Chapter One: Peace Processes, Business and New Futures after War

Abstract

The transition from war to peace is fraught with tension and the risk of a return to bloodshed. With so much at stake, it is crucial that the international community and local stakeholders make sense of the complex mosaic of challenges, to support a lasting, inclusive and prosperous peace. Recent missions, such as in Afghanistan, Somalia or Sudan, have highlighted the fact that there can be no one-size-fits-all approach to steering countries away from violence and towards stability.

This Adelphi offers a series of economic perspectives on conflict resolution, showing how the challenges of peacebuilding can be more effectively tackled. From the need to marry diplomatic peacemaking with development efforts, and activate the private sector in the service of peacebuilding aims, to the use of taxes and natural-resource revenues as a financial base for sustainable peace, this issue considers how economic factors can positively shape and drive peace processes. It examines the complex ways in which power and order may be manifested in conflict zones, where unpalatable compromises with local warlords can often be the first step towards a more lasting settlement. In distilling expertise from a range of disciplines, this Adelphi seeks to inform a more economically integrated and responsive approach to helping countries leave behind their troubled pasts and take a fuller role in constructing their futures.

Notes

This chapter is based on A. Wennmann, The Political Economy of Peacemaking, (London: Routledge, forthcoming 2011), and draws from a broader project on economic issues and instruments in peace processes supported by the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.

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Additional information

Notes on contributors

Achim Wennmann

Achim Wennmann is a Researcher at the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding (CCDP) of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland.