunity for better integrating and engaging with multiple actors. Figure 2 shows different stages in the military planning and how each one affects the next. Strategic assessments encompass an understanding of the context. In response to a political choice to launch an intervention, the first step is to define the intent, the immediate objective and desired ‘end-state’. Then, the challenge is to identify the change pursued and define the roles. This, in turn, drives the development of rules, processes, partnerships, etc. Strategic Assessment Intent / Objective  Immediate  “End State� Change Role Identification Definition Programs State Building Coordination  Rules  Specific Communication  People / Institutions Partnerships Assistance  Processes Figure 2: Simplified overall planning process in complex situations Planning, doing and monitoring are different functions that do not have to be addressed jointly to reach optimal results. In the experience of the military personnel interviewed, it seems unrealistic to engage in joint planning per se, especially considering that their tools are mostly focused on security. However, from their perspective, planning can be used to identify initial, potentially useful and feasible entry and exit points. In such a complex planning environment, integration of different perspectives has now been identified as crucial. This is especially true when the environment is defined by the population’s perception, which is a difficult criterion to measure. With wide objectives that encompass multiple interconnected areas, planning has widened from simply planning the military campaign and exit of troops, to complex, integrated operations with multiple, overlapping time- frames. In the process, the conditions for sustainable development are defined and constantly redefined. If peace is the ‘civilianization’ of power, some form of transition should and could be planned in advance of the ‘civilian’ structure, national or international. Commonly accepted overarching plans, priorities, sequences and operating principles and a common core understanding of the transitions process could be developed in advance, without being systematically biding. Can we engage in shared assessments? Military interventions use sophisticated quantitative systems of information collection and analysis. Typically, parameters that drive a situation, often referred to as metrics, are tabulated out and closely monitored. People are 11 tasked to collect these essential elements of information on an hourly, daily or weekly basis. These living systems monitor essential factors very accurately to measure the nature and intensity of the fighting. Standard collected information may cover data such as number of deaths, sniper attacks, bomb attacks, roadblocks, military elements movements, control of the population and area, demonstrations, public riots, robberies, destruction of private property, destruction of military infrastructure, etc. Figure 3 is an example of such a tool. Change of Agent’s Behaviour Figure 3: Global Aggregated Model for Military Assessment Very technical, these tools are also strategic because they shape the understanding of an ever-expanding concept of security. The selection of the set of criteria monitored is crucial and strategic. The decision to measure one particular element of the situation determines where strategic and tactical (operational) efforts will be focused. It defines the ‘success’, or failure, of the mission as sitting within a particular set of variables. For instance, a mission may choose to monitor a set of essential factors around ‘self protection’, i.e. the safety of the force. This data might then be used as evidence for the relative security, or insecurity, of the situation. However, the drivers of security as perceived by the population might be very different, and might require a distinct set of measurements to be accurately assessed. Indeed as the scope of war and strategy expands, monitoring tools expand too, towards monitoring a wider picture. In some specific situations, factors such as access to water, new projects, cash transfer and who actually provides security may be more influential than the presence of weapons. Focusing on a conservative definition of security can provide an accurate, if incomplete, picture of what happened yesterday, but does not predict what will happen tomorrow. Understanding the dynamics of societal problems requires integrated factors that are not strictly security related and may, by definition, be less accessible to or analyzable by security actors. Polls, not only to get a better understanding of the perceptions but also to ‘voice’ them was put forward as a potential shared tool. Shared assessments would be extremely valuable to provide a more complete picture of a complex situation and build a shared understanding. Only a multi-partner, multi-discipline assessment of the situation would clarify essential information that, in the aggregate, provides a comprehensive multi-dimensional picture of a crisis or fluid situation. Access to better understanding of the local systems would help develop a better understanding of the power base, power relationships, perceived resources and the specific roots of leadership. Only by integrating different perspectives into one process can the resulting picture start to reflect the reality. Beyond this outcome, the process of integrating different perspectives and sources of information would help ‘accidental partners’ gain insight into themselves and each other. Defining each agency’s role together allows deeper understanding and respect to develop. 12 Is it feasible? The various actors, by their very nature, differ in the degree to which they can be open and transparent. When engaging in shared assessment, actors need to expect and accept different levels of transparency and reserve. There are numerous difficult questions that must be addressed. What information can the security actors share to improve the overall engagement without compromising their immediate mission? What is classified? For what purpose? Could a ‘sanitized version’ be envisaged? According to most people interviewed, this is possible to a certain extent and more feasible in a single-nation lead. What is feasible prior to deployment? The key role of NATO was put forward as the institution to initiate and coordinate such processes, including revisiting classification protocols and better adapting them to ‘new wars’, more complex environments and recognizing the diversity of influential non security partners. Information: defining it, using it, sharing it. Each actor names the type of information they need for different purposes differently, sometimes duplicating efforts, sometimes with sub-optimal assessments, sometimes clashing. Terms such as ‘intelligence’, ‘evidence’, ‘information’, ‘baseline study’, and ‘assessments’ are all ways to categories information from diverse institutional and operational needs. As an example, intelligence requirements may clash with the objectives of police investigations on serious crimes – intelligence may wish to classify information that prosecution may need. Scenarios, joint exercises would help map the clashes and scope expectable areas, based on experience. From a military perspective, the stage of the campaign is critical to determining to the possibility of engaging in shared processes. High operational uncertainty means that the operational environment is either unknown or highly volatile. The levels of operational uncertainty will drive the way the military approaches a mission and will define the stage at which police and aid agencies can perform a useful role at acceptable risk. As operational uncertainty reduces, combat intelligence declines in importance with respect to evidence - the same incident might, early in a campaign be a part of a pattern of conflict violence and, later in the campaign, be simply a localized law and order issue. With hindsight, all engagements would have been improved by better and shared assessments, but can we design incremental processes where shared assessments would inform decisions without compelling organizations? How would shared assessments shape decision-making processes? Would it restrain them? Would and could it drive organizations towards closer partnership? Wouldn’t they have to commit to one another? Are security and development partners even remotely ready to take this step? These are the difficult questions that must be investigated, confronted and resolved for the idea of shared assessments to progress. 13 III. Turning boundaries into bridges would increase our effectiveness: Working the entry points ‘Turning boundaries into bridges’ means identifying areas within and at the margin of the security and development mandates, where responsibilities may overlap. In these areas, no organization or actor may have full autonomy, but all still retain an indisputable impact. Identifying ‘boundary’ areas will require systematic mapping efforts from both the security and development sectors, including detailed review of missed opportunities and successful cases of cooperation. This should be conducted by leading international development and security organizations. Much less ambitious and resulting from more than one hundred interviews, this section only aims at presenting ‘boundary areas’ as they have been experienced, first hand, by Australian defense and police personnel. Their experience of where security and development meet, clash or merge points to the following initial themes: 1) the challenge of external interventions towards the local ownership, 2) the recent COIN and stabilization approaches, 3) the Security Sector Reform, and 4) the Police in particular. This section presents these key themes, which are the result of a consultative dialogue focused on defense and police personnel. Though Australia’s experience focuses on Melanesia, Iraq and Afghanistan shape the current thinking and have influenced the identification of the themes presented below. The entry points bellow have emerged from a consultative dialogue, based on the experience of defense and police personnel in Cambodia, PNG, Solomon Islands and Timor. However, it is obvious that the cases of Iraq and Afghanistan are shaping the current thinking, the way people present their experience and have therefore strongly influenced the discussions. It explains the prominent part of recent COIN and stabilization approaches in consultations about the links between security and development and consequently in this discussion paper. A. International vs. local intent: striking a united balance How do external actors contribute to statebuilding? A number of tensions are inherent to the nature of international interventions, and these raise a series of questions. How to offer effective intervention while avoiding the trap of further weakening local institutions, and making oneself indispensable? How to strike the balance between the necessity of defining mission scope and objectives, while avoiding not wanting to infringing on the local community process of determining their own priorities and direction. It is striking how similarly security and development actors express this challenge. The similarity of phrasing this challenge between security and development actors is absolutely striking. The questioning of how external actors can ‘build’ state structures from the outside and of the issue of capacity or capability building from the outside seems appears to be absolutely similar for to both side of the nexus. This section presents an analysis of these challenges from the defense and police personnel perspective, focusing on the need to address them consistently across the spectrum of interventions. Finally and beyond these questions, it raises the issue of who holds (and should hold) ultimate responsibility for outcomes when multiple actors, agencies and countries are involved. The issue of sovereignty in an intervention context raises many questions and answers very few at this stage, emphasizing the need for extensive further work. A central challenge is the paradox of intervening efficiently while aiming to leave. How do we define the steps that will get us to a situation where we are not responsible for the results? Where is the right balance between ‘doing’ – to provide visible results, and ‘facilitating’ – to build the local capacity and support the local intent that underpins any stable state? How can external actors deliver ‘well’ temporarily without disempowering local institutions? How does widening the situation to an international scope not hinder local ownership? ‘Creating an enabling environment’ is a phrase used equally in security and development, in order to limit the role of external actors to ‘supporters’, not primary ‘doers’. It was used in the case of Cambodia, but what does that mean concretely? Articulated in military terms, this challenge is reflected in the figure 4. The objective is not simply to leave, even though that is the practical and financial side of it. The intent, the will, the ‘demand’ for external partners has to gradually decline, while the ‘recipient’ country has to develop its own, collective intent. The over- simplified figure below presumes (1) a relative homogeneity of the external strategic intent, pooling all security and development actors into one ‘intent’, (2) the collective agreement to want less, as external partners, (3) the collective 14 agreement to support the partner country in developing its own intent, and (4) the capacity/possibility for such local intent to be collective and visibly evolving at a commensurate rate to the disengagement. Yet, it is an interesting alternative perspective on the ‘local ownership’ concept used in the development community or the ‘demand’ used by economists. Local Collective Intent Local Collective Intent External Intervention Strategic Intent Fig. 4: Evolution of the Balance of ‘Intent’ between external intervention and local demand during an intervention Is this balance different for security than for taxation or education? Whether the issue relates to security or development, the stronger the mandate is, the more difficult disengagement becomes. In the case of Timor, it was often mentioned that the timing for the transition authority was not long enough to allow disengagement. More importantly, it should have been triggered by a joint assessment of the local capacity and intent to ensure security and the first generation of state reform. In this case, as both sectors had a very strong mandate, the balance was similar. However, in most other cases the security mandate overwhelms others, at least in the short-term. At the same time, security can be the most difficult public good because it directly challenges the power-base. By getting involved with guns and security roles, external troops ‘are’ a very prominent part of the social contract. In the Solomon Islands, seven years after the intervention, the population still turns primarily to the ‘foreigners’ when problems erupt, as they are perceived as efficient and fair. Beyond population security, in taking the weapons from local fighters, they are also committing to ensure their security. The social contract ‘clause’ about monopoly of the lethal use of force is central to the ‘state people want’ and in these settings, international actors are part of it. Support to build what kind of ‘state’? Reconstruction and security are seen as primary means of statebuilding. How do security and development contribute to statebuilding? The question here does not focus on how comprehensive or restrictive the definition of statebuilding and/or nation-building are. The issue at stake here is that hard, soft, formal and informal local structures that will sustain a country to move out of fragility or conflict need to be in place. Such requirements do not only apply to structures but also to a minimum level of local collective ‘intent’, will, defined objectives, to use military terms. Based on their experience in the countries studied, interviewees recognized that the balance between all structures and the local ‘intent’ has to be context-specific. However, in all cases, the focus had to be on the links between security and development, and they often experienced insufficient understanding of the local understanding of what it meant and the insufficient integrated response to address them. The objective of statebuilding generally focuses on the concept of a ‘resilient state’. Based on military analysis of fragile states and new conflicts, the success of a campaign is commonly defined as a national ‘steady state’, with self- sustained conditions, which should trigger exit. The paradigm used to define a ‘steady state’ is almost identical to the organization resilience conceptual framework, defined in International Standards Organisation (ISO). In other words, the objective is a ‘resilient state’ that would not require external intervention but would have the local resources to cope in case of a similar disruption or re-emergence of conflict. The idea is for the external forces to develop an enduring effect which then contributes to security sustainability, with systems in place that will remain and function and allow people to cope. Though it is being developed around the new COIN and stabilization approach, most interviewees objected that it was not articulated this way at the launching of the Timor or Solomon Islands interventions. 15 Is resilience different from normalcy? The definition of the local ‘normalcy’ is a common challenge for external actors involved in fragile and conflict-affected settings. ‘Re-construction’, ‘re-habilitation’ and ‘re-integration’ are all concepts implying a process returning to a ‘normalized’ situation, which is not really experienced by partners implementing such programs but is assumed by them to be ‘true’ and achievable. This mental reflex may be less obvious in Timor, where a new state was created, but it was definitely the case in the other countries. In addition, it was very difficult for defense and police commanders to have their staff resist the reference to their own normalcy, ‘in Australia…’. Actually, external intervention is about change from war or chaos to peace but also towards a different state than the one previously experienced, which by definition was conflict-prone. Military and police commanders acknowledge that beyond the need to remain context-specific, they could not deny a more broadly defined concept of normalcy: tolerable level of violence, normal social interaction, participation in a political process, expected level of representation, and existing accountability and responsibility mechanisms. All these processes underpin statebuilding. This raises the key question of how to define a ‘resilient state’. In a comprehensive approach, establishing criteria and thresholds to define the objective of any given mission is more complex. Ideally, resilience will take different shapes in different context, establishing different statebuilding. Driven by the local specificities, the development communities also engage in a process of identifying local capacities, local strengths and existing governance systems. However, in all cases experienced, such an approach did not really lead to a joint understanding and definition of the ‘contextualized’ resilient or stable state, which could become a joint objective for all external partners involved. The emerging challenge becomes not only to define this ‘end state’ in a way that is realistic and achievable, with measurable thresholds (addressing problems raised by imported best practices and overambitious changes), but also the process by which all partners are involved, which is one focus of this paper. For lack of a common framework, an acceptable process to engage with local partners and the high risks of ‘interference’ in local politics, such processes have never properly taken place. Who defines the ‘resilient state’? Typically, statebuilding is a result of a long history of wars, inclusion and exclusion. One of the questions associated with statebuilding is to what extent such processes are malleable, manageable and, even less so, programmable. A lack of home-grown and historical processes means statebuilding is often associated with transferring or imposing a specific understanding of what the state is, and how it should function. Such questions require at minimum some form of national dialogue, common vision and social contract. A common question shared by the interviewees was: How do you build or rebuild a social contract when the population has no basis for trust? The Bougainville experience has demonstrated that given time, phases and proper healing processes, violently disrupted societies can project a future. Indeed, peace process discussions lasted as long as the conflict did, and another decade was envisaged before putting the question of independence to the population. In addition, in societies where trust has been experienced between individuals and where nascent formal security institutions have mostly harmed or been absent, the lack of understanding of how trust and leadership are rooted in society may at best lead to useless institutions. The question of trust in the local police has been and still is central to the Solomon Islands public debate and police assistance programs. Without a locally anchored trajectory of what the state means for people, statebuilding and achieving a resilient state is doomed to failure. Without a locally anchored trajectory of what the state means for people, statebuilding and achieving a resilient state is doomed to failure. Fragile states often display fragile central and formal states, with significant regional differences. By definition the ‘state’ is weak, so people cope through local mechanisms. Human-scale systems, at village-level, are the existing strength. It is very interesting that all interviewees with recent experience in Iraq or Afghanistan were very encouraged by the new ‘local focus’ of the recent COIN and stabilization approaches. Indeed, they are strongly focused on identifying and developing local strengths and therefore supporting a bottom-up state building process, in terms of different institutional levels, and in security terms. As a result, the development impact of tactical military decisions (in fighting mode, short-term by essence and very localized) has been identified as a key component of the campaigns. This local-level military approach acknowledges the existing integration of security and developmental needs in small-scale communities, which translates into: (1) the de facto requirements for mini peace-deals, where provincial-based negotiations will be required and (2) a community-driven development (CDD) strategy. CDD being praised by the military came rather as a surprise, especially as a statebuilding process, rather than for the purpose of quick impact projects. Finally, from the Australian experience, such a bottom-up 16 approach appeared to be more achievable in a single-nation led mission, as a multilateral approach does inevitably focus on state (essential basis for multilateralism), national elections (UN comparative advantage) and develop a very top-down approach to statebuilding. Limits for external partners in developing local collective intent