Multilateral donors and the security-development nexus: discourse and practice in conflict-affected states

Abstract

This article assesses how the ‘security-development nexus’ has impacted multilateral aid to conflict-affected states; an area until now understudied. Using a mixed methods approach, we examine both the policy discourse and aid commitments of the major multilateral donors: the European Commission, the World Bank and the UNDP. We investigate the extent to which these donors fund the sectors identified within the policy discourse as crucial to ensuring peace and stability – democratisation and peace, conflict, and security activities – and examine the impact of ‘Western’ security concerns on multilateral aid in conflict-affected states. Our new data indicate that in contrast to policy discourse, post-conflict states receive no more multilateral funding for democracy–building than states which have not suffered from conflict and furthermore, that in the context of the security-development nexus, multilateral aid to conflict-affected states is influenced by the key transnational security concerns of Western states. These results point to a potentially dangerous gap between policy and actual aid commitments, ignore the long-term nature of development and weaken the impartiality of multilateral aid.

Keywords:

• Multilateral donors
• development aid
• conflict
• security
• discourse
• security-development nexus

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the comments of two anonymous reviewers on an earlier draft of this paper. We are also grateful for funding from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Science, University of Portsmouth, which enabled us to carry out this research.

Notes

1. Brown and Gravingholt, The Securitisation of Foreign Aid; Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars; McConnon, ‘Security for All, Development for Some?’; Spear, ‘The Militarisation of US Foreign Aid’.

2. E.g. DFID, Operational Plan 2012–2015; USAID, USAID Strategy on Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance, i.

3. Brown et al., ‘The Securitisation of Foreign Aid’; Oxfam, Whose Aid Is It Anyway?

4. Suhrke and Buckmaster, ‘Aid, Growth, and Peace’, 340.

5. Thomas, ‘Global Governance, Development, and Human Security’; Cliffe et al., Community-Driven Reconstruction as an Instrument in War-to-Peace Transitions; Beall et al., ‘On the Discourse of Terrorism, Security, and Development’; Duffield, ‘The Liberal Way of Development and the Development-Security Impasse’.

6. The World Bank’s main funding tool for developing countries.

7. Asher, ‘Multilateral versus Bilateral aid’; Maizels and Nissanke, ‘Motivations for Aid to Developing Coutnries’; Burnside and Dollar, ‘Aid, Policies, and Growth’; Petrikova, ‘Promoting ‘Good Behaviour’ through Aid’.

8. The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation.

9. Neumayer, ‘Is Respect for Human Rights Rewarded?’; Berthelemy, ‘Bilateral Donors’ Interest vs. Recipients’ Development Motives in Aid Allocation’; Lebovic and Voeten, ‘The Cost of Shame’.

10. Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine; Escobar, Encountering Development.

11. https://ida.worldbank.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/ida17-contributions.pdf; the US, UK, Germany and France are amongst the top five largest funders.

12. Overbeek, ‘Global Governance, Class, Hegemony’; Lebovic and Voeten, ‘The Cost of Shame’.

13. 98 per cent of UNDP’s regular funding in 2016 was provided by OECD/EU countries: http://open.undp.org/#top-donors/regular; the US, UK, Sweden and Norway were amongst the top five funders in that year.

14. E.g. Barnett and Finnemore, ‘The Power of Liberal International Organisations’.

15. Berthelemy, ‘Bilateral Donors’ Interest vs. Recipients’ Development Motives in Aid Allocation’.

16. Ibid.

17. McLean, ‘Donor’s Preferences and Agent Choice’; Schneider and Tobin, ‘Interest Coalitions and Multilateral Aid Allocation in the European Union’.

18. Furness and Gänzle, ‘The European Union’s Development Policy’.

19. By securitisation, we are referring to the trend towards linking development in the Global South to security in the Global North (or West). As such conflict and instability in the Global South are conceptualised as potential threats to the Global North which can be mitigated through ‘development’. See for example Thomas, ‘Global Governance, Development, and Human Security’; Beall et al., ‘On the Discourse of Terrorism, Security, and Development’; Duffield, ‘The Liberal Way of Development and the Development-Security Impasse’.

20. Tracy, Qualitative Research Methods.

21. DG Development, Securing Peace and Stability for Africa, 1; World Bank, The Role of the World Bank in Conflict and Development, 17; UNDP, Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding; UNDP, Securing Development, 14–15; World Bank, Conflict Prevention and Reconstruction; UNDP, 2009 Annual Report; European Commission, Increasing the Impact of EU Development Policy; European Commission, STRIVE for Development, 2, 8, 11; European Commission, Strategic Plan 2016–2020, 7,10; World Bank, El Fondo del Banco Mundial para los Más Pobres; World Bank, World Bank Group Engagement in Situations of Fragility, Conflict, and Violence.

22. E.g. DG Development, Securing Peace and Stability for Africa; European Commission, Shared Vision, Common Action, 1, 14, 16, 28. See also Council, European Parliament and European Commission, The New European Consensus on Development.

23. European Commission, Shared Vision, Common Action, 11. See also Council, European Parliament and European Commission, The New European Consensus on Development, 4.

24. UNDP, UNDP Policy and Programme Brief, 4. See also UNDP, Building Inclusive Societies and Sustaining Peace.

25. UNDP, UNDP Policy and Programme Brief, 4.

26. DG Development, Securing Peace and Stability for Africa; European Commission, Shared Vision, Common Action, 1, 14, 16, 28. See also Council, European Parliament and European Commission, The New European Consensus on Development.

