COMMISSION COMMUNITY

Abstract

The paper first analyzes the emerging global human security paradigm and key development variables that impact on human security, poverty, and conflict, e.g., economic growth, income, asset and service distribution, governance, institutional capacity, ethnicity, and social cohesion. It then assesses development as practiced by the International Finance Institutions (IFIs) and the impact on global human security. The analysis represent a clarion call to the IFIs to shift the balance from first generation state-centric economic and financial policy reforms to second-generation global policies addressing governance (including security), environmental resource management, and social issues. Implicit is the need to shift from a limited rights perspective focusing on economic and social-cultural rights to one that includes civil and political rights. The paper argues that the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), collectively known as the Bretton Woods institutions, must give increased priority to issues of social inclusion, human rights and human security as means of reducing poverty, preventing conflict, and achieving sustainable development. The paper makes specific policy and operational recommendations, including a reassessment of the Bretton Woods Articles of Agreement, the treatment of security as a public good, the expansion of human security analysis as a standard part of the IFIs’ economic and poverty work, and the a strong emphasis on justice and human rights as integral parts of sustainable development.

Introduction

Since the fall of the Berlin wall and the passing of an ideologically bipolar world, the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) have been increasingly called upon to shoulder the responsibility of protecting and furthering the interests of the poor. Concerns of failed governance, pandemic disease, international criminal networks, illicit arms trading and money laundering, increasing environmental hazards and natural resource mismanagement, and deteriorating social cohesion now present new threats to internal security. In the last decade alone such threats have fueled 111 armed-conflicts, 97 of which were intra-state (Wallensteen and Sollenberg, 2001). With a growing number of states failing to protect their citizens, the sanctity of state ‘sovereignty’ without commensurate responsibility and accountability has been challenged.

The definition of security is no longer limited to a cold war discourse of territorial control and military force; rather, the security domain has now expanded to include transnational and borderless people-centered issues that are primarily political, economic and social in nature. This paradigm shift from traditional state security to global human security has broad implications for what is included in the ‘development’ discourse and the way the Bretton Woods institutions do business (McRae, 2001).

As Amartya Sen (2000) observed, ‘Development is not only about the growth of GNP per head, but also about the expansion of human freedom and dignity.’ The development aspects of human security include risk, vulnerability, and insecurity resulting from poverty; especially access to productive assets (land, capital and technology-knowledge) and basic services (health, education and clean water), gender disparities and other forms of inequality. These aspects constitute what is commonly referred to in the human security and human development literature as ‘freedom from want’.

In addition, the development community is now addressing human security in the sense of ‘freedom from fear’ through the operational construct of ‘governance.’ Governance consists of the transparency, efficiency, and accountability of public institutions in the management of finances, goods, and services, including an efficient and non-corrupt bureaucracy, the exercise of the rule of law, protection of human rights, and the distribution of justice.

Perhaps a third, less tangible, dimension of human security is ‘freedom from despair.’ This feature should be included in the broader definition of human security to capture the social-psychological aspects, including a sense of dignity, identity, efficacy, and hope, buttressed by an institutional and social network of support marked by interpersonal trust and societal cohesion.

What are the connections between these different ‘freedom froms’ and violent conflict? What are the relationships between development and poverty reduction, human security, and the prevention of violent conflict? Does violent conflict inevitably lead to impoverishment? Does poverty alone result in violent conflict? If not, what social, economic, and political factors interact with poverty to trigger human insecurity and result in violent conflict?

Conflict is a normal part of economic and social transformation. But violent conflict, and civil wars in particular, are a form of ‘backward or reverse development’. What features of poverty--poor governance, inequality (relative deprivation), and social exclusion, for example--are most closely correlated with violent conflict? What has been the experience of development assistance, particularly as practiced by the Bretton Woods Institutions, in inadvertently fueling conflict, and/or managing conflict before it becomes violent and produces poverty? What organizational, policy, and programmatic reforms would enhance the effectiveness of the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) in reducing poverty reduction, promoting human security and sustainable development?

The purpose of this paper is to identify the critical linkages between human security and development and to draw implications for reforming the IFIs in order to achieve a safer, more equitable, and sustainable world.

