Post-Conflict Environments Benefit from Better Informed Donors

Information gathering and time spent understanding the local context are key to operational success in fragile and post-conflict situations, according to a representative of the European Union Delegation to Afghanistan.

Time is often in short supply in the fast moving and immediate world of emergency response, especially in a conflict environment like Afghanistan, where working on capacity development can be a challenge.

“The major donor is not a civilian donor, it’s a military donor,” said the representative at the EU offices in Kabul. “That has an impact on the way in which the agenda is set. The imperatives linked to political and military notions of success often drive what follows in terms of development cooperation.”

“So there’s a wide range of contextual factors which are underestimated or analysed from a very particular focus but then possibly do not lead you to conclusions that allow you to implement a meaningful capacity development programme,” he said.

Political Economy Analysis is a structured approach to gathering such knowledge, and one that the European Commission is increasingly incorporating into its programming.

Staff in EuropeAid are currently working on a background paper that explains what is meant by political economy analysis, why it matters fundamentally for understanding development challenges and outcomes, and the implications it carries for how donors engage.

Useful for development professionals, the paper also offers practical guidance on how to undertake political economy analysis at country and sector level, and suggests how to draw on the analysis to inform every aspect of EU development activity, including programming, identification and formulation of specific interventions, risk management and policy dialogue.

Capacity development in fragile states is inevitably political, involving power struggles and negotiation among local actors and sometimes between local and international actors. Understanding this bargaining process is essential for bringing actors together in collective action, according to a draft version of the paper.

However, according to a network of experienced development professionals on political economy, donors are often hampered in turning this new emphasis on PEA into on-the-ground policy changes. One of the main reasons, they say, is that donors like the EC are constrained by the need to show short-term results for their actions, see related blog post on capacity4dev.eu.

The representative of the European Union Delegation to Afghanistan agrees that donors need to keep their eye on the horizon, working towards long-term objectives. But it’s also important to stay realistic, he says. 

“You need to take a long-term and systemic approach and vision of the situation you’re trying to operate in to have any chance of success,” he said. “And be aware that any success that you are having will be small as compared to the problems that will remain.”