Author: Aaron Batten

The Brenthurst Foundation published an interesting Discussion Paper last week drawn from the 2008 Tswalu Dialogue on ‘Towards Conflict Resolution Best Practice’. The dialogue consisted of key leaders who have been involved in institutional development and conflict resolution across the African region.

Amongst the groups more interesting findings was the importance placed on seeing the resolution of conflict and progress in institutional development as a long-term process rather than an event in itself. The report also highlighted the ability of donor interventions to ‘freeze’ rather than resolve ‘conflict’ situations.

Such lessons from Africa should be taken seriously in our own region as Governments go about supporting institutional development in fragile states within the Asia-Pacific. It also ties in nicely with work being done by Satish Chand and Ruth Coffman from the Centre of Global Development (CGDEV) estimating the length of time donors can expect to be required to establish stability in a post-conflict society. The answer to this question is ‘many decades’ suggesting that ‘long-termism’ in project design is perhaps the most important element of any fragile state intervention or support offered by the region.