The nexus of conflict, poverty, and development

Before addressing the IFI reform in light of the emerging human security paradigm, the paper will endeavor to better understand the relationship of the key variables (economic growth, income, asset and service distribution, governance, institutional capacity, ethnicity, and social cohesion, for example) that impact on poverty, conflict and human security. Ultimately the discussion will return to development as practiced by the IFIs and its impact on human security, recommending several areas for reform.

Does conflict inevitably lead to impoverishment?

Ibrahim Elbadawi’s work at the World Bank (1999) confirms that civil wars and poverty are inextricably linked. Civil wars have direct effects on poverty through the destruction of physical, human, and social capital, resulting in a disruption of productivity, heightened unemployment, social displacement, and increased physical insecurity. Collier and Hoeffler (1998) earlier summarized the economic impact of war on growth and poverty by identifying three main effects of civil war: (1) a disruption to capital or transaction intensive activities (roads, production, and financial services, for example); (2) a diversion of expenditure and resources from economic to war efforts; and (3) a reduction of domestic savings through consumption and capital flight. Human insecurities reduce both actual (levels and distribution of growth) and desired capital stocks (rates of growth) immediately and over time, resulting in increased poverty.

Is Poverty alone a sufficient condition for conflict?

Looking at conflict in combination with economic growth, ethnicity, and poverty, William Easterly (1999, 2000, 2002) establishes that poverty alone, as measured by indicators of economic growth, does not necessarily lead to conflict. However, when combined with high income and asset inequality, particularly along ethnic or communal lines, poverty can lead to violent conflict. Francis Steward’s (2000 ) work accenting the relationship of ‘horizontal inequality’ between communal groups and violent conflict supports Easterly’s findings.

Reinforcing this view, Juha Auvinen and Wayne Nafziger (1999) examined the causes of complex humanitarian emergencies at the World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER) in a multi-country study. They identify ‘relative deprivation’ (high income and asset inequality) among disadvantaged groups and regions as being at the root of violent conflict.

In summarizing the global economic evidence on conflict, Tony Addison and S. Mansoob Murshed (2000) demonstrate that high initial inequality is detrimental to growth and poverty reduction. Moreover, they points to slow growth as one of the key predictors of violent conflict. Once high asset inequality is created it is very difficult to reverse, especially in the case of land. Land reform and other capitalization measures aimed at reversing asset inequality are difficult to organize and implement, but are essential to attacking poverty and managing conflict before it becomes violent.

Rwanda is a case in point for demonstrating the interface between poverty, asset inequality, and violent conflict. Andrew Story (2000) observed that the 1980s system of paternalistic communalism that ensured the relatively equal distribution of land and income in Rwanda, gave way in the 1990s to a pattern of ‘savage individualism.’ The new distribution of wealth resulted in members of the akazu or Hutu governing elite taking over land previously controlled by smaller, often indebted farmers, in the form of user rights being transferred for clearance of debt. Maton (1994) estimates that the Gini coefficient in Rwanda rose from 0.357 in 1982 to 0.583 by 1992 . Increasing landlessness was compounded by a shrinking access to capital: seven borrowers alone accounted for 43% of all outstanding loans in the Banque Rwandaise de development (World Bank, 1991).

Ironically, the same World Bank financial sector study (1991), referred to above, focused its conclusions on the increased vulnerability of default by the few rather than the highly skewed access to capital for the vast majority of the population. As Peter Uvin (1997) concludes, the extent to which inequalities were visibly widening unfortunately did not form a significant part of the Bank’s discourse towards Rwanda in the early 1990s.

How do other factors add to the alchemy of poverty- induced conflict?

In his work on ethnic heterogeneity and the incidence of conflict, Ted Gurr (2000) demonstrates a strong correlation between a nation’s degree of ethnic factionalism and the risk of violent conflict. In contrast, Paul Collier (1999, 2001) concludes that it is not ethnic factionalism per se that is the defining correlate of civil war, but the availability of readily tradable primary commodities and youth unemployment. With regard to ethnicity, Collier further postulates that the number and size of ethnic groups determine the risk of violent conflict, noting that countries comprising two sizable ethnic groups have a higher risk of conflict than countries with numerous smaller ethnic groups. In Rwanda, political entrepreneurs mobilizing along communal or ethnic cleavages are more a means to violent conflict, with the deeper cause lying in patterns of access and inclusion.

