The UK Government’s Approach to Stabilisation A guide for policy makers and practitioners The UK Government’s Approach to Stabilisation A guide for policy makers and practitioners March 2019 Contents Foreword by the Right Hon Alistair Burt MP 4 Introduction from the Director of the Stabilisation Unit 6 The UK Government’s Approach to Stabilisation 10 Chapter 1: The UK Government’s Approach to Stabilisation 12 What is stabilisation? 13 Stabilisation principles 18 Chapter 2: Stabilisation in practice – essential elements for effective delivery 30 Introduction 31 Essential element 1: Driving factors – context, objectives and relationships 33 Essential element 2: Thinking and working politically 38 Essential element 3: Understanding – learning, honesty and adaptability 39 Essential element 4: Strategy – coherence, realism and integration 44 Essential element 5: Behaviour – humility, sensitivity and communication 50 Essential element 6: Monitoring, evaluation and learning 55 Essential element 7: Planning for transition 57 Chapter 3: Stabilisation, security and justice 60 Introduction 61 Addressing security and justice issues as an essential component of stabilisation 62 Direct security provision in stabilisation contexts 64 Understanding and analysing security and justice in stabilisation contexts 66 Thinking and working politically when delivering security and justice interventions 70 Specific types of security and justice interventions in stabilisation contexts 75 Delivering effective security and justice interventions in stabilisation contexts 79 Chapter 4: The centrality of political deal making 86 Introduction 87 Key terms and concepts 89 Supporting a political process to reduce violent conflict 93 Making the deal stick 98 Preparing a foundation for longer-term stability 103 Chapter 5: Service delivery and stabilisation 108 Introduction 109 Service delivery in the nexus of stabilisation, humanitarian and developmental responses 110 How service delivery contributes to stabilisation 112 Promoting and supporting a political process to reduce violence? 113 Preparing the foundations for longer-term stability 115 Factors which determine the success of service delivery interventions in stabilisation contexts 116 Responding effectively 121 Who is best placed to provide services 124 Which services to deliver 126 How services are delivered 129 Chapter 6: Addressing transnational threats in stabilisation contexts 132 Introduction 133 Violent non-state actors 135 Serious and organised crime 141 Serious and Organised Crime Joint Analysis 143 Devising a response to serious and organised crime 147 Transnational threats and stabilisation: recognising risks and trade-offs 148 Glossary 150 Foreword by the Right Hon Alistair Burt MP Minister of State for International Development Minister of State for the Middle East at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office The UK Government’s Approach to Stabilisation: A guide for policy makers and practitioners | 5 I have seen first-hand the terrible effects the conflicts in countries such as Syria, Yemen and Iraq have had. The suffering cannot be left to continue unabated. The UK government rejects the notion that we can step away and leave these problems for others. We must stand firm, work with our local and international partners, so we can help to reduce violence, build peace and turn today’s conflicts around. The UK government’s goal in conflict-affected contexts is to support the development of lasting peace and stability, which is built with the consent of the population, is resilient and flexible in the face of shocks, and can evolve over time. This goal runs through our National Security Strategy and our Foreign Office priorities, and it guides how the Department for International Development spends fifty per cent of its aid budget in conflict affected countries. It also explains why we have led international efforts to build peace by empowering women through our National Action Plan. The UK is a world leader in helping tackle the root causes of conflict and instability. The National Security Council sets priorities and ensures there is an integrated policy response using the capabilities and expertise across HMG. We back this up with funding from departments and the cross-government Conflict, Stability and Security Fund. These efforts have helped support political processes and conflict de-escalation across the world, including in Syria, Iraq, South Sudan and Colombia. We continue to develop our analysis, policy and programmes in pursuit of our objectives. I am, therefore, very pleased to endorse the UK government’s new Stabilisation Guide, written by the Stabilisation Unit. It sets out our latest thinking on how the UK sees the role of stabilisation in conflict-affected contexts. The Guide sets out just how challenging it can be to bring protracted violent conflict to an end. It emphasises the importance of engaging and investing sensibly and pragmatically, recognising the difficult trade-offs and dilemmas that policy makers face. It calls on us to get better at recognising that good things do not always come together, outlining how if we force state building and institutional reform before a political platform has been established, then there is a high risk of a return to violence. Crucially, it also describes how our initial stabilisation responses relate to and support building peace and long-term stability, so we can help prevent violence reoccurring. As we constantly strive to improve and refine our approach, we have not shied away from honest self-reflection. This guide draws heavily on the lessons identified by the Iraq Inquiry, around the need to better understand the consequences of our interventions, the need to work more effectively across government as a single team and be realistic about our timescales and ambition. So, we need to ruthlessly prioritise our efforts, make the best use of all our available resources and have an appropriate, sequenced strategy of engagement, whilst keeping the goal of long term peace and stability in clear sight. This guide sets out how we can best work with our local and international partners to reduce the terrible consequences of violent conflict and address the threats to the United Kingdom that are generated by instability overseas. Introduction from the Director of the Stabilisation Unit The UK Government’s Approach to Stabilisation: A guide for policy makers and practitioners | 7 ‘Stabilisation seeks to support local and regional partners in conflict affected countries to reduce violence, ensure basic security and facilitate peaceful political deal-making, all of which should aim to provide a foundation for building long term stability.’ It is increasingly important that we challenge ourselves and our approaches to conflict. 60% of armed conflicts resolved in the early 2000s relapsed into violence within five years.1 We are witnessing more and more protracted humanitarian crises and more man-made famine. By 2030, 80% of those in extreme poverty will be living in fragile and conflict-affected states.2 Armed conflict has become more intractable and less conducive to resolution through traditional internationally mediated formal peace agreements. It has become more internationalised and interlinked with criminal enterprises and extremist groups. We need to acknowledge these changes and in turn adapt our approach, and stabilisation has a part to play in that. Stabilisation has been a contested and ambiguous term, and the rapid evolution of how it is applied has added to the confusion. Earlier efforts were focused on ‘hot stabilisation’, primarily using military force to combat insurgent or ‘illegitimate’ political groups combined with the building of local governance institutions and service delivery capacity. Our approach has developed and, while stabilisation may require the application of force or the threat of its use, it is not a prerequisite. The emphasis is on a politically-led approach which privileges the primacy of local politics and can be applied before, during and after violent conflict. Political deals, forged between local elites, are based on their common understanding about how power and resources are organised and executed reflecting the realities of political power on the ground. In pursuing them, we are confronted with the inherent tensions and trade-offs with wider national security objectives: promotion of a rules based international order, human rights; gender equality, good governance, a desire for justice, and more. The goals are not contradictory but do require sequencing with a clear understanding of our relative priorities. This guide reinforces an essential point that ‘not all good things come together’. When working to address national security challenges and promote the conditions for long-term stability there will be a requirement for effective prioritisation and sequencing to manage competing demands. While the humanitarian imperative to first ‘do no harm’ is laudable it is arguably unachievable in stabilisation activity, not least as we recognise that non-intervention is itself a decision that can cause harm. The goal should therefore be to identify and minimise harm within a broader framework of understanding the potential trade-offs and dilemmas. Part of the purpose of the guide is to aid policy makers and practitioners in identifying and managing these dilemmas. To understand both what contemporary stabilisation is – and equally is not – it is useful to trace its origins and evolution. The end of the Cold War