Aiding Peace
The Role of NGOs in Armed Conflict

Drawing on research and contemporary writing on conflict, NGOs, and peace-building, this book provides an overview of key theoretical and policy debates surrounding the changing role of NGOs and donors in conflict. It also highlights the main research findings, and outlines the implications for improving policy and practice.

Traditionally the primary function of NGOs has been confined to mitigating the effects of war by providing humanitarian aid and protection on the peripheries of violent conflict. However, in recent years there has been an increased focus on the impact of humanitarian aid in general, and to a lesser extent on the impact of aid on conflict and peace dynamics.

Chapter One: Introduction
1.1 NGOs in a conflictual world
1.2 Rationale for this book
1.3 Engaging with practice
1.4 Making difficult choices
1.4.1 The political context
1.4.2 The organisational environment
1.4.3 Individual choices
1.5 Research approach
1.6 Being careful with words
1.6.1 Conflict and war
1.6.2 Peace and peacebuilding
1.6.3 NGOs, intervention and peacebuilding
Chapter Two: Armed Conflict in Theory
2.1 Contemporary conflicts: characteristics and costs
2.2 A framework for analyzing war
2.3 Structural dimensions of conflict
2.3.1 Security
2.3.2 Political
2.3.3 Economic
2.3.4 Social
2.4 Conflict dynamics and actors
2.5 From theory to practice
Chapter Three: Armed Conflict in Practice
3.1 Conflict structures
3.1.1 Security dimensions of conflict
3.1.2 Political dimensions of conflict
3.1.3 Economic dimensions of conflict
3.1.4 Social dimensions of conflict
3.2 Conflict actors
3.3 Conflict dynamics
3.4 Institutions for managing and generating conflict
3.5 Conclusions
Chapter Four: Understanding responses to conflict: international intervention and aid
4.1 Introduction: NGOs, peacebuilding and the new security terrain
4.2 NGOs and peacemaking
4.2.1 Growing interventionism
4.2.2 The effectiveness of peace operations
4.2.3 Neo-Kantianism or neo-imperialism?
4.3 NGOs, development aid and war
4.3.1 Development aid and conflict in the Cold War
4.3.2 The post Cold War radicalisation of development
4.3.3 Peacebuilding and institutional reform
4.4 NGOs, humanitarianism and war
4.4.1 The growth of humanitarianism
4.4.2 Humanitarianism in crisis?
4.4.3 Response to the critique
4.4.4 Minimalism and maximalism: a polarized debate
4.5 Conclusions
Chapter Five: NGOs and the Dynamics of Conflict and Peacebuilding
5.1 Introduction
5.2 The challenge of assessing peacebuilding interventions
5.3 The interactions between NGOs' activities and conflict and peace dynamics
5.3.1 The impacts of armed conflict on NGOs and their programmes
5.3.2 The impacts of NGO activities on violent conflict and peace
5.4 Conclusions
Chapter Six: Armed Conflict and the International Political and Policy Landscape
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Contextualizing peacebuilding
6.3 International peacemaking
6.3.1 An overview of cases
6.3.2 Who intervenes?
6.3.3 Political engagement
6.3.4 Consent of coercion?
6.3.5 Coherence
6.3.6 Timing and time frames
6.3.7 Peace versus justice
6.4 Aid, conflict and peacebuilding
6.4.1 An overview of the cases
6.4.2 The evolution of aid regimes
6.4.3 Aid, the state and conflict
6.4.4 The radicalization of aid and peace conditionalities
6.4.6 Donors, NGOs and the aid 'marketplace'
6.5 NGOs and the international response to armed conflict
6.6 Conclusions
Chapter Seven: NGO Programming and Capacities for Peacebuilding
7.1 Introduction
7.2 NGO programming for peacebuilding
7.2.1 Programming mix
7.2.2 Ways of working
7.3 NGO capacities for peacebuilding: hearts and minds
7.3.1 Mandates, values and culture: the organisational heart
7.3.2 Analysis and learning: developing the 'mind'
7.3.3 Leadership
7.3.4 Staff
7.3.5 Losing control? Managerialism and peacebuilding
7.3.6 Accountability: the heart of the matter?
7.4 NGO relationships for peacebuilding
7.5 Conclusions
Chapter Eight: Politics, policy and practice
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Summary of findings
8.2.1 NGO impacts
8.2.2 The space and scope for NGO peacebuilding
8.2.3 NGO performance
8.3 Implications for theory, policy and practice
8.3.1 Implications for conflict and peacebuilding theory
8.3.2 Implications for donor policy
8.3.3 Implicatons for NGO practice
8.4 Conclusion
Tables and Figures
Table 1.1 NGO areas of intervention and modalities
Table 1.2 Summary of the case study countries
Table 3.1 Conflict spoilers and international responses in Afghanistan in 2003
Table 4.1 Maximalist and minimalist responses to the humanitarian crisis
Table 5.1 The impacts of armed conflict on NGO programmes in Nepal
Table 5.2 The interactions between NGO programmes and conflict/peace dynamics
Table 6.1 Policy objectives and instruments of international actors involved in peacemaking and peacebuilding
Table 6.2 International actors working in or on the Nagnorno Karabakh conflict
Table 6.3 Approaches to peacemaking and peacekeeping
Table 7.1 NGO working assumptions in Afghanistan
Boxes
Box 3.1 Poverty and conflict in Nepal
Box 3.2 Identity and conflict: observations from the case studies
Box 3.3 Summary of structural sources of tension and conflict
Box 3.4 Local conflict actors in the Ferghana Valley, Kyrgyzstan
Box 3.5 Possible conflict triggers in Moldova
Box 5.1 Mullipottanai, Sri Lanka - three-way programming in practice?
Box 5.2 The mixed economic effects of NGO programmes in Afghanistan
Box 5.3 Early warning and conflict management in Kyrgyzstan
Box 5.4 Peacebuilding from below? ADA in Khas Uruzgen, Afghanistan
Box 5.5 Listening to the displaced/returned
Box 6.1 Interventions to address violent conflict
Box 7.1 Indirect and direct approaches to peacebuilding
Figures
Fig. 1.1 The stages of conducting a conflict assessment
Fig 3.1 The interaction between greed and grievance in the Ferghana Valley, Central Asia
Fig. 4.1 The relationship between relief, development and peace
Fig. 5.1 NGO-conflict and peace interactions
Fig 6.1 The peacebuilding triangle
Fig. 7.1 Getting the right balance for peacebuilding
Fig 8.1 Exit and voice: options for NGOs.