Easterly (2002) summarizes the relationship between ethnic diversity and violent conflict by observing that although such diversity does not ipso facto result in violent conflict, it remains a latent potential for conflict, especially if mobilized by opportunistic political elites as was the case in the Balkans and Rwanda. His research further demonstrates that ethnic diversity is a good predictor of civil war, with the risk of civil war being two and a half times greater in diverse societies, and that of genocide three times higher. He goes on to note that ethnically diverse societies (as opposed to relatively homogeneous societies) have half the rate of schooling, one-thirteenth the telephones per worker, nearly twice the electric power losses, and less than half the share of paved roads in the world. Infant mortality, life expectancy, birth weight of infants, access to sanitation, and clean water are also worse in more ethnically diverse societies.

Do weakened societal institutions and external shocks tip the balance toward conflict rather than resolution?

Dani Rodrik (1998) adds an institutional perspective to the ongoing debate. Citing Indonesia as an example, he asserts that ‘external shocks‘ such as the Asian financial crisis, which lead to sharp falls in growth, can enhance the risk of violence, especially in divided societies where institutions that manage conflict (rule of law, democracy, and safety nets) are weak. Other sudden shocks such as natural disasters, droughts, and sharp falls in commodity prices, while leading to impoverishment, do not necessarily result in violent conflict when effective local institutions are present to manage diversity and mediate conflict.

Ethnically fractionalized societies experience a sudden rise in poverty as a result of external shocks. Such shocks can lead to an immediate and substantial deceleration in economic growth and the onset of violent conflict, especially in societies characterized by the presence of latent social cleavages (high ethnic diversity), and low institutional or social capacity (low political and individual rights and weakened social structures) for resolving conflicts.

How do exclusionary economic growth-oriented policies fuel conflict?

Growth-oriented policies that are not attuned to the relationships between conflict and ethnic fractionalization, weakened institutions, and external shocks may inadvertently fuel conflict. Government social and economic policies—for instance, language policy, opportunities for higher education and civil service employment, and access to productive assets—often trigger inequality and impoverishment, when they are discriminatory and exclusionary. The result is often violent confrontation, as with the Habyarimana regime in Rwanda and the Bandaranaike government in Sri Lanka. On the other hand, inclusive or affirmative action policies emphasizing economic and social equity can serve as a means of conflict prevention. The New Economic Policy in Malaysia providing affirmative action on behalf of Malays (Bumiputera or sons of the soil) constructed on the heels of communal riots in 1968, can be considered a landmark program of conflict prevention in this respect.

Examining the distributional effects of IMF programs, Gopal Garuda (2000), in a sample of some 58 IMF programs in 39 countries from 1975-91, found evidence of significant deterioration in income distribution and the incomes of the poor. This impact is manifested primarily through four IMF policy mechanisms: currency devaluation, budget deficit reductions, changes in inflation rates, and growth rates. The bulk of these 39 countries are conflict-affected. Conflict was especially evident in IMF program countries when pre-program external imbalances were already severe and the economy was in a downward spiral. This demonstrates that the costs of adjustment fall on the poor as poverty worsens in absolute terms, also exacerbating the risk of violent conflict.

What is the state of our understanding of the relationship between human security, poverty, and conflict?

Although a number of variables have been identified as contributing to violent conflict, the empirical evidence is at times contradictory. Much work needs to be undertaken to understand what is being measured, the actual impact, and the context in which the multiple variables play a role. However, in general, when accompanied by weakened institutions, failed governance, or a lack of respect for political and individual rights, and regional, ethnic, or group income and asset inequalities, it appears that poverty (relative deprivation) greatly increases the probability (risk and vulnerability) of human insecurity and violent conflict.

On the other side of the equation, an evaluation of the implementation of some fourteen different peace accords over the past decade by Steven Stedman et al. (2001) found that inclusive economic growth, equitable distribution, and good governance are the standards for creating conditions favorable to enduring peace, security, and development.

Performance indices: what do they tell us about human security, poverty, and conflict?

In addition to the international research literature encompassing cross-national data and analysis examining the relationships between human security, poverty, and conflict, a number of indices are being produced that compare and rank poor economic, political, and social performers. This public advocacy approach, in effect ‘naming and shaming’ individuals, governments, and private corporations, is the next means we shall investigate to link measures of poverty or failed development to human security.

By far the most comprehensive measure of poverty in relation to human security is the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Human Development Index (HDI) (see the groundbreaking Human Development Report on Human Security, (1994). It combines consumptive power (as opposed to GNP), illiteracy, and under-five mortality rates, among other variables, in a weighted index to rank countries on a Human Development scale. It is not inconsequential that many of the lowest ranking countries are in or coming out of conflict. When matched with the measures of conflict countries taken from the Swedish International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) annual report on major armed conflicts, one readily sees that 15 of the 20 lowest ranked HDI countries are either in, or emerging from conflict.

On the other hand, a number of poor countries have managed to avoid conflict, providing some insight into the importance of development and human security. A study by Tony Addison and S. Mansoob Murshed (2000) on conflict evasion reveals that a combination of decentralized decision-making (a proxy for conflict resolution mechanisms at the local level), asset equality, and good governance (functioning rule of law protecting peoples rights) are the keys to conflict management. Perhaps these variables, along with social cohesion (to capture the alienating and marginalizing social-psychological impact of identity threats caused by globalization) would make for a useful set of core indicators in the development of an Index of Human Security to accompany the existing Human Development Index (Colletta et. al., 2001).

Regarding governance, two indices correlate highly with inequality and conflict: Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) and Freedom House’s Index on Democracy (ID). While development may be defined as increasing choice or opportunity and access on the supply side, it needs to be matched by increasing the capacity to choose on the demand side. Thus, the ultimate challenge of development may well be cognitive transformation or education.

However, the most powerful signal of a potential conflict country is the International Credit Risk Index, which gauges foreign direct investment (FDI). There is no doubt about the strong relationship between FDI and conflict countries. With the exception of high FDI in the enclave extractive mineral sector, low FDI in weak and war-torn Africa and the Balkans provides strong evidence for this relationship (Foreign Direct Investment Survey, 2002).

The World Bank uses the Country Performance and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) index to rank and allocate lending resources according to country performance on a range of policy areas. The Bank’s own research has shown that ‘good’ policies lead to higher performing countries (Dollar, 2000). However, this approach has led to an inherent dilemma: the poorest of the poor are also the worst performing countries, and therefore receive the least concessionary resources. This linkage between policy performance, poverty, and the allocation of resources flies directly in the face of the Bank’s ability to achieve its overarching mission of poverty reduction with compassion and professionalism.

More recently, the World Bank has attempted to address this dilemma. It has identified 28 such low performing countries, most of which are also conflict-affected countries with a clear profile of poor governance, low HDI, weak social cohesion, and low FDI (high credit risks). An internal review has identified this group of countries as Low Income Countries Under Stress (LICUS), a new grouping adding to the existing CPIA lending allocation groups of IBRD (middle income) and IDA (low income) countries (World Bank, 2002).

Several recommendations have been made to senior management of the World Bank, one of which is to provide increased ‘grant’ resources and technical assistance to the LICUS countries, lest they fall completely through the cracks of the current system linking resource allocation to policy performance. It is noteworthy that the LICUS indicators and variables discussed above correspond virtually one-to-one with conflict countries. LICUS countries are rife with human insecurity and represent a critical grouping for targeted development assistance.

While this is an important initiative, the feasibility and acceptability of this approach are still in question, especially under the current World Bank Articles of Agreement. Unless the Articles, which currently constrain the Bank from addressing politically sensitive development factors (security and human rights violations, for instance) are reinterpreted (shifting the discourse) or legally amended, many will argue for leaving aid in these politically highly charged areas to the UNDP, bi-laterals, and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

In addition, the technical criteria for determining which countries should qualify for LICUS status and the Bank’s comparative advantage in working through NGOs have been criticized. Critics further argue that the risks of moral hazard are increased given that the proposed use of highly concessional IDA grant resources designated for poor performers presents a policy shift away from shareholder preferences for rewarding good policy performers. However, others argue that the distinction has to be made between economic and governance performance, using grant resources to shape change in more non-traditional Bank areas of human rights, rule of law, and security sector reform. The role of the IMF has been given relatively little attention in the current LICUS endeavor.

In sum, while LICUS could be an important initiative to tackle problems of human security related to development assistance. However, it would require major shareholders to address the difficult issues regarding the World Bank’s mandate, expertise, and the risk of moral hazard in the allocation of scarce development resources.

Implications for IFI reform

The Bretton Woods Institutions alone cannot address the broad range of political, social, and economic factors impacting upon human security and development. They have, however, become increasingly important partners with the United Nations in the overall global architecture for peace and development. The UN—particularly the Security Council, the Economic and Social Commission (ECOSOC), and the special UN agencies—and the private sector and civil society form complementary pieces of an emerging global architecture for peace and development.

As early as 1995, Erskine Childers, among others, had already pointed to the need to reform ECOSOC due to its failure to attract high-level economic participation from the IMF and World Bank. This lack of IFI participation has effectively disenfranchised the UN from the world economy. The UN’s primary function as a policy-negotiating mechanism is also in need of reform. He further identifies the need to expand and make the Security Council an elected body on the basis of regional representation and rotation. Numerous calls have also been made for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly akin to the European Parliament, directly elected by the peoples of the world in order to share decision-making responsibility and/or monitor the General Assembly.

More recently, the Brahimi Report (2000) on reforming UN peace operations came closest to addressing human insecurity in a more integrated, coherent manner. However, the centrality of the development agenda to peace building was lacking in the report. Furthermore, the actual implementation of the report’s recommendations still fall short of the needed reforms.

Given the nature of the variables connecting human security to development, and the partnerships necessary to address this complex agenda, the heart of the matter for IFI reform resides in the existing World Bank Articles of Agreement and the governance structure. The problem is that the Bretton Woods institutions have remained state-centric in a world that is increasingly de facto borderless. Globalization has revealed that political space as well as economic and social relations can no longer be conceived of exclusively within a framework of national boundaries. It is imperative that multilateral governance realign with the changing global realities. Security is now shifting from a traditional emphasis on armaments and territorial threats of force to a transnational set of development-related threats relating to human rights, health, livelihood, and environmental impacts, for instance. The IFIs need to respond to these challenges in order to remain relevant to the world’s poor.

Human security in the global sense is increasingly interconnected with sustainable development and multi- lateralism (Knight, 2001). It is necessary to realign economic and social policies, as well as technical and financing instruments to the new global realities. However, a realignment alone may not be sufficient to stem the rising tide of underdevelopment and global insecurity. It may also be necessary to cut to the core of the new multi-lateralism, as demanded by the rising anti-globalization movement, and revisit the legal charter and governance of the IFIs.

The Bretton Woods institutions: rising global criticism and new challenges

Created at the end of World War II to ‘end the scourge of war,’ the Bretton Woods Institutions have only been challenged in the last decade to revisit the original conflict-related mandate. More recently, a number of former World Bank senior staff has expressed concern with the policy package and instruments of the IFIs. Joseph Stiglitz (2002) former chief economist, has been particularly critical of the ‘Washington consensus,’ a policy approach advocated by the IMF in the face of critical shocks such as the Asian financial crisis. The standard economic medicine of the IMF has called for tight monetary policy, reduction in public expenditure, and balanced budgets, irrespective of political instability or worsening poverty.

It is not the policy package per se that is most contentious as is the ‘depth, sequencing, and timing of reforms.’ When countries like Indonesia and Sierra Leone are on the brink of collapse due to economic and political instability, calling for reductions in subsidies is tantamount to pushing them over the edge rather than extending a lifeline. In Sierra Leone, reducing the food subsidy to exhort a balanced budget led to a large portion of the government army defecting to the rebels, because the reduction in food subsidies fell on the soldiers who were paid primarily in food rations. The tradeoff between maintaining political stability and accelerating economic efficiency was critical at that moment. Choosing to accelerate economic reform led to the fall of the government. Conflict sensitive development was clearly lacking.

In Indonesia, the results were no less dramatic. The government collapsed under the economic duress of the financial crisis, increased impoverishment, and a weakening of the security forces. This combination of factors sparked a series of regional rebellions that still simmer across the archipelago from Ache to Kalimantan, Suluwesi, the Moluccas, and West Papua.

The lesson that Stiglitz (2001) draws from such IMF policy prescriptions is that perhaps Article 4 consultations with countries could be broadened to enhance the kinds of dialogue on economic policy that are central to democracy building, instead of merely imposing conditions. These policies should promote social wellbeing and justice as a means of preventing conflict.

Jessica Einhorn (2001), former Managing Director at the World Bank, takes Stiglitz’s critique in yet another direction by attacking the Bank for its many and meandering initiatives, calling for a return to the basics. William Easterly (2002), who was a former senior economic advisor in the World Bank’s research department, chronicled poor Bank performance in alleviating poverty. He used the Bank’s own data as a whipping stick to accentuate both its failure to implement many agreed policy prescriptions and the unintended consequences— especially for the poor—of many policies that have been implemented. Such criticisms followed a US Congressional review of the IFIs by the Meltzer Commission (2001), which recommended an overhauling of the World Bank, in particular to move toward a grant-making development role, even to the extent of aiding countries whose governments perform poorly. Connecting to the LICUS initiative discussed earlier, the Meltzer Report essentially proposed de-linking unrealistic policy performance from lending and using grant resources to target the needs of the poor.

Such IFI reforms should be coupled with the institutional changes necessary for implementing these policies effectively. For example, in the wake of poor governance, the Meltzer Commission advocated the disbursement of money through private and non-governmental vendors, accompanied by an independent audit mechanism to verify work performance.

More recently Sergio Pereira Leite (2001) writing in the IMF quarterly magazine, Finance and Development, called for balancing the standard economic and financial prescriptions with the respect for human rights. He states,

Clearly, the pursuit of economic, social and cultural rights is an integral part of sound economic policies. Respect for human rights contributes to increased economic and social stability and helps prevent setbacks to development from political unrest and civil conflict. But it is also necessary to recognize that inappropriate economic policies-unsustainable public deficits, high inflation, unrealistic exchange rates, wasteful subsidies and obstacles to trade –are contrary to human rights. (P. 27)

He summarizes a rights-based development strategy as comprising five elements: (1) active protection of civil and political liberties; (2) pro-poor budgets and growth strategies; (3) policies geared toward ensuring the basic needs of people, especially health, education, and food; (4) broad participation in policy design; and (5) efforts to combat discrimination.

The Poverty Reduction Support Program (PRSP) of Burkina Faso was the first to focus on human security in practice. This program plan took human security into account by promoting access to education, training, and employment, and to low cost preventative and curative medical care. Food security included access to food and safe drinking water. Environmental security and individual and political security were also covered, focusing on rule of law, participation, bureaucratic efficiency and transparency of government. Several other countries such as Nicaragua and Rwanda have followed suit by tying their poverty reduction strategies to reforms in human rights and governance areas, including judicial and law-enforcement reform. These examples should form the basis of practical models of including human security objectives as central to poverty reduction and sustainable development.

In its review of PRSPs, World Vision, a leading international non-governmental agency doing policy work on the IFIs, called for a more target-based approach to conditionality in place of short-term efforts to reform economic policy. The emphasis of measures by the IFIs, World Vision argued, should be on the quality rather than the quantity of conditionality. Such a strategy would incorporate a rights-based approach that would be more pro-poor, focusing on institution building and governance strengthening (Waites, 2002).

Created under unique conditions after World War II, the Bretton Woods Institutions are now facing a new set of global challenges in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks. Just as global security strategies are moving from a ‘platform-centric’ to a ‘network-centric’ model (Kwinn et al., 2002), development institutions, and the IFIs in particular, must envisage an expanded view of poverty that embraces the need to address human security as a crosscutting dimension of sustainable development. These criticisms represent a clarion call to the IFIs to shift the balance from first generation state-centric economic and financial policy reforms to second-generation global policies addressing governance (including security), environmental resource management, and social issues. Implicit is the need to shift from a limited rights perspective focusing on economic and social-cultural rights to one that includes civil and political rights.

From Bretton Woods to Armageddon: addressing human insecurities or igniting violent conflict?

In the World Bank study Voices of the Poor (2000), Deepa Narayan et al. found that ‘security and dignity’ emerge alongside the conventional development concerns of livelihood and asset capitalization (access to education, health, safe water, land, or credit) as major poverty reducing factors. For the World Bank, the insecurity pillar rests on ‘reducing vulnerability to economic shocks, natural disasters, ill health, disability, and personal violence.’ This study, in principle, opens up new terrain for international cooperation and development. New areas of growth pertain not only to financial stability and economic development, but could also include such global threats to human well being as HIV/AIDs, tuberculosis and malaria control, food production and access, environmental protection, conflict prevention and/or resolution, and post-conflict reconstruction.

In its new operational policy document, ‘Development Cooperation and Conflict’ (World Bank, 2001), the Bank acknowledges the importance of ‘human security’ by stating in the opening paragraph that, ‘economic and social stability and human security are pre-conditions for sustainable development.’ While this acknowledgement provides an analytic breakthrough for the Bank, the present challenge lies in the operationalization of human security as central to the poverty reduction mandate and attendant conflict prevention. Following on the heels of the new policy, the World Bank has become more sensitive to conflict analysis, identifying conflict-related obstacles to development (Sardesai and Wam, 2002). Again, mainstreaming this type of analysis will be a major challenge for institutional reform.

In the context of conflict management and prevention, social variables have become increasingly important. The breakdown of social cohesion has led to increased lawlessness, violence, and crime, to which the poor are most vulnerable. Traditional networks for providing community identity and social and economic safety nets are essential to maintaining community resilience in times of extreme shock and duress. The depletion of social capital may be compounded by poverty, insecurity, and conflict in a vicious cycle, weakening overall social cohesion. States and markets can equally undermine societal cohesion, as well as strengthen it, if allowed to proceed without monitoring or regulation (Colletta and Cullen, 2000).

Ex-post external audits through mechanisms such as the World Bank’s own operations evaluation department and the external Inspection Panel may not be enough to prevent human insecurities from undermining development. An important institutional innovation useful for monitoring the quality of project at entry is the quality assurance review (QUAG). However, the QUAGs are incomplete in that non-economic variables such as social cohesion and human rights are not included as key screening elements.

Social and economic exclusion, especially regarding access to basic services, productive assets and employment opportunities, is clearly a related to human insecurity and the risk of violent conflict. Where poor governance combines with depleted social capital and civil mechanisms to help mediate conflict are absent, poverty often culminates in conflict. What matters is not the existence of cohesive ethnic or religious communities but whether there are social networks and civic ties that cut across ethnic and religious groups. Varshney (2001) distinguishes this phenomenon into two basic types of civic networks: ‘associational forms’ and ‘everyday forms’ of engagement. These associational forms or ‘bridging social capital,’ based on crosscutting ties and spanning gender, age, social class, religion, and ethnicity, are the critical elements in building democratic institutions and sustainable peace.

While the IFIs are focused on ‘getting the economic and financial policies right,’ vigorous effort is needed to ‘get the institutional and social relations right’ by taking into account human security and human rights concerns. Degrees of social cohesion would stand alongside levels of service provision, positive environmental measures, and economic performance as key indicators of human security and sustainable development. Here measures of equality and social justice become key to our understanding of sustainable development.

Building on the Voices of the Poor report, the 2001/02 World Development Report broke new ground by advocating the view that poverty encompasses not only low income and consumption, low access to education, health, and other areas of human development, but also powerlessness and voiceless ness resulting in increased vulnerability, and fear.

Low and declining inequality has a positive impact on economic growth on poverty. Traditional policies used to foster growth, i.e., macroeconomic stability and market-friendly reforms, may be necessary, but they are not sufficient to reduce poverty and ensure human security. Development assistance, which strengthens economies at the macro-level through market reforms, can also produce unintended consequences at the micro-level, e.g., increased exclusion and unemployment. There is a need to lay the institutional and social foundations for the development process by encouraging participation and ensuring inclusive growth. Getting the social and institutional relationships right is proving to be more difficult than getting wages and prices right.

The resulting IFI recommended actions from Voices of the Poor fall into three areas: (1) promoting opportunity, (2) facilitating empowerment, and (3) enhancing security. For the first time the concept of security is being used by the World Bank as a development objective. In this context, it is defined as reducing the vulnerability of the poor to ill health, economic shocks, crop failure; policy-induced dislocations, natural disasters, and violence, as well as helping them cope with adverse shocks through the provision of social protection mechanisms. In short, these recommendations are directed at managing the risks of insecurity and exclusion that may result from accelerated globalization.

Despite the foregoing advances in IFI thinking, the organizational, policy, and programmatic reforms are still lagging behind the analysis and the rhetoric. Without new policies, instruments, and institutional arrangements to move forward, the risk of new rhetoric masking old behavior is high. Facing a form of development ‘Armageddon’, what innovations are feasible, short of shutting down and or reinventing the Bretton Woods Institutions?

The way forward: areas for IFI reform and improved practice

The paper set out to establish within a new security paradigm, i.e., human security, development becomes a central instrument to addressing the new global threats. However, the IFIs continue to operate in a state-centric modality, taking on new rhetoric but only slowly developing new instruments and making the deep reforms and attendant internal cultural transformation necessary to make the paradigmatic shift in practice. The following are some concrete reforms that are required to make this shift and maintain the relevance of the IFIs in protecting and providing access to global public goods in a rapidly transforming world.

Revisiting the Bretton Woods Articles of Agreement: Reform or Reinterpretation?

One reform whose time may have come is the amendment of the World Bank Charter, particularly Article IV, Section 10 of the World Bank’s Articles of Agreement and similar institutional constraints concerning the prohibition on ‘political’ activity (Ciorciari, 1998)). The section reads as follows: ‘The Bank and its officers shall not interfere in the political affairs of any member; nor shall they be influenced in their decisions by the political character of the member or members concerned. Only economic considerations shall be relevant to their decisions, and these considerations shall be weighed impartially in order to achieve the purposes stated in Article I.’(World Bank, 1948).

In the area of peace building, the IMF has an important advantage over the World Bank, as its charter does not explicitly forbid involvement in ‘political’ matters. Should the IMF’s requirement for accountability in the defense sector be considered ‘political’ or is it simply good governance? Is citizen security not a public good of equal importance to the provision of health and education? Time and again we have sadly noted that policing, criminal investigation, and other aspects of public safety, security, and justice fall through the cracks in the transition from war to peace. Should the IFIs take a more active role in these areas, even when economic assets are rebuilt and destroyed in cycles of violence as in the Middle East? Would a more expansive definition of ‘political’ not be possible given that economic considerations often have profound social and political impacts?

Signs of openness are emerging in the increase ‘exceptions’ approved by senior management such the recent approval to finance policing in Afghanistan. However, the legal department explicitly distanced the Bank from the decision by differentiating the Bank’s role as fiscal agent and not direct implementer of such assistance, leaving that with the attendant responsibility to the UNDP. It seems that a broader interpretation of the charter language (changing the Bank discourse) would make it easier to enter into peace-building activities that concentrate on the transitions between war and peace and relief and development, while excluding military peace enforcement and political aspects of peace negotiations per se.

As McRae and Hubert (2001) have observed, ‘The challenge is to adapt the mandates and institutional arrangements governing armed forces, development assistance and even police to the new security environment, so as to make them more flexible and responsive.’ The World Bank Board of Executive Directors should revisit the Articles of Agreement in this light, providing an explicit interpretation of the earlier constraining terminology. The Bank’s legal department could readily lead such an internal dialogue, shifting from naysayer to advocate.

Linking environmental stress and property rights to the loss of livelihood and the potential for conflict

It is clear that the downward spiral of poverty is accelerated through increasing environmental scarcities due to environmental degradation, unclear property-user rights, and reduced access to land and water. The result is the loss of livelihoods. But the second-level impact goes further. The lack of employment in these areas creates a pool of marginalized, unemployed youth readily mobilized by greedy and/or power-driven elites. These youths have been used to ferment violence and terrorism, from Rwanda to the West Bank and Gaza. Thomas Homer Dixon (1999) and others have elaborated on this connection among environmental degradation, population pressures on a shrinking resource pie, unequal access to productive resources, and subsequent failing states, weak governance, and the mobilization of violence.

Under these circumstances, unemployed young men become easy targets for hate-propaganda directed at readily identifiable ethnic, income, or religious groups. Misguided leaders have then exploited societal cