{"id":992,"date":"2025-10-02T04:00:53","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T04:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thebrokeronline.eu\/what-will-busan-do-for-conflict-affected-countries\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T04:00:53","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T04:00:53","slug":"what-will-busan-do-for-conflict-affected-countries","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.thebrokeronline.eu\/blogs\/busan-high-level-forum\/what-will-busan-do-for-conflict-affected-countries\/","title":{"rendered":"What Will Busan Do For Conflict Affected Countries"},"content":{"rendered":"<section class=\"content column wide left blog_post content view\" id=\"content\">\n<div class=\"edit image\">\n\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thebrokeronline.eu\/files\/var\/broker\/storage\/images\/blogs\/busan-high-level-forum\/what-will-busan-do-for-conflict-affected-countries\/176120-1-eng-gb\/what-will-busan-do-for-conflict-affected-countries_full_view.jpg\" alt=\"Refugee camp in Chad, by United Nations Photo\">\n\t<\/div>\n<article class=\"fader\">\n<header class=\"contents\">\n<div class=\"share\">\n\t\t\t<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n    var addthis_config = {\n        ui_language = 'en'\n    }\n<\/script><\/p>\n<div class=\"addthis sharing\">\n\t<!-- AddThis Button BEGIN --><\/p>\n<div class=\"addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style\" addthis:title=\"What will Busan do for conflict-affected countries?\">\n\t<a class=\"addthis_button_twitter\" tw:via=\"thebrokeronline\"><\/a><br \/>\n\t<a class=\"addthis_button_facebook\"><\/a><br \/>\n\t<a class=\"addthis_button_pinterest_share\"><\/a><br \/>\n\t<a class=\"addthis_button_preferred_4\"><\/a><br \/>\n\t<a class=\"addthis_button_compact\"><\/a><br \/>\n\t<a class=\"addthis_counter addthis_bubble_style\"><\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n<p>\t<script type=\"text\/javascript\">var addthis_config = data_track_addressbar;<\/script><br \/>\n\t<script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thebrokeronline.eu\/files\/js\/300\/addthis_widget.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n\t<!-- AddThis Button END -->\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"addthis article_options\">\n\t\t<!-- \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebrokeronline.eu\/mandrill\/subscription\/add\/18362\/19413\">Subscribe<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t -->\n    \t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWhat will Busan do for conflict-affected countries?<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n<div class=\"clear\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"pubDate\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebrokeronline.eu\/experts-and-authors\/smith-dan\/\">Dan Smith<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebrokeronline.eu\/experts-and-authors\/vernon-phil\/\">Phil Vernon<\/a>\t\t|<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t10 November 2025\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"body contents\">\n\t<!-- body --><\/p>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\"><b><\/p>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\"><i>The wording of the Outcomes Document from the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid is largely agreed, and reflects much of the new thinking on aid: statebuilding and peacebuilding; human security; transparency and results.&nbsp;<\/i><\/p>\n<p>\t\t<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\">\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\"><i>The wording of the Outcomes Document from the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid is largely agreed, and reflects much of the new thinking on aid: statebuilding and peacebuilding; human security; transparency and results. But it fails to reflect the challenge, scale and complexity of promoting and supporting development in conflict-affected countries in a changing world. To do this, Busan must rise to four more challenges.<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\"><b>New thinking about aid and development in conflict-affected countries<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\">We work for International Alert which is a peacebuilding organisation, and have therefore been reflecting for many years on the difficulties of development and aid effectiveness in conflict-affected contexts. Earlier pieces in The Broker include <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebrokeronline.eu\/blogs\/goal-posts-what-next-for-the-mdgs\/towards-a-new-development-discourse-and-new-development-institutions\/\" target=\"_blank\">a proposal for a new international development paradigm<\/a>, and a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebrokeronline.eu\/blogs\/goal-posts-what-next-for-the-mdgs\/putting-the-ideology-back-into-development\/\" target=\"_blank\">plea for development discourse to be re-politicised<\/a>. It is widely accepted by now that no conflict-affected country has achieved a single Millennium Development Goal (MDG). And it is also becoming more commonly accepted that the list of fragile and conflict-affected countries is far longer than was once thought, for example embracing places like Mexico and South Africa with their high levels of violent crime. The lack of sustainable development progress in conflict-affected contexts has stimulated much reflection over the past few years, for