Fragile and conflict-affected settings are inevitably highly influenced and shaped by their external partners. Bureaucratic and funding dynamics of external partners stage the process. Though coordination is improving, development still appears as a juxtaposition of programs. Only a strong national government can counterweight the external actors ‘accidental’ agenda setting, but this government is weak by definition. The mandate and structures dictate how we can support and help, and therefore define how we engage with a country, dividing their reality based on our constraints. Ideally missions would take a state-society based approach to complex situations, but instead pillars of UN missions often determine the country’s strategy. In the case of Timor, the most prominent parts of the Timorese administration were the ones with UN division counterparts. Similarly, as the police component of the UN missions are weaker than the military, the Cambodia and Timor experiences (at the beginning at least) did not put any emphasis on this part of the security spectrum, carrying the seeds for internal tensions later on. The mistake of superimposing multiple processes on a much stretched administration is common to and aggravated by both security and development. The burden inevitably falls specifically on the few champions in local administration that can ensure some level of success and as a result they are worked to death by all external partners. The very few individuals and central administration (often Prime Minister’s office and Planning) are the focus of everyone’s requests, following everyone bureaucratic, political or media requirements, without any prioritization within the sectors of development and security and across the board. How realistic are capacity building programs designed with a 3-5 year time-frames? Especially when added to the establishment of a new or reformed structure in addition to the relationship building that we cannot even manage ourselves? All these processes place an unrealistically heavy burden on a weak and overstretched administration and politicians who are struggling to survive the next political crisis. The focus of capacity building is often technical, based on unrealistic OECD members’ benchmarks, denying history and not addressing the organizational strengths. There is a solid understanding in the security sector that technical capacity and structures are important but the ability of the population to collectively define ‘want’ and ‘intent’ is equally important. The latter has to do with shared values and sense of belonging, which results from shared experience and continuous self-reinforcing success. The operational implication of this is to avoid giving ‘new institutions’ tasks that are too complex, demanding and designed for 3rd or 4th generations of public reform before they have established a solid identity. The risk of these imposed challenges breaking them is too high. In the case of Timor and the Solomon Islands, the security actors have strongly expressed their concern with the speed and expectations from the international community on the local forces, especially, when they have been part of the ‘tensions’ and seriously fragmented very recently. As for statebuilding and nationbuilding, the history it takes to build a nation-state is often overshadowed by bureaucratic and programmatic objectives. Examples of rapid, peaceful and sustainable paths are almost non-existent. What about legitimacy? Politics could be the missing link. In a fragile or conflict-affected environment, politics is about a vision for the future of the country. It is about understanding the main players and their role in conflict and access to resources. When the dust settles, the political economy settles too. The ‘golden hour’ can turn into a nightmare if the transition planning, after the initial military intervention, is not comprehensive and highly political. Referring to Afghanistan and the initial weeks in Iraq, many interviewees had strong views on how this ‘golden hour’ had been wasted, because of lack of political understanding and acknowledgement. Successful state building cannot avoid understanding the real role of ‘politicians’ and influential players (who may not be politicians), their interests and how the apparatus of the state is used. In Bougainville, the main purpose of the 5-year long mission was to support the ‘political’ peace process, through facilitating dialogue and consensus-building, allowing for a home- grown process to take root. The need to access people’s perceptions, especially on the legitimacy of the state or the representatives of the state, is a delicate challenge that no external actor can deny. Similarly, all actors must accept that they are perceived politically and should have the capacity to understand the political impact of their own actions, 17 at the national and local levels. Most high-level military officials reiterated that their internal objective was for the unit commanders to understand their own political role as they interacted with the local formal and informal authorities. External strategic intent should open a dialogue on sovereignty and realistic transitions Where military intervention is requested by the governing body, the ‘legitimate use of force’ is rarely phrased in terms of sovereignty. Military interventions (peacekeeping) usually come about because local systems were not able to mitigate violence, as it was exactly the case in Solomon Islands. By intervening, external troops initially replace the local ones and de facto take on the state function. In the Solomon Islands, the legal strength of the mandate provided (and still provides) executive powers to the foreign military and police forces. Surprisingly, transition authority over other state functions, such as health and education, is more sensitive, even transitory by comparison. As things progress other issues become more sensitive, most notably public financial management. The balance between overcoming concerns of neo-colonialism and taking responsibility is hard to strike. Is it possible to anchor external partners’ responsibility for the outcome without infringing on sovereignty? In a typical donor/recipient relationship, program or project responsibilities are perceived and defined contractually. However, results are the responsibility of both, and neither, the funds being loans or grants. Theoretically the responsibility for a country’s path to economic recovery and overall stabilization lies in the hands of those who represent the state. However, in fragile and conflict-affected countries, and for security, this theory is often strongly challenged. From the security perspective, once there is an intervention, there is responsibility for the outcome and with responsibility should come authority. Except for the case of the Solomon Islands and the first two years in Cambodia and Timor, this question of authority to be responsible for the outcome becomes very problematic. If any tension arise while an external force is present on the ground, they are immediately held responsible, even though their mandate may be too restrictive. In many cases, the parallel was drawn with corruption scandals and the responsibility of donors. Despite major issues of very unequal power relationship, both sides seem to have a stake in opening a dialogue on the question of state functions and implied responsibilities. The more integrated and efficient external interventions are, the more ‘indispensable’ they are likely to make themselves. Are we ready to commit to much more, to more resources and, more importantly, more responsibility for defining the future of other countries? What is the next step? The more organized and structured engagements become, the more likely these large entities will occupy a vacuum left by a fragile local administration. This limitation was raised from few interviewees. They were concerned that taking on ‘clear’ responsibility meant engaging in the very long-term and realistic ‘hand-over’ transitions could only be envisaged in decades. In the case of Solomon Islands, even if the mission RAMSI leaves, it is unlikely that police or development programs end in the next generation. Common ways forward During this consultative dialogue, interviewees pointed at the following directions to address the common challenges of external interventions:  The need for more realistic timeframes seems to be accepted, even though this change has not translated into programmatic commitment, especially in security. The unrealistic timing of transitions is a commonly identified problem. In fragile and conflict-affected settings, the ‘fixing and leaving’ approach is starting to be replaced by long-term vision. By being prepared and by planning for the long haul, overall engagements may actually end up being shorter. The military planning will also have to adapt to new needs, as it is very sophisticated in the short-term but not equipped for long-term and comprehensive settings.  Mutual agreement. Mutual responsibility and accountability, from both the foreign organizations and the partner country, is commonly identified as a constructive approach to developing a transparent relationship. Addressing the requirements in terms of mutual commitment between the external and national actors may offer a transparent platform for open dialogue on complex issues.  Technical strength. At the junction between development and security and because of the lack of clear responsibility, both development and security actors have not always been able to offer timely technical strength, 18 even less so jointly. Strong technical expertise at an early stage can provide options, technically feasible, with the capacity to consult, poll, and design a series of adapted answers to allow political choice. As detailed assessments may not always be possible, relevant experience and expertise will help better respond to an unknown reality. Interviewees saw the recent development of experts rosters as a good answer to address this problem.  