Africa Center for Strategic Studies

By John E. Herbst. PRISM, 2009. Governance failures and shortcomings are a prime source of instability and violence as they contribute to state failure. Many international partners working with the UN, African Union, and non-governmental organizations are scaling up their capacity to deploy teams of wide-ranging civilian experts to assist states during such governance shortfalls in order to prevent crises and restore security and stability. [PDF]

By Roy Love.  Chatham House, 2009. The four cross-border regions of the Horn of Africa exemplify a complex development-security nexus in which politics, inter-elite struggles, resource endowments, poverty and other seemingly distinct phenomena all interact. They also illuminate how local initiatives and international aid programs can enhance development and reduce conflict. [PDF]

Poor countries are more vulnerable to crisis, be it economic, humanitarian, or open conflict. Cross-national analysis, however, shows that the development performance of low-income democracies significantly outpaces that of autocracies – and do so with less volatility. Sustaining democratization, therefore, is a priority for attaining both development and security objectives.  PDF   For additional reading go to: Security and Development

  Integrating 21st Century Development Assistance. By Kathleen Hicks and J. Stephen Morrison. Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2008 U.S. interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan have laid bare deficiencies in U.S. policies and capacities for fostering development and stabilization in conflict-affected contexts. This has led to greater integration of U.S. military and civilian efforts to overcome these challenges. While progress has been made, significant imbalances between development and security assistance remain. [PDF] For additional reading go to: Security and Development

Lessons Learned. By Martin Rupiya. Institute for Strategic Studies, 2006. Based on his research conducted with the participation of the armed forces of Botswana, Swaziland, and Zambia, the author discusses the challenges addressing HIV/AIDS in southern Africa. [PDF]

Investing in Peace: How Development Aid Can Prevent or Promote Conflict. By Robert J. Muscat. M.E. Sharpe, 2002. The author examines nine cases in which the work of development agencies exacerbated or ameliorated the root causes of conflict. This permits some generalizations about the efficacy or deleterious effects of development programs on conflict -- and of their futility when the conflict-prevention dimension of international assistance efforts is ignored. [HTML]