Life after conflict

Managing the lives and livelihoods of those affected by conflicts is a difficult business. Clearly, there can be no easy or right answers. However, three streams of thought somewhat emerged as an unsaid conclusion from a panel discussion on post-conflict reconstruction held at the second day of SDPIs conference yesterday.
First, governance plays a critical role in helping the affected ones get back up. In fact, more often than not it is the lack of good governance that creates the germinating grounds for conflicts and disasters.
Second, and somewhat on a related note, the post-conflict assistance is often politicised. Politicians are prone to seeking opportunities for immediate, one-off, huge disbursements with plenty of photo-ops instead of a well-planned, long-term upliftment programme.
Then there are scores of unresolved issues. These include, for instance, which segment of society is the most affected; whether providing livelihoods does or does not lead to state building; whats the optimal way to assess the impact of conflict and the impact of post-conflict assistance; whats the nature and effectiveness of aid managed by donor versus that managed by the government; whats the criteria for selection of beneficiaries; and what not.
While these discussions will continue to be debated in the development circles, BR Research would like to highlight two areas that need to be studied to be able to get a better sense of future policy direction.
First pertains to the impact of remittances on conflict. Many of Pakistans conflict-prone areas are regions that have sent huge numbers of their men - yes, mostly men - abroad, who, in turn, send home monies as remittances. So we need to find out the conflict-affect of remittances and if, indeed, remittance inflows do indeed increase after a conflict then how long does that affect last. This is not just important in the context of balance of payment discourse but also it will help improve the targeting of the beneficiaries.
Second, we also need to know which kind of intervention for livelihoods works better in what kind of socioeconomic and political settings. Of course, academics are quick to offer a vague answer to that question by saying that much depends on time and space. But that is exactly the point, because for one cluster of affected population, the provision of livestock may work but for others, a bag of seeds, sum of money or some fertiliser might do the trick. So there has to be a meta-analysis of what works in different social, economic, cultural and political settings.