Improving our understanding of local leadership. What is leadership? Where does it come from? How is it perceived in a specific context? This understanding is necessary for an external actor to be able to support any kind of reform. In fragile and conflict-affected countries, leadership may not follow the neat dividing lines between sectors, and even less with regards to the security sector. Leadership may be associated with military achievements and indistinguishable from the values embedded in the perceived leadership. As for local context, this was expressed as essential to engagement. B. Renewed counterinsurgency and stabilization doctrines Renewed counterinsurgency (COIN) and stabilization doctrines shape the current debate as they merge security and development into a single strategy. It may or may not expand the soldier’s role into development areas but it certainly proposes a new form of engagement, encompassing development, politics and security. This wider perspective, where military is not the only focus, redefines the process by which the campaign is won as statebuilding. Based on understanding the local dynamics, it aims to support the development of a ‘resilient’ state, able to cope without further intervention, facing both security and economic challenges. Such a comprehensive approach recognizes that warfighting is different from statebuilding and raises many questions about how security and development overlap, complement and may contradict. This section is not extracted from the experience of Cambodia, PNG, Solomon Islands and Timor but from the experience and analysis interviewees have from Afghanistan and Iraq, mostly because of their prominence in any security-development dialogue. New COIN and stabilization doctrines are of a growing influence COIN and stabilization have become a key focus of the military doctrine. Afghanistan and Iraq interventions have shaped the discourse on ‘new wars’ and stabilization. Attention, efforts and resources (including research) are currently focused on these two arenas. Though many lessons can be extracted, the major difference of the specific political context in which these military missions started (post 9/11) should not be downplayed when discussing security-development cooperation. As major cases, they influence the agenda, including development. Doctrine is one end of the continuum, at the other end of which is a deployed tactical commander. Very theoretical, doctrine is the starting point of the chain, where training and standard operating procedures are developed as mechanisms to ensure homogeneity of action across deployed personnel. Consequently, changes to approach in the doctrine are expected to have considerable effect on the ground, at least in the Army. This effect is even more pronounced in the ‘new wars’ environment, where decision-making responsibility is increasingly decentralized, giving more leeway to local commanders. The question of the expanding role of soldiers More complex wars drive more complex, multidimensional responses, going beyond the purely military. ‘New wars’ are not about one discrete enemy but diffused, non-state, population embedded multiple actors. Enemy engagement also ranges from attacks to produce economic paralysis, using roadside bombs, through to conventional targets, at it is exacerbated in Afghanistan. The fate of a conflict is therefore displaced from the battlefield to all fields. The COIN and stabilization doctrines rely on the theory of ‘80-20’ with only 20% of efforts strictly in the military scope, but an expectation that soldiers will get involved in all areas as required. As a result, the USA and the UK stabilization and COIN approaches significantly expand soldiers’ role, making them increasingly responsible for multiple sectors in a highly unstable environment. The new doctrines have also been influenced by systemic operational design in the US, looking at complex problems and seeking to examine them in a system. Instead of dealing with the parts of the problem in isolation (e.g. security). This theory seeks to describe the whole system with multiple factors, multiple scales, multiple actors and multiple interactions. This approach recognizes development as a key driver in evolving complex situations. 19 Clear Hold Build Fig.5: Simplified COIN A clear theory defines clear sequences and roles. The conceptual framework and repartition of roles to defeat the enemy is presented as follows (see fig 5): ‘clear’/military, ‘hold’/police, ‘build’/development. Where there are high levels of insecurity, the military is de facto responsible for all three stages. However, to the extent possible, in any transition, support from the police should take over from the military as the nature of the violence and insecurity changes. Once an internal balance of control and security has to be maintained to ‘hold’ the place, the role of the police should be increasingly central. The ‘build’ phase is clearly under the scope of the development community and to the extent possible is expected to be delivered by development organizations, instruments and practitioners. If not, advice and early inputs is the minimum expected. Though theoretically correct, such broadening of the military scope raises fundamental questions. Some voices within the military have been raised as they see the focus changing too dramatically towards aid and supporting state structures, away from the core security agenda. By diverting training from warfare to governance, local economy and community engagement, some have identified a risk of losing the core identity of the institution. In addition, such wide scope implies diffused responsibility in a non-linear context. The increasingly ‘blurred line’ between military and civilians was the most common criticism in the discussions. There is a risk in taking the ‘green uniform’ (perceived military) into the civilian agenda, which by definition works against ‘normalization’. No society wants armed soldiers patrolling the streets. If armed soldiers not only patrol the streets but also heal the sick and deliver schoolbooks, how do traumatized populations learn to support and trust in civilian institutions? What do they expect of their own military once the external security forces are gone? By associating military with development work, the organizations and individuals are associated in people’s perception (military/civilian, combatants/non-combatants) and the basic ‘ideal’ of aid neutrality is lost. In the case of Australia, aid is not politically neutral but actually serves national interests. Generally too, aid comes with values and is never seen or intended absolutely neutral. However, this concept is systematically the one flagged when criticizing the expanding role of soldiers. A more significant concern is the impact of ill-designed and unsustainable development efforts, where new actors unskilled in development climb up their own learning curve, possibly duplicating, creating dependencies or hindering long-term sustainable change. A suggestion to mitigate this was to confine soldiers’ involvement in development to one sector. Applying relevance, skill set and strategic screening, major transport infrastructure was most commonly suggested as the appropriate sector. By focusing on a single sector and by developing operating manuals and training jointly with development agencies, potential harm may be reduced and development better supported. 20 Australian COIN and stabilization new approach takes on the challenge of whole-of-government. The starting point is recognition that ‘at the rear range of the battle’, there is a government-society problem that cannot be solved by military agendas, so the military objective cannot be achieved only by military means. From a military perspective, this may not mean that soldiers will deliver projects and public policies but that early development inputs will allow all entities involved to become more agile and responsive. The recent Australian Army Adaptive Campaigning encompasses ‘population support, population protection, public information and indigenous capacity building’. Instead of focusing on expanding the soldiers’ role, it integrates inter-agency efforts to encompass a wider concept. Around these key ‘lines of operations’, it suggests an organizational structure from district to national levels, encompassing military, police, intelligence and aid, with local representatives whose aim is to plan and execute integrated essential services to populations. Varying levels of security mean the military will have to take on more when other agencies cannot be present, but with the absolute constraint to transition to a civilian authority as soon as possible. To achieve Statebuilding, COIN and stabilization focus has to rely on non-military actors As with any other military skill, defining, planning and building a resilient state entails a ‘statebuilding expertise’. In practical terms, the commonly identified missing link in the doctrine appears to be a ‘civilian state administrator’ or ‘civilian state building expert’, not a ‘project manager’ as development practitioners are often perceived. However, such expertise seems emerging rather than established. The temptation of the military is to project an institution that mirrors their own in the civilian spectrum of responsibilities, with some reference to colonial administration structures. As with any other military capacity, it expects military-style ‘deployment’ to underpin the various civilian deployment initiatives. Many interviewees were skeptical about these recent developments as their perceptions was that development ‘bodies’ are primarily enablers and should not be ‘deployable’ as ‘troops on the ground’. Though they may need to be present and engage earlier and ready to take more risks, they require a different organizational structure, hierarchy, accountability and engagement mechanisms with local government and administrations. COIN and stabilization doctrines do place economy and justice at the core of the resilient state, but envisage them as any other line of operation, expecting grand results from the development partners. Holistic understanding of what is required to support a resilient state and society includes a viable economy and an accepted form of local justice. Knowledge on how to revive an economy is key to the ‘build’ phase – plea for development as one of the thresholds for soldiers’ exit. In the same action-oriented approach adopted to ‘clear’ an area, economic warriors from the World Bank and the IMF are expected to lead in ‘fixing’ the economy, with little nuance. Training with no job, field with no market are very short-term results that are only part of a value-chain that require very different modes and timeframe of assistance. As for justice, many defense and all police personnel could not understand why justice is one of the Aid orphans. Transitional justice addressing the conflict period or the justice sector ensuring that post-conflict violence is dealt with are perceived as key pillars to stability, at least in terms of expectations from traumatized population. The percentage of Aid allocated to justice in post-conflict outraged most interviewees. C. Security Sector Reform: Critical challenge of statebuilding At the crossroads of security and development, Security Sector Reform (SSR) is about applying the development process to security, rule of law and justice. Opposite to the section above, which focused on integrating development into security strategies, this section places security on the development agenda. The security sector encompasses all those institutions which have a formal mandate to ensure the safety and stability of the state and its citizens, such as the armed forces, the police, gendarmerie and paramilitary forces, the intelligence and secret services, border and customs guards, justice sector and correction institutions, as well as elected and duly appointed civil authorities responsible for control and oversight (including financial). 21 Based on the experience of Australian defense and police personnel, this section presents how and why SSR is an integral part of development. SSR is political and part of a wider political and social process, and as such is a crucial component of development and statebuilding. By its very nature, if not addressed, unmanaged and uncontrolled security sectors in fragile and conflict-affected settings are inevitably the trigger to the next conflict or tensions. Both security and development practices have sidelined the security sector, which has resulted in a truncated assistance to countries already fragile or conflict-affected. Interviewees put a major emphasis on donors and the World Bank in particular to reconsider their exclusion of SSR in principle. From the security perspective, a thorough analysis on the potential contribution of donors and the financial institutions is now required. Security sector is one aspect of a wider political and social process SSR is political. The security sector requires important political decisions that in a fragile or conflict-affected setting will automatically affect (support or undermine) political or fighting parties. In Timor, all threat analysis pointed at the establishment of civilian forces, rather than military ones. The political analysis and negotiations revealed early on that it was politically impossible to envisage the new state, born from the military resistance with no defense force. It was made very clear by the political and military leaders that they had to take this role in the new state. The power balance and expectations simply prevailed on a technical analysis, which proved to be disconnected from the context of the country. Especially in post-conflict settings, building new security and public safety structures involves reaching agreement between formerly opposing forces and groups or long-fighting groups, otherwise there is a risk of creating irregular armed groups, challenging the new balance. Engaging in this are means exposing donors’ contribution, government’s position on security, and crafting a long-term vision. From the experience of key personnel, this is a major political challenge that all actors, including development, have to be ready to address. The stakes may be so high that ‘reform’ in the acronym SSR may seem like wishful thinking. Security is one side of the social contract. The underlying aim of the security sector is to provide the community with a ‘sense of security’, both real and perceived. As such, this can hardly be addressed by programs or projects, because it is so overwhelmingly difficult to define. However, SSR offers a way to link ‘programmable’ aspects of security to the security people expect to experience. In order to achieve this, there is a need to place SSR in a process that integrates wider society participation and oversight. In the Solomon Islands, placing the community trust and expectations at the center of the ‘role of police’ was a very clear and early objective. With hindsight, police personnel involved acknowledges that any initial assessment or review of SSR programs should have had a committee with larger and fairer representation of the society including traditional authorities, women, churches, politicians, the elderly, etc. When police is the focus, the starting point is people’s expectations. Wide and adapted consultation must establish: What do you want your police to do? Do you think the police force should be armed? What would be the role of your police in dispute resolution? For what disputes? Complementarily to this bottom-up approach, there is a need for a ‘security architecture’, a need to think of security as it relates to development priorities and in the context of a nascent or evolving national governance architecture, not as a separate apparatus. So far, the track record in linking the policy assistance related to a security architecture to a bottom-up approach has been very poor, at best only one of the two was addressed, most of the time, common practice was addressing some skills-gap through the traditional military or police bilateral cooperation – often serving other purposes too. In conflict settings, SSR is directly related to the conflict but offers a window of opportunity In a conflict-affected environment, SSR deals with groups and individuals involved in the fighting. Army formation, creation or restructuring during and after a conflict will be a result of the conflict or peace agreement outcome. This outcome will affect who receives powerful positions and who can put what ethnic group into the army, which can generate resentment and further factors of conflict. There is a balance between what is feasible, based on what was promised during the fighting, and what will generate stability and long-term foundation of a new security sector. Systematically and as experience in Timor in 2006, an unmanaged security sector is primed to become a factor of the next conflict. Not controlled, not paid on time, not part of a wider ‘checks and balances’ system with civilian oversight and community trust, actors from the security sector are almost always the immediate trigger of the next conflict. 22 Being the only ones there, when peace comes, the military has felt insufficiently equipped to engage in post- conflict SSR. When the dust settles, military personnel say to have experience a ‘short window of opportunity’ to address very radical army reforms, army size and role, etc… Usually, being the only one present, they felt unable to engage in this dialogue with a full picture, considering a wider public sector reform (especially dealing with ethnic representation), development priorities and budget constraints. The absence of key development players, including financial, on the ground to engage in this dialogue proved to be very detrimental to any reform. As a result, new power balance freezes and many of these issues can no longer be addressed, judged as too sensitive. Ideally placed at the time of a peace agreement, the military often has a thorough assessment of the length, strength and interests of the fighting parties, which forms the initial understanding the security sector and therefore the needs and potential for a ‘one-off’ reform addressing the war to peace transition. Disarmament Demobilization and Reintegration programs (DDR), being ‘one-off’ versions of SSR, offer an opportunity to address sensitive questions and force the dialogue with development partners. When appropriate, DDR programs are strong entry points as the first phase, the disarmament and demobilization, are under the responsibility of a security partner, whereas the reinsertion and reintegration are development programs, very similar to any social protection program targeting vulnerable groups. Personnel involved in Timor and Cambodia would have strongly benefited from an early engagement of the organizations experienced in DDR and the creation of a joint task force, addressing DDR comprehensively. In the case of Timor, they felt that the DDR program for the ‘resistance fighters’ was too little, too late, precisely because it began after the dust had settled, after frustration and waiting had made any DDR program very challenging. Military personnel were surprised to discover the body of knowledge in DDR, especially at the UN and the World Bank and could not understand why it was not integrated to the Australian approach. As part of public sector reform, SSR must address capacity, institutions and financial systems building Training is core to the military and police, but building institutions and systems is different. Training with no program or resources to apply the skills is useless, as without application, trainees lose the newly acquired skills. Training is useful as a tool contributing to a comprehensive program addressing institutions, systems, decision- making, expectations, etc. As often put, asking day to day security experts to address these institutional issues ‘is like asking a doctor to build a hospital’. Similar mistakes have been made in past development projects. In result-driven command-and-control organizations, there is a tendency for newly appointed advisers to get impatient and end up doing the work themselves, rather than providing guidance and building local capacity. In many instances in the Solomon Islands, officers placed in police stations would directly perform the job. Faced with the lack of discipline, the discrepancies with their own way of functioning, after weeks of effort, personnel would end up ‘filling the gap’. As for any other sector, the key is to discuss, agree and design in advance a possible trajectory that includes realistic timing and achievable objectives, within an evolving structure. Based on the experience of people interviewed, this kind of process would benefit from an ‘expert’ driver, experienced in institution building, even if it the focus is defense or policing. SSR is part of the public sector. In many ways, security sector is similar to any other part of the public sector. The whole public sector spectrum from strategic assessment, policy formulation, organization, programs implementation, control & oversight to monitoring and evaluation applies equally to the security sector. However, in none of the cases interviewees have experienced how this was related to the usually ongoing public sector reform. A clear weakness was identified in the lack of involvement of and investment from the security sector (and foreign institutions supporting it) into ‘mainstream’ processes with central agencies such as cabinet, Minister of Finances and Planning and Parliament. While most ministries and agencies may be included in public service, legal and any administrative reform, police and military would remain isolated, often due to the restrictions of the donors involved. SSR should not function outside the Public Financial Management. Security Sector payroll and other finance and administration functions need to mirror the standards and practices of the other public entities. Most issues affecting the security sector need to be assessed from the political, operational and technical but also financial perspective, the latter being the weaker. On this particular issue, a proactive role is expected from the World Bank and the IMF. The security sector should be integrated into their assessments, tools and strategies, especially as they relate to financial 23 sustainability and governance. This dislocation of SSR work from the mainstream process of debate and funding decisions has worked both for and against security organs. Without authority or tools to come up with their own budget, police or military may be left in a segregated process and get underfunded, or they may use the mystery of their internal process, and the implicit threat of ‘letting loose’, to bully their way to more and off budget resources. Because funding military barracks is not as appealing as funding schools is, SSR has been excluded from national development strategies. Until recently, most conflict, peacebuilding and security expenditures did not meet the development criteria of Official Development Assistance. It followed different bilateral funding mechanisms and was not a possible area for engagement for multilateral aid agencies. This conservative position has not contributed to addressing the opacity of the sector. Different funding mechanisms and sister organizations have led to excluding security from development concerns and priorities in terms of assessments and strategies. In this respect the World Bank has been finger-pointed repeatedly. Since 2000, and especially 2007, the international position has been increasingly open to recognizing the key role of the security sector to any transition in fragile and conflict-affected countries. As a result the security community now has high expectations of the donor community, still claiming no comparative advantage in the area. The point made by high-level officers was that police engagement on security for development purpose and on the security sector as part of the public sector should be made almost mandatory for key donors in post-conflict. Gaining the expertise is only a question of will and time. D. Police as a bridge Forming the ‘social contract’, police and justice are parts of a continuum that bridges development and security. Police and justice play a crucial role in ‘securing development’. By enforcing law and supporting rule of law, police and in the longer-term justice should allow development activities to occur without the conflict resuming. But police are still very much a taboo in the development community, often associated with repression, human rights abuses and corruption in fragile and conflict-affected countries. In many respects, there is still a lack of appreciation that socially stable and economically viable communities require a rule of law. Though obviously associated to law enforcement, police are part