example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The <i>World Development Report 2011<\/i> outlined a new paradigm for development assistance in conflict-affected countries \u2013 where a total of 1.5 billion people live <\/li>\n<li>A renewed focus on the need to show concrete results will help citizens in donor and recipient countries to hold their governments more accountable for aid effectiveness<\/li>\n<li>An increased recognition that development is about more than economic growth, health and education; it is also about how people are governed, the relationship between people and state, access to justice, and whether people are kept safe from danger <\/li>\n<li>Emerging economies like China, Brazil and India are providing increasing slices of the aid pie, bringing different approaches that are not part of the aid orthodoxy<\/li>\n<li>Some aid is being used in creative ways, in line with the new thinking.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\"><b>The way ahead is unclear: we\u2019ve learned enough to know how little we know <\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\">As our understanding of the complexity of development has grown, so we have better grasped the difficulty of programming aid effectively. The very purpose of aid has changed to embrace the unfamiliar language of statebuilding and peacebuilding. It has become far more ambitious, and rightly so. Twenty years ago an aid programme might have built schools and trained teachers. Ten years ago, it might have strengthened the capacity of the government to plan, provide and oversee education, including a grant for school building, operating costs and teacher training, while increasing tax revenue to pay recurrent costs. Now some donors want to foster better relations between the state and the people, increasing the sense of responsibility, responsiveness and citizenship. This requires change in some of the institutions at the heart of governance and society.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.international-alert.org\/about-us\" target=\"_blank\">International Alert<\/a> has been arguing for these kinds of changes for almost a decade. Progress has been made, but many challenges remain, for example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Building responsive and responsible citizen-state relations<\/b> is key to peace and prosperity, but little is known about how to do so at a speed and scale commensurate with people\u2019s expectations; how to get the balance between progress and stability right?<\/li>\n<li><b>The lack of decent work for young people<\/b> is often a major threat to stability. Aid orthodoxy says the private sector should create jobs But it will not do so at the scale and speed, nor with the dependability and stability, needed in countries emerging from civil war (e.g. Sierra Leone), or from years of repression (Burma or Guinea), when people\u2019s expectations are raised. Should we ignore the orthodoxy, and consider externally funded 30-year public works programmes, to provide employment, inject cash into the economy and provide breathing space?<\/li>\n<li><b>Climate change<\/b> brings new challenges \u2013 of pressure on resources such as land and water, of the collision between growth and green priorities, and of adaptation \u2013 together with huge additional budgets. These are largely being managed separately from other aid, bringing a risk of increased incoherence, which can be a destabilising factor in fragile contexts.<\/li>\n<li><b>The practice of aid organisations in fragile contexts <\/b>has not kept pace with the learning, and the new purpose of aid. Without urgent change, they risk being unfit for purpose.<\/li>\n<li><b>Getting the right metrics for assessing progress<\/b> towards stability in fragile contexts is a task that is far from complete. It cannot be done with the same metrics that suffice for health or education and it is increasingly tiresome that agencies seem pulled towards inappropriate indicators by the results agenda. Rigorous qualitative indicators and a time-frame appropriate to the task are key components.<\/li>\n<li><b>The behaviour of governments<\/b> continues to hinder development. The foreign policy of some donors undermines their own aid goals, while some recipient governments use aid to strengthen their hold on power, undermining democratic accountability and holding back development. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\"><b>Busan, the first step on a new road<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\">The wording of the Busan Outcomes Document is largely agreed, and reflects much of the new thinking on aid: statebuilding and peacebuilding; human security; transparency and results. But it fails to reflect the challenge, scale and complexity of promoting and supporting development in conflict-affected countries in a changing world. Busan should be seen as the final High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, and the beginning of a new debate and discourse. A successful Forum will be&nbsp;recognizable&nbsp;by evidence of four critical factors in the speeches made at and documents emanating from Busan:<\/p>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\"><b>1.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Change and uncertainty.<\/b> A recognition that the framing of aid and development has fundamentally changed. It has become more complex and more political. We need new tools and methods to achieve and measure success. Good work has been done, but we don\u2019t yet have the tools with which to meet expectations. <i>Participants at a successful HLF4 will define this challenge and set out a process for meeting it.<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\"><i>&nbsp;<\/i><b>2.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/b><b>A balanced combination of agreement and disagreement.<\/b> Beneath the technical language of aid, development is a highly political, ideological and contentious idea: it speaks to different theories of progress and change. International forums about aid in the past have glossed over this, focusing instead on agreements about process. That way consensus is achieved \u2013 but only a shallow and artificial one that often leaves aid practitioners in difficult positions, trapped by official niceties into policies they know are flawed, targets they know are unreal and actions they know are ineffective. <i>Participants at a successful HLF4 will recognise that their different interests and perspectives lead to quite different views about how development happens, and how aid can be applied to promote it.<\/i> This will allow the issue to be debated more openly as the international community begins defining the set of measures which will replace the MDGs after 2015.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\">Nevertheless, international agencies, governments and civil society do need to collaborate much more effectively, based on the comparative advantages of each. <i>Thus participants at a successful HLF4 will agree to promote and mandate a more selective but deeper collaboration among agencies at national level.<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\"><i>&nbsp;<\/i><b>3.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/b><b>Development, not aid. <\/b>Aid is important, and the way it is planned and used matters. But the time for meetings about aid effectiveness is over; future meetings and processes should instead be about development<i>&nbsp;<\/i>strategies. They should debate what constitutes development, identify the policies and behaviours of governments, businesses, NGOs, IGOs and citizens which are most likely to promote progress, and how they can be encouraged and supported. <i>Participants at a successful HLF4 will agree that future international forums should be defined in terms of promoting effective development progress, not just best practice in aid. <\/i>&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\"><b>&nbsp;<\/b><b>4.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/b><b>Operationalization. <\/b>Getting global agreement on critical issues is hard, and results in a watering-down of commitments. So it is critical to recognise that some of the most important progress over the next few years will be made at the level of specific organisations, projects, countries, etc. This implies a need for individual countries and organisations to push through the operationalization of some of the new development thinking associated with the <i>World Development Report 2011 <\/i>and the <i>International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and State-building<\/i>. <i>Participants at a successful HLF4 will agree to prioritise the operationalization of new approaches to promoting development in conflict affected countries, and to share the results of these.<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\"><i>A version of this article first appeared in OpenDemocracy.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"yunu3cvqabft7vifv\">\n<p class=\"credit\">Photo credit main picture: Refugee camp in Chad, by United Nations Photo<\/p>\n<p>\t\t<!-- body -->\n\t<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"clear\"><\/div>\n<section class=\"commentform content column wide left\">\n<div class=\"disqus_content\">\n\t\t\t<a name=\"comments\" id=\"comments\"><\/a><\/p>\n<div id=\"disqus_thread\"><\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n\t\t\t\t\/* * * CONFIGURATION VARIABLES: EDIT BEFORE PASTING INTO YOUR WEBPAGE * * *\/\n\t\t\t\tvar disqus_shortname = 'broker'; \/\/ required: replace example with your forum shortname\n\t\t\t\tvar disqus_identifier = '8107';\n\t\t\t\t\/* * * DON'T EDIT BELOW THIS LINE * * *\/\n\t\t\t\tfunction trackComment(comment)\n\t\t\t\t{\n\t\t\t\t\tconsole.log(comment);\n\t\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\tfunction disqus_config() {\n\t\t\t\t\tthis.callbacks.onNewComment = [function() { \n\t\t\t\t\tconsole.log(comment);\n\t\t\t\t\t}];\n\t\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\t(function() {\n\t\t\t\t\tvar dsq = document.createElement('script'); dsq.type = 'text\/javascript'; dsq.async = true;\n\t\t\t\t\tdsq.src = '\/\/' + disqus_shortname + 'https:\/\/www.thebrokeronline.eu\/files\/blogs\/busan-high-level-forum\/.disqus.com\/embed.js';\n\t\t\t\t\t(document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0] || document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]).appendChild(dsq);\n\t\t\t\t})();\n\t\t\t<\/script><br \/>\n\t\t\t<!--\n\t\t\t<noscript>Please enable JavaScript to view the <a href=\"http:\/\/disqus.com\/?ref_noscript\">comments powered by Disqus.<\/a><\/noscript>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/disqus.com\" class=\"dsq-brlink\">comments powered by <span class=\"logo-disqus\">Disqus<\/span><\/a>\n\t\t\t-->\n\t\t<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false,"raw":""},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What will Busan do for conflict-affected countries? 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