27. World Bank, Conflict, Security, and Development.

28. Ibid., 1.

29. European Commission, A Concept for European Community Support for Security Sector Reform, 8; European Commission, Shared Vision, Common Action, 1, 14, 31; European Commission, STRIVE for Development, 3; European Commission, Strategic Plan 2016–2020, 8; UNDP, Building Inclusive Societies and Sustaining Peace, World Bank, World Bank Group Engagement in Situations of Fragility, Conflict, and Violence.

30. UNDP, Building Inclusive Societies and Sustaining Peace, 13.

31. E.g. Danida, A World of Difference, 2; Operational Plan 2012–2015; USAID, USAID Strategy on Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance, i.

32. UNDP, UNDP Policy and Programme Brief, 11. See also European Commission, Shared Vision, Common Action, 31; European Commission, STRIVE for Development, 3, 8; Council, European Parliament, and European Commission, The New European Consensus on Development, 32; UNDP, UNDP Policy and Programme Brief, 16.

33. European Commission, STRIVE for Development, 3, 8.

34. World Bank, World Bank Group Engagement in Situations of Fragility, Conflict, and Violence, 2. See also World Bank, Conflict, Security, and Development.

35. World Bank, Conflict, Security, and Development; UNDP, UNDP Policy and Programme Brief; UNDP, Building Inclusive Societies and Sustaining Peace.

36. UNDP, 2004 Report; European Commission, A Concept for European Community Support for Security Sector Reform.

37. Danida, Africa – Development and Security, 9; DFID, Fighting Poverty to Build a Safer World, 3–5; DFID, Operational Plan 2012–2015, 2; USAID, USAID Policy Framework 2011–2015, 1; USAID, USAID Strategy on Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance, 30; Greening, ‘UK Aid in 2015’, 7–8; Greening, ‘Changing World, Changing Aid’, 2.

38. DG Development, Securing Peace and Stability for Africa; European Commission, Shared Vision, Common Action, 1, 14, 16, 28. See also Council, European Parliament and European Commission, The New European Consensus on Development.

39. HM Government, National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015 A Secure and Prosperous United Kingdom.

40. Classified by the Creditor Reporting System (CRS) of the OECD aid database under the code 152: I.5.a.

41. Classified in the CRS under the code 152: I.5.b.

42. Petrikova, ‘Promoting ‘Good Behaviour’ through Aid’.

43. Berthelemy, ‘Bilateral Donors’ Interest vs. Recipients’ Development Motives in Aid Allocation’.

44. Initially, we utilised two further measures – the number of conflict-related deaths per country per year (available from UCDP) and the Fragile States Index rating compiled by the Fund for Peace since 2006. In the final models, we decided against using the number-of-deaths variable due to its consistently similar but slightly less significant results than those obtained with the conflict-intensity measure. We chose not to utilise the Fragile States Index as it is unavailable prior to 2006, which severely limited our sample.

45. DG Development, Securing Peace and Stability for Africa; HM Treasury and DFID, UK Aid; World Bank, Conflict, Security, and Development; European Commission, Shared Vision, Common Action.

46. E.g. Maizels and Nissanke, ‘Motivations for Aid to Developing Coutnries’; Neumayer, ‘Is Respect for Human Rights Rewarded?’.

47. E.g. Neumayer, ‘Is Respect for Human Rights Rewarded?’; Nielsen, ‘Rewarding Human Rights?’; Petrikova, ‘Promoting ‘Good Behaviour’ through Aid’.

48. E.g. Burnside and Dollar, ‘Aid, Policies, and Growth’.

49. Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars.

50. This is discussed in more detail by, for example, Nielsen, ‘Rewarding Human Rights?’.

51. OECD, Is It ODA?, 1.

52. Hynes and Scott, ‘The Evolution of Official Development Assistance’, 11.

53. http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/operations/accountability/audit/office_of_audit_andinvestigation.html, http://ewebapps.worldbank.org/apps/ip/Pages/AboutUs.aspx.

54. E.g. Neumayer, ‘Is Respect for Human Rights Rewarded?; Lebovic and Voeten, ‘The Cost of Shame’.

55. Easterly and Williamson, ‘Rhetoric versus Reality’, 1930.

56. Denney, ‘The Militarisation of Foreign Aid’.

57. Bilgin and Morton, ‘From ‘Rogue’ to ‘Failed’ States?’, 169–170.

58. Furness and Gänzle, ‘The European Union’s Development Policy’, 14.

59. Del Biondo and Orbie, ‘The European Commission’s Implementation of Budget Support’.

60. Grindle, ‘Good Governance’; Burnell, ‘From Evaluating Democracy Assistance’.

61. Suhrke and Buckmaster, ‘Aid, Growth, and Peace’.

62. Oxfam, Whose Aid Is It Anyway?, 7.

63. Brown et al., ’The Securitisation of Foreign Aid’, 241.

64. Denney, ‘Liberal Chiefs or Illiberal Development?’; Yanguas and Hulme, ‘Barriers to Political Analysis in Aid Bureaucracies’.

65. Denney, ‘Liberal Chiefs or Illiberal Development?’.

66. Yanguas and Hulme, ‘Barriers to Political Analysis in Aid Bureaucracies’.

67. Crawford, ‘The European Union and Democracy Promotion in Africa’, 571.

68. Ibid.