of a ‘value chain’ contributing to the rule of law. The national legal system formal and informal reflects the tacit agreement within the society that the society is ready to see enforced by the police and maintained by the justice sector. Placing Rule of Law at the heart of development, Australia has put an unprecedented focus on police. Australia has taken the bold step to create a 1500-strong police response mechanism both for peacekeeping missions and SSR programs. Partly to adapt to the security sector to most of its partner countries that have no defense force, Australia has acknowledge the importance of the Rule of law (RoL) as a major component of its response. The approach is three-prong: RoL must be applied as a system that bridges the national security apparatus with all organs and procedures (police, justice, corrections, etc.) and makes community buy-in essential, RoL cannot be ‘installed’ by the international community, but through incorporating mechanisms that are home grown and cognizant of customary law and RoL takes a long time to take root and requires long-term international commitment and patience. Police vs. military: qualification and status of violence in fragile and conflict-affected countries. There is a blurred line between war and peace and between war and crime. In theory, transition from military to police control assumes a secured environment. Often wrongly seen in terms of sequencing and phases, security is addressed differently in conflict and post-conflict times. Equally for justice, transitional justice dealing with massive conflict-related violence is different from criminal law, not equipped to provide a legal framework for judging all the crimes committed at wartime. The reality of fragile and conflict-affected countries is complex, volatile and diverse. In a typical post-conflict environment, security threats are high and defining what is directly related to the conflict and what results from opportunistic criminal behavior is both difficult and somewhat subjective. Control systems are weak and long-term trends of criminality are usually ignored. Crime-rates are rarely compared to the trends that led to the conflict, often upwards. Drawing the line that differentiates the conflict-related violence is a challenge in all conflict- affected places. Lawlessness criminals take advantage of the situation, aggravating the political economy of the conflict, and taking interest in the status quo or sustaining instability. In this context defining roles for police and military, international and national, is an evolving challenge. 24 External interventions color all security questions ‘green’, making security an exclusively military problem. Because interventions are usually military-led, the subsequent security sector reform and security priorities focus on the military side. Though this is understandable in a post-conflict situation, it is also shaped by the capacity on the ground, driving the agenda, and therefore a poor focus on police, which is where the real challenge is in terms of security sustainability. Such bias was widely observed by Australians posted in UN mission, where the police reading of security came too little too late, if at all. As soon as possible, security focus should be seen in peace terms and therefore in police and justice terms. The dividing line between military and police is ours, not theirs. The ‘police/military’ dividing line is our understanding, and might not be shared by people with a very different experience of the two institutions, past and present. This line is part of the ‘actual’ security architecture, the one experienced and expected from people that is different from the one we project. It also raises the question of the relevance of the ‘gendarmerie’ which mixes both in rural areas. In principle, interviewees were not very positive to ‘para-military police’, however most acknowledged that they were biased by Australia tradition, which does not have an equivalent institution. They suggested engagement in a detailed discussion on this issue. In principle and practice, police skills are very adapted to fragile and conflict-affected settings. Multiple experiences of violence; capacity for rapid assessment of difficult situations; bottom-up problem solving; discretionary judgment to assess, adapt and respond; setting of achievable objectives; being situated in communities (vs. isolated for the military); and experienced in community problem solving. All these skills and experiences contribute to police capacity to address violent interaction. Despite lacking the experience of large-scale violence and its impact on a society, police (and the wider justice system) are the only part of a stable state that constantly deals with violence, tensions and disruption. Genuine Policing in Khmer Rouge areas 1991-92 In Cambodia, the Australian Police contingent had a tremendous impact by applying basic police skills rather then UN security policies. They were deployed in Khmer Rouge-held province and assessed very quickly that they could have more impact being unarmed, in addition to more chance of staying alive, so they locked their weapons. Instead of establishing their base in a separate, barbed-wire camp, they built huts in villages, being part of the community, as good policing was to them. They engaged in continuous dialogue with the villagers, asking them their basic rules, their security needs and what improvement looked like. No discussion on politics, human rights and peace was a priority, villagers were not hoping for KR to change radically but they wanted to see the KR interpretation of justice - arbitrary killings, stopped. The small police unit engaged in negotiations with the KR, resulting is a sustainable and radical drop of the killings in the region in only few months. Such results have to be appreciated as defining achievable security objectives that change peoples’ lives, in very short time and achieving them was a real success. Expanding the lessons from the experience in Cambodia: Police work has to be embedded in the local rule of law - the local social contract. Police should first and foremost mirror people’s intent. The rule of law is a key expression of the social contract and is based on the type of justice people expect. Justice and its police arm should reflect people’s expectations around the following key questions: What do you want your police to do? Do you think the police force should be armed? Do you expect your police to be involved in dispute resolution, and for what type of disputes? In what type of relationship with traditional systems of mediation? As a society draws the line between the tolerable and unacceptable, there is a need to engage in active discovery of these answers. Similarly, there is a need to understand the networks of the actual security providers (state and non-state providers) different in all countries and particularly in countries that have never experienced effective formal systems. It is important to understand that the rule of law people are ready to respect may be unwritten and different from the formal legal framework. Official systems have often been imported without much adaptation and are therefore disconnected from the real needs. It seems almost 25 impossible to restore sustainable and acceptable security without understanding the social contract in its historical and social context. This is exactly what the small unit in Cambodia did. To date, police support has been almost entirely in a form of a direct and forced transfer of a foreign system and focused on training. Our perspective and historical background shapes our understanding of local requirements, especially in terms of security. The objective of past, and many current, police programs has been to replicate the environment where the programs originated, mixed with perpetuating an unsustainable colonial policing model. In a typical peacekeeping mission setting, inserting or lending a force based on western model of police is at best a ‘quick fix’. The large training contingent usually accounts for the only type of police activities. As a result, in Papua New Guinea, police reach a training rate of 20 days/head/years which is 7 times more than the OECD countries average. Without a robust system, supervision, an enabling environment and resources to implement training, it is lost. By forcing an inappropriate and unaffordable system on an already disrupted situation, the best achievable is a ‘dysfunctional version of ourselves’. Applied to defining the ‘role of police’, the active discovery of the context-driven rules requires time and resources. The common approach focuses on the problems and designing solutions and programs to treat them. Developing a sustainable security system should in fact start differently with researching and analyzing how people take decisions and how the environment looks in terms of stable rule of law. By reverse engineering the outcome, this approach offers a constructive, participatory and more realistic trajectory. Such discovery requires a partnership between the local communities, who will have to uncover, define and share the obvious, and the external partners discovering a different system. If the aim is to define the ‘role of police’ as it is the case in Solomon Islands, this approach requires time and investment. At least one-year of design may be necessary to be able to develop a constructive process of defining needs. Such time may be a luxury in the first phase of an intervention, but the earlier it starts, the better. Especially in a mission environment, the balance between the need to invest in the process, the participation, transparency, taking time to involve communities and discuss through direct communication and respond quickly leans systematically on the short-term. Engaging in such a different approach as an external partner requires two assessments: local understanding of the needs; and inward looking assessment about the available resources (including long-term commitment) and policy flexibility. What are we able to offer? Do we know how to engage coherently in broad evaluations of the needs? Are we ready to support a system radically different from our own, called police, but so different that we may have very little to contribute? Different contexts within the country drive different needs and therefore different responses. Weak or absent state structures in fragile and conflict-affected settings often creates a clear distinction between the way capital cities and the rest of the country are policed. In the capital, an OECD-type rule of law may be needed to support and develop the formal economy. Such a system is simply not affordable nor adapted to remote regions, where the state is absent and the traditional system may function to a certain extent. Some of these environments may maintain inequality, be very repressive, others may be very participatory and inclusive. However they all combine resources, power-relation and knowledge, which make them the best potential for stability. Policing is part of an institutional continuum and an integral part of the development process Police are part of a ‘value chain’: supporting police in isolation is at best useless. Police programs are a component of the broader justice sector. Supporting police means supporting rule of law. To be meaningful, some level of agreement must be reached on the law and the punishment in case of an offense. For instance, by improving police capacity to arrest without considering the rest of the system, the problem is simply pushed down the chain, causing problems for other institutions. Resolution requires an appreciation of the fundamental factors of the problem. There is a need to consider the whole chain and overlapping areas. Addressing it like a value chain helps identifying the gaps, malpractices and responsibility problems in the flow of the chain. All institutions and their leadership should be involved in thinking collectively on overlap and working on practical solutions, ideally at mid-level management level (police unit leader, prosecutors, cases workers, etc.). In Solomon Islands, at the beginning of the intervention police reached a very high arrest rate. Despite unprecedented efforts to synchronise the programs, the delay of funding and support to the Courts and Justice Support saw many prisoners being held for excessive lengths of time before coming to trial. 