The purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive and critical examination of the enduring subnational conflict in Asia, and international efforts to help through official development aid. A clear understanding of the unique challenges in subnational conflict-affected areas is needed to adapt development approaches and improve their relevance and effectiveness.
Subnational conflicts present some of the most urgent needs for international assistance in Asia. People who live in subnational conflict areas face insecurity, marginalization, and an uncertain future. Despite the enormous challenges, there is a clear need to prioritize international assistance to these regions. In subnational conflict areas, the primary goal for international development assistance should be to encourage and support a transition from conflict to durable peace. Building on the WDR 2011 framework, this study recommends that aid programs contribute to this transition by: addressing the most critical area of contestation (state-minority, inter-elite, inter-communal); focusing on transformative outcomes (strengthening confidence, transforming institutions) and calibrating program strategy based on the stage of political transition (no transition, fragile transition, accelerated transition, or consolidation)
Key findings:
- Aid to subnational conflict areas has the greatest impact when it supports a political transition from conflict to durable peace. Transitions must be locally owned to be credible, but aid can play a supportive role in providing external validity, advice, and material support. In the absence of a credible transition, traditional aid programs are unlikely to affect the dynamics of the subnational conflict. In most cases, government efforts to win support of the population through development or cash hand-outs will not have a significant impact on peoples’ perception of government, make the insurgents less likely to continue their struggle, or cause warring elites to pursue their interests in peaceful ways. In general, people associate aid with local leaders, or the local implementing partner, not the donor or the central government. As a result, most aid to subnational conflict areas will reinforce local power structures.
- Under some circumstances, aid programs can make meaningful contributions to a transition to peace where they are closely attuned to local circumstances and working on the most critical transformative issues. Key assumptions around political dynamics and elite capture are particularly important. Local elite dominance can be important to maintain security and bolster conflict actors’ confidence in a peace process. Conversely, undermining local elite control can potentially be de-stabilizing in a conflict area.
Recommendations for development agencies:
- Build institutional knowledge of subnational conflict areas. This involves: introducing new staffing models to retain and promote staff that specialize on a conflict area, addressing barriers to career progression for local staff (especially those from the conflict area), creating career progression tracks for international country specialists, building capacity for monitoring the political dynamics of the conflict, including monitoring the evolution of political conditions and attitudes at the national level and enhancing knowledge transfer and retention.
- Allow for greater flexibility and adaptability to local dynamics. This means: create more space for flexible, adaptable approaches that respond to local conditions. Design more flexible programs that allow for learning and refinement during implementation. Insulate programs from corporate pressures and regulations that preclude flexible, responsive approaches. Ensure programs strike a balance between the interests of governments and conflict-affected populations.
- Prioritize evidence. Collect data on local conditions and dynamics that focus on key transformative factors. Improve official tracking of socio-economic conditions to disaggregate by identity group. Report on disaggregated data by ethnicity, geographical area, and gender. Monitor transformative outcomes at the macro and project levels. Monitor transformative change using methods other than conventional M&E, including perception surveys, qualitative case analysis, and monitoring socio-economic conditions and violence levels. Monitor at a high level of geographic specificity in order to track local conditions, identify problematic localities, and monitor interactions between different forms of conflict. Track and report on funding flows at the subnational level. Invest time, effort, and resources in building relationships with key actors.
- Re-align incentives. Curtail incentives to spend large amounts with reduced staff engagement and oversight. Strengthen incentives to work on higher-risk transformative issues, even if they are more political. Reduce incentives to work through foreign contractors and instead increase incentives to work through locally-established partners with strong networks and credibility in the conflict area.
- Design large-scale programs that are flexible and conflict sensitive. Customize program interventions in the conflict area to be more flexible and responsive to local conditions and sensitivities (e.g., utilize the conflict window). Align targeting and distribution strategies to address inequalities and sources of grievance. Allow large programs to have small activities attached to them that allow program teams to work in more politically-nuanced and responsive ways.
- Allow for long-term programs.