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1. Ending Wars and Building Peace

Author:
Charles Call and Elizabeth Cousens
Publication Date:
03-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
Ending armed conflict has long been a concern of practitioners and scholars of international relations. Recent years have seen new attention to questions of “building peace” beyond the immediate termination of war, primarily driven by the experience of civil wars in the 1990s and the very mixed record of international involvement—from relative successes like Namibia, Mozambique, and El Salvador through partial successes like Cambodia, Bosnia, and East Timor to abysmal failures like Angola and Rwanda.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Peace Studies, Terrorism, and War
Political Geography:
Bosnia, Cambodia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Angola, and Namibia

2. Remittances in Conflict and Crises: How Remittances Sustain Livelihoods in War, Crises and Transitions to Peace

Author:
Patricia Weiss Fagen and Micah N. Bump
Publication Date:
02-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
Although migrant workers, refugees and immigrants have been sending money, goods and ideas home for millennia, until about a decade ago donors and international finance agencies paid little attention to the phenomenon. Interest has grown exponentially as statistics show what we now call migrant remittances to be among the most important contributing factors to national economies in several countries. Nearly all the countries in the conflict, war-to-peace transition, and crisis categories are highly dependent on remittances. The slow recovery of livelihoods and persistent violence or repression ensure high levels of migration and the need for remittances in such countries for several years after conflict and crises have ended. By all accounts, migrant remittances reduce poverty in important ways in developing countries. Research shows that migrants transfer funds and invest in their countries of origin at times when international investment has all but disappeared. By serving these purposes in countries emerging from or still experiencing conflicts (e.g., Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Somalia, Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire and others), remittances can be seen as a sine qua non for peace and rebuilding.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Development, Peace Studies, and War
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Sri Lanka, Kosovo, Liberia, and Somalia

3. War Economies in a Regional Context: Overcoming the Challenges of Transformation

Author:
Kaysie Studdard
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
This policy report distills key findings from research commissioned by the International Peace Academy's program on Economic Agendas in Civil Wars (EACW) on the regional dimensions of war economies and the challenges they pose for peacemaking and peacebuilding. Drawing from analytical research as well as case studies of Afghanistan in Central Asia, Sierra Leone in West Africa, and Bosnia and Herzegovina in Southeast Europe, a number of key issues concerning the political economy of regional war economies and lessons for more effective peacebuilding were identified: The notion that internal conflicts have economic "spill over" or "spill into" effects on neighboring states needs to be extended and deepened. Policymakers should work to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the interstate impacts of civil conflict that gives greater weight to systemic cross-border networks and less to potentially 'one-off' transborder phenomena.
Topic:
Economics, Peace Studies, Regional Cooperation, and War
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Europe, Central Asia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, and West Africa