Local First Development for the Twenty-First Century

LOCAL FIRST Development for the twenty-first century Edited by Kate McGuinness 1 LOCAL FIRST Development for the twenty-first century Edited by Kate McGuinness 3 Local First: development for the twenty-first century Published in 2012 by Peace Direct, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. Registered charity 1123241. Further information at www.peacedirect.org or at www.localfirst.org.uk. ISBN 978-0-9552419-2-5. © Copyright Peace Direct, Kate McGuinness and authors. Permission to quote freely from this book can be obtained from Peace Direct. Cover image by Ted Giffords. The moral right of the authors has been asserted. Printed by Marstan Press, Kent. 4 CONTENTS Editor’s note 9 Kate McGuinness Introduction: Local First – a proposal for 13 development in the twenty-first century Carolyn Hayman 1 Connecting disarmament, demobilisation 44 and reintegration realities in DR Congo: CRC Hans Rouw 2 Emphasising reintegration in Burundi: CEDAC 65 Rens Willems 3 Collecting the artefacts of war in Mozambique: 84 FOMICRES Mairéad Heffron 4 Building justice from the grassroots in 111 Cambodia: IBJ Nastasia Bach, Kate Flower and Jessica Knowles 5 Creating grassroots accountability in Timor 133 Leste: Luta Hamutuk Victoria Fanggidae 6 Buy local, build Afghanistan: Building Markets 157 Ainsley Butler End note 180 Heinz Krummenacher Appendix 1: Author profiles 185 Appendix 2: Organisational profiles 189 5 Local First: development for the twenty-first century 6 ‘Success should not be measured by outputs or the amount of money spent, but by the ability of Afghan institutions to deliver services, the Afghan private sector to generate jobs, and Afghan civil society to provide avenues for citizens to hold their governments accountable.’ – US SENATE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS ‘What was useful in Kenya was that the internationals provided the pressure on the opponents – and the space – for them to come to an agreement. It ceased to be useful when the internationals began to specify what that agreement should be.’ – KENYAN PEACEBUILDER DEKHA IBRAHIM ABDI 7 Local First: development for the twenty-first century 8 Editor’s note Editor’s note The World Bank’s World Development Report 2011 reveals that 1.5 billion people live in countries affected by fragility, conflict or large-scale, organised criminal violence. The report goes on to state: ‘No low-income fragile or conflict-affected country has yet achieved a single Millenium Development Goal. People in fragile and conflict- affected states are more than twice as likely to be undernourished as those in other developing countries, more than three times as likely to be unable to send their children to school, twice as likely to see their children die before age five, and more than twice as likely to lack clean water. On average, a country that experienced major violence over the period from 1981 to 2005 has a poverty rate 21 percentage points higher than a country that saw no violence’ (World Develop- ment Report 2011: 5). Moreover, an average developing country caught up in protracted conflict loses roughly 30 years of GDP growth. Such disturbing data provides an impetus for this collection of case studies, the objective of which is to showcase successful examples of change-related activities that originate at the local level and have scaled up to create a widespread, sustainable impact. More to the point, it is local people living with these facts on the ground, and working tirelessly to transform them for the better, who inform and inspire this book. As the global community nears the end of the timeframe for achieving the Millennium Development Goals in 2015, and moves forward in the direction of a post-Busan world development agenda, it is increasingly clear there is room for improve- ment. But this is not news. It has been known for some time – not least by those 1.5 billion people who live day in and day out with the realities of profound insecurity, poverty and bad governance. Methodologically, the selection of these case studies exemplifies a primary tenet of the Local First approach: start from where you are, look at available resources and take it from there. In particular, these case studies were chosen because they represent compel- ling examples of large-scale activities that engage local capacity to the fullest extent. Each of these case studies was commissioned by 9 Local First: development for the twenty-first century Carolyn Hayman of Peace Direct, who plays a leading role in the Local First campaign. Hence, they are tipped in favour of peacebuilding, with three of the six case studies focused on such issues. From a pragmatic perspective, this is what Peace Direct knows best, so it made sense to start from there. Reflecting the often organic approach to scaling up via networks and relationship building at the local level and moving upward and outward to reach ever broader constituencies, these case studies were also the result of a similar process of networking and relationship building related to activat- ing