26 As a community based organization, how can police be complementary to the customary systems of dispute resolution? Customary frameworks of alliance, compensation and reconciliation may allow the community to move away from the resentment and grievances, to find a way to live in harmony as a post-conflict society. However, it is usual that the customary ways of resolving disputes clash with the official legal framework, mostly because the formal legal framework is disconnected from many parts of the country. In Solomon Islands, striking the balance between the role of police enforcing the formal law and the traditional structures applying traditional is still a challenge. Youth and prevention are frequently a major missed opportunity between police and development projects. For example, police officers involved in Papua New Guinea suggested that other programs directed to youth should consider the rejected candidate to the national recruitment process of police selection. Police support can increase their impact on incidence of crime by collaborating with communities to identify and solve issues at village, district and province level; by working with communities to identify vulnerable groups and create initiatives to offer alternatives; by working on the drivers of criminality and prevention. Similarly, according to the experience in Timor and Papua New Guinea, job creation programs should integrate crime rate in their neighborhood targeting strategy. To address these multiple challenges, policing interventions have to be better managed. Identifying and addressing the core enablers and constraints should better allow sustainable policing and police engagement with communities. Appropriate legislative framework and policy mandate from government, appropriate strategy within the agency to achieve its long-term objectives, suitable leadership and empowerment, accountability framework, establishing a mandate/contract/agreement from communities, appropriate standards, culturally adapting systems to the operating environment, minimal resources to do the job, targeted technical capacity within the organization, appropriate administrative, financial and human resources management. Looking at police holistically will make any engagement wider and will require a whole-of-government approach because of the need for involvement of many other partners and institutions on the ground. Such a level of effort may be discouraging and push program officers to develop one-dimensional training instead. However, if this approach is not adopted from the start, it is very hard to develop later because of restrictive mandates. Rather than starting with a police-centric view (from the wrong point of reference), there is a need to understand the police’s role in its community and as part of a wider developmental problem. 27 Conclusion and recommendations This paper reports upon a consultative dialogue between the World Bank and Australian Defense and Police personnel. For an international organization focused on development and poverty reduction, attention to security perspectives on engaging in conflict-affected and fragile states is both very unusual and useful. It brings a security and rule-of-law perspective to the debate on statebuilding and peace-building in fragile and conflict settings, and it provides the World Bank’s thinking with a richer and security-focused understanding of the dynamics that influence the intervention made by external actors. Our hypotheses are confirmed: Knowing each other supports working together, and turning boundaries into bridges increases our effectiveness. These statements may appear straightforward but they open numerous questions that indicate the complexity of the ‘Accidental Partners’ relationship. Actually, this analysis provides a comprehensive starting point for essential issues that can, and should be, taken further. It allows the World Bank an opportunity to extract knowledge in order to provoke discussion and support further dialogue Despite obvious differences, it provides striking evidence of convergence of views and experience between development and security communities, both faced with the same challenge of being engaged in fragile and conflict-affected environments. By engaging in a joint process to acknowledge and openly review these differences and avenues for joint work, both communities would be able to better define a common way forward. The aim would not be integration of structures, programs or objectives, but rather improved coherence for an improved and more sustainable response to the countries both are trying to support. Recommendations: what do we need to know, to remember, and to action? The recommendations presented below are the results of this consultative dialogue, based on the experience of more than one hundred Australian defence and police personnel. For Australia 1. Seek a systematic way to institutionalize the experience of RAMSI initial phase and the PMG in Bougainville, into shared knowledge and improved future decisions. Australia should turn the creativity and legacy of these high quality HQ and field-based decisions into ‘operating manuals’ or at least detailed documentation of lessons learnt - while acknowledging the limitation of generic lessons when applied to new and equally unique situations. The processes, which were developed by having the right personalities in the right place at the right time, should be made accessible globally, for incorporation and adaptation in future situations. One way to learn from them is to institutionalize them through developing documentation of modalities that translates individuals’ skills into role definitions or at least a set of required competencies. The exceptional quality of people on the ground at the beginning cannot be the sole ingredient for successful future engagements. 2. Network the defense, police, foreign affairs and aid people who have experienced the security-development nexus to create knowledge. There are growing numbers of practitioners and officers who have identified the gaps, the needs for engagement, and the risks – connecting these individuals will create opportunities to share and build this knowledge, create new thoughts and become the basis for a new community of ideas. For the leading international development and security international organizations, such as the UN, the World Bank and NATO Develop a joint ‘growth-path continuum’ to jointly define the content and limitations of working together 3. Engage jointly in identifying ‘boundary’ areas through systematic joint mapping efforts, including detailed review of missed opportunities and successful cases of cooperation. It will be necessary to document processes and design robust evaluation mechanisms, tied to a responsive and high-level decision-making mechanism. Processes to work them together will have to be created by putting the different actors in the same place and 28 assigning them work on a basis of their respective skill-sets. This proposal is not only feasible but effective. Most people set aside their prejudices and envisage a wider perspective if given the chance to find out about the reality of the other services. 4. Organize joint workshops. Experience shows that though initial dialogue and information exchange are necessary, being engaged in robust and clear joint programs through joint teams constitutes the tipping point. The workshops should:  Articulate and acknowledge the differences and similarities between the two groups  Identify entry points  Map similar challenges (see annex 2)  Develop a common framework and language  Create shared tools  Design transition from security to development programs  Review sequencing and phasing of support between security and development actors 5. Set up joint exercises to simulate interventions and identify issues that have to be addressed. A simulation is useful to confront and resolve coordination issues that are secondary in real life. Either by using a past or created case, the practice of a life-based situation provides a context in which to identify and resolve development- security issues and start engaging on a more practical level. Over time, the preparation and methodology of military exercise will have to be adapted to better include non-military issues in setting the context, and in planning and operations. 6. Explore joint training, evaluations, assessment tools and guidance notes. Ideally, the option of joint training on country context for staff from both communities prior to posting and deployment should be envisaged. Joint evaluations and lessons learned activities have not really taken place yet. They have been identified in several settings as a potential entry point but the need for agreed methodology and indicators became a deterrent to implementation. 7. Identify entry points between development post-conflict planning frameworks such as Transitional Results Matrices and PCNAs and military planning. 8. Develop a joint work program on shared assessments. Only a multi-partner, multi-discipline assessment of the situation would clarify essential information that, in the aggregate, provides a comprehensive multi-dimensional picture of a crisis or fluid situation. Only by integrating different perspectives into one process can the resulting picture start to reflect the reality. Beyond this outcome, the process of integrating different perspectives and sources of information would help ‘Accidental Partners’ gain insight into themselves and each other. Defining each agency’s role and inter-accountability together allows deeper understanding and respect to develop. 9. Initiate a process to categorize information and establish frameworks and arrangements for sharing information and efforts. Scenarios, joint exercises would help map the clashes, scope anticipated areas of concern, and define the types of information that can be shared. A high technical level of involvement is needed to start the process of identifying the ‘optimal’ type of information to be shared to improve cooperation across various external actors involved. Engage in joint research programs to explore the following ‘boundary areas’: 10. Sovereignty and responsibility in an intervention context: Setting the stage for an open and constructive dialogue 11. Process of statebuilding and ‘Resilient State’: Definitions 12. Capacity Building in Security and Development: Adapted approach timeframes and limits 13. Mutual agreements: How to develop mutual responsibility and accountability, from both the foreign organizations and the partner country in both security and development 14. Technical strength: In ‘overlapping areas’, how to be more responsive in providing technical expertise in a timely manner 29 15. Local leadership: What is it? Where does it come from? How is it nourished? How is it perceived in a specific context? 16. COIN:  Confining soldiers’ involvement in development to a single sector. Applying relevance, skill set and strategic screening, major transport infrastructure was most commonly suggested as the appropriate sector. By focusing on a single sector and by developing operating manuals and training jointly with development agencies, potential harm may be reduced and development better supported.  Donors and financial institutions perspectives on their responsibility and capacity to ‘build’ in warzones. Establish a common platform to ensure that Security Sector Reform is an integral part of development assistance and benefits from both perspectives 17. Ensure that donors and financial institutions are present at a very early stage to consider post-conflict security sector issues from a wider, development perspective. During and just after a peace agreement, the ability for the international community to engage in dialogue with local fighting forces and groups has to be expanded to development actors too. Engaging dialogue with a fuller picture, considering a wider public sector reform (especially dealing with ethnic representation), development priorities and budget constraints shapes the transition. 18. Ensure that SSR ‘institution building’ is driven by ‘institution building’ expertise, even if it the focus is defense or policing. As for any other sector, the key is to discuss, agree and design in advance a possible trajectory that includes realistic timing and achievable objectives, within an evolving structure. 19. Ensure that DDR programs are suggested when appropriate and that organizations experienced in DDR are engaged early on through the creation of a joint DDR task force. DDR knowledge should be more widely and systematically shared. 20. Integrate SSR to public sector programs. The whole public sector spectrum from strategic assessment, policy formulation, organization, programs implementation, control & oversight to monitoring and evaluation applies equally to the security sector. Develop involvement of and investment from the security sector (and foreign institutions supporting it) into ‘mainstream’ processes with central agencies such as cabinet, Minister of Finances and Planning and Parliament. While most ministries and agencies may be included in public service, legal and any administrative reform, police and military frequently remain isolated, often due to the restrictions of the donors involved. 21. Integrate SSR to the Public Financial Management. Security Sector payroll and other finance and administration functions need to mirror the standards and practices of the other public entities. Most issues affecting the security sector need to be assessed from the political, operational and technical but also financial perspective, the latter being the weaker. On this particular issue, a proactive role is expected from the World Bank and the IMF. The security sector should be integrated into their assessments, tools and strategies, especially as they relate to financial sustainability and governance. This dislocation of SSR work from the mainstream process of debate and funding decisions has worked both for and against security organs. Without authority or tools to come up with their own budget, police or military may be left in a segregated process and get underfunded, or they may use the mystery of their internal process, and the implicit threat of ‘letting loose’, to bully their way to obtain more off-budget resources. 22. Ensure that Rule of Law and police ‘secure’ development. RoL must be applied as a system that bridges the national security apparatus with all organs and procedures (police, justice, corrections, etc.) and makes community buy-in essential. RoL cannot be ‘installed’ by the international community, but developed through incorporating mechanisms that are home grown and cognizant of customary law. It must be acknowledged that RoL takes a long time to take root and requires long-term international commitment and patience. 23. Ensure that Police are part of a ‘value chain’ linked to justice and corrections. 24. Indentify opportunities to constructively and innovatively link youth and police programs. 30 Annex 1 Challenges in Statebuilding: Peacebuilding and the Security-Development Nexus Lear ning f r om ot her discip li nes: Aust r ali an m ilit ar y and pol ic e exper i ence in f r ag ile and conf lict set t ing s Interview Guide Introduction & objectives Rationale and context:  Fragile and conflict affected countries are extremely complex situations. As external actors, it’s mandatory for us to improve our understanding, among other things, by learning across disciplines. Our goal is:  To bring a security and rule-of-law perspective to development in fragile and conflict settings,  To enrich the World Bank’s thinking through a security perspective and different understanding of the local dynamics Testing our A: Knowing Each Other Would Support Working Together hypotheses... B: Turning Boundaries into Bridges Would Increase Our Effectiveness 1. Name, rank, role, country(ies), timing(s) 2. Knowing each other would support working together 2.1. Practical experience of engaging with development/humanitarian community/actors  What is your experience of trying to engage with the development community (NGOs, UN civilian, other international organizations) at your level?  Examples of best/worst cases you’ve experienced? Heard of?  What level, national, regional, village?  Why it worked, why not? Worked to achieve what? Success factors? 2.2. Challenges, constraints and limitation to cooperation  What was the main challenges?  Did you feel you needed to know more about their objectives/interests? Mandates? How they work? How they coordinate? Their culture? Timeframe? Planning? Procedures? Decision-making processes?  What helped to improve further mutual understanding and expectations?  What were your expectations? Theirs from your work? 2.3. Concepts and definitions: difference and similarities between security and development communities  Was there a shared understanding of stabilization, security, rule of law, statebuilding, peacebuilding?  How do you think security and development overlap, based on your experience?  How do you think security and development contradict, based on your experience? 3. Turning boundaries into bridges would increase our effectiveness 3.1. Entry points  Did the strategy to improve security/rule of law/stabilization encompass more ‘development related issues’? Such as? Why? Do you think you were rightly trained/equipped/staffed to address them?  What capacities were needed that your group could not provide?  Were there CIMIC activities? Under whose leadership? To achieve what goal? Did it work?  In your work, what was expected from development actors? When? Why? how? 31  How did your work relate to justice? Did your work engage with traditional/customary governance and dispute resolution processes? What were the links? What kind of skills were needed to work with these other parties?  Did you have to work on reconstruction? What areas of reconstruction were the most problematic for you?  From the other perspective, were development actors involved in supporting stabilization and security? More generally, how could they have recognized and further enhanced security and stability objectives? 3.2. Objectives and ‘End State’  Do you think security and development actors objective were well shared? Understood? Coherent?  Do you think that local ‘normalcy’ be envisaged as a shared end state? ‘Re-construction’, ‘re-habilitation’, ‘re- integration’ are all concepts implying a process returning to a ‘normalized’ situation, which is not really experienced by partners implementing such programs but assumed by them to be ‘true’ and achievable. 3.3. Security Assessment  Do you think that security was rightly assessed for the purpose of the mission?  Do you think that it reflected the concerns of the populations? Were their expectations and priorities sufficiently integrated in the criteria defining security?  Do you think that a wider understanding of security to start with is more adapted to fragile/conflict situations? Would it help integrate roles and planning integrated operations? Is it feasible?  How can security and development be assessed in order to reflect people’s vision, in relation to a past situation and current multidimensional needs? 3.4. Security Sector Reform: Supporting/Building Security/Defence Forces  What are the specific challenges in building state institutions in security and rule-of-law?  What were the needed capacities or skills? Such capacities were shared with other partners?  What did you expect from development partners? 3.5. Integration into national strategy/processes, post-conflict national program, etc  How did you think/feel your work contributed to building a state? Why?  Do you think that you work was connected to the on-going national program/strategy? Integrated to the budget cycle? Appropriate to local need, building on local capacities and strengths? Why? 3.6. Politics, internal and external, the missing link?  How did your work relate to political issues? Political will? Power? Access to resources?  Does the Exit strategy drive the military engagement? Does it mean that by essence it is contradictory to long- term efforts? And therefore overarching sustainable development objectives? If you were to do it again, what would you do differently in terms of engagement with the development community? Why? 32 Annex 2 Initial Mapping of Common Challenges Key challenges are disturbingly common and complex. Though coming from radically different perspectives, the development and security communities face many shared challenges. This creates valuable opportunities to learn from each other’s experience. For example: - Understanding the local normalcy, the local context that shapes our engagement; - Building the negotiation partner we simultaneously engage with; - Dealing with multiple actors with short and long-term interests; - Focusing on people instead of institutions; - Responding to a lack of a solid national strategy and clear objectives; - Facing a situation where everything is in ‘deficit’: capacity, governance, dispute resolution mechanisms, champions, oversight, control, transparency, systems performed by state functions in more stable societies; - Engaging with an uneven leadership; - Addressing tensions between corporate top-down needs and a bottom-up reality; - Being responsive by channeling timely and adapted technical strength; - Dealing with uncertainty; - Understanding the country-specific balance between stability and governance; - Determining the relative advantages of adopting a ‘wait-and-see’ position or taking prudent risks in providing critical support; - Deciding whether to engage in imperfect processes that risk deteriorating the situation further; - Addressing deep-rooted conflict factors with the risk of seeing no results for years; - Engaging with all partners, including those directly involved in the conflict, who should potentially face justice; - Delivering ‘quick wins’ without disempowering local institutions; - Engaging with very diverse partners in areas where you do not have full responsibility, at the margin of your mandate, but where you still have an influence In addition, the sectors share a tendency to set over-ambitious objectives. It is revealing that personnel from the military, police, donors and NGOs articulate frustrations and difficulties in almost identical terms. When it comes to having an enduring impact, there is a shared sense of frustration. This creates opportunities to share experiences and learn from each other’s best practices, successes and positive trajectories. 33