Africa Center for Strategic Studies

• Youth, Armed Violence, and Job Creation Programmes

  By Oliver Walton. The Governance and Social Development Resource Centre and the Norwegian Peacebuilding Centre, September 2010. Africa’s large youth populations have been a frequently tapped recruitment pool by insurgent groups and state forces in many recent conflicts around the continent. Some post-conflict reconstruction initiatives have managed to successfully disarm and reintegrate armed youths, but most still need to broaden their focus beyond creating employment opportunities and simultaneously address other social and political grievances that motivate many youths to take up arms in the first place. Download the Article: [PDF]

• Reconstructing Public Administration after Conflict: Challenges, Practices and Lessons Learned

  By The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2011.

  Progress toward peace and development is unlikely and unsustainable in post-conflict areas unless basic governance and public administration institutions are established and functioning. In addition to a focus on  designing and managing  state institutions, equal attention should be paid to rebuilding public trust in the government and a shared vision of governance.

  Download the Article: [PDF]

• Planning and Budgeting in Southern Sudan: Lessons for Post-Conflict Settings

  By Fiona Davies and Gregory Smith. Overseas Development Institute, October 2010.

  Lack of experience and capacity in designing and managing national budgets is a common feature in post conflict contexts. Through innovative inter-ministerial budget sector working groups, coding systems to enhance monitoring, and adopting technical systems at a slow but deliberative pace, the Government of South Sudan offers some lessons for setting budget priorities, spending ceilings, and administrative schema. [PDF]

• Rebuilding War-Torn States: The Challenge of Post-Conflict Economic Reconstruction

  By Graciana del Castillo. Oxford University Press. 2008

  Achieving stabilization in a post-conflict context requires policymakers to manage a host of competing economic challenges. This review of the conceptual and practical issues faced in contemporary post-conflict economic reconstruction contexts provides valuable guidance for navigating this course. Among other priorities is recognizing that economic policies cannot pursue a “business-as-usual” development approach but must integrate considerations of social inclusion and political reconciliation that may be less economically efficient but more durable and stabilizing. [HTML]

• The Emergence of a Somali State: Building Peace from Civil War in Somaliland

  The Emergence of a Somali State: Building Peace from Civil War in Somaliland. By Michael Walls. African Affairs, 2009.

  Despite little outside intervention, the 1991-1993 peace process in the peaceful northern enclave of Somaliland successfully enabled a sustainable governance framework under a civilian administration. Persistent efforts identified pre-existing social norms that facilitate dialogue and successfully leveraged them to build consensus through conference and negotiation toward a legitimate political framework. [PDF]

• Liberate Liberia

  Liberate Liberia. By Joseph Siegle. Wall Street Journal, July 13, 2003. [HTML]

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