the Local First campaign. The sequence of the case studies in this collection moves from war to peace, as this may be metaphorically interpreted. The first two case studies focus on initiatives related to the challenges of disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration in the Democratic Re- public of Congo and Burundi. The third case study discusses small and light weapons collection in post-conflict Mozambique. Shifting gears to the context of good governance, the fourth case study ex- plains a judicial reform process in Cambodia and the fifth presents a model for local accountability in Timor Leste. Signalling a tran- sition to the field of development, the sixth and final case study addresses the issue of local procurement in Afghanistan. The End Note in this volume situates the Local First approach in relation to a broader controversy about the roles of inside versus outside inter- veners, concluding that Local First constitutes a valuable middle ground that moves this long-standing debate to a new terrain. In one way or another, all of the topics herein reflect key aspects of the New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States.1 They also represent an important degree of geographical diversity in post-conflict states. Nonetheless, it is obvious that this volume does not aim to offer a comprehensive overview of local initiatives related to security, governance and development in post-conflict countries. Rather, they are intended to contribute to increasing the evidence base for local action, in particular by demonstrating that it can be effective on a large scale. These case studies further serve to share knowl- edge about best practice in partnerships between local and outside 1 The New Deal identifies five peacebuilding and state-building goals: 1) legitimate politics; 2) security; 3) justice; 4) economic foundations; and 5) revenues and services managed accountably and ensuring fair service delivery. For the full text, see: http://www. oecd.org/international%20dialogue/49151944.pdf. 10 Editor’s note actors. As Hayman makes clear, Local First is by no means ‘local only’. Importantly, this collection also offers a launch pad for the Local First campaign, with all of the authors working for and with organisations that have a strong commitment to the Local First approach. Hayman outlines the central precepts of the Local First approach in the Introduction to this book. Among the gaps that show up in this unavoidably limited collection of examples, one bears special mention. Although there are now unprecedented levels of worldwide attention to women’s in- volvement in peacebuilding, a gender-specific case study is not in- cluded here. Despite the high degree of interest, there is still limited research and concrete evidence about women’s engagement at the local or micro level and how this can be scaled up. Fortunately, however, a recent publication works to remedy this imbalance. Just as this volume seeks to contribute to the evidence base that docu- ments the impact and effect of local action, From the Ground Up helps to address the absence of information about the roles women play in peacebuilding at the local level. As such, it can be considered complementary to the Local First initiative. Each of the case studies here begins with a short description of the context from which the project in question emerged, pay- ing specific attention to the political and security challenges in the country where it is based. They also define the need or problem that prompted the local response, as well as identify the intended project beneficiaries. The bulk of each case study then focuses on the approach that the organisation adopted, how this evolved, available organisational resources and some background information about the organisation and its founders. Here is where these stories come to life, drawing on anecdotes, interview quotes and testimonial evidence from those who were involved in the project in some way – staff, participants, beneficiaries, community members, government actors and funders. The case studies move on to briefly discuss project partnerships and how they worked, and then address issues related to evalua- tion, effectiveness and cost-effectiveness. Some of them reference comparative data (where relevant and available) from internation- ally led interventions in the same general area of work. Finally, the case studies offer lessons learnt, conclusions and recommendations oriented to establishing more effective practice on the ground. 11 Local First: development for the twenty-first century These examples of local action comprise a mix of qualitative and quantitative data, with emphasis on the former. In general, data is drawn from face-to-face interviews with key informants and staff (along with follow-up correspondence), focus group discussions, secondary interview material, a variety of organisational reports, including both internal and external evaluations, as well as related publications, statistical documentation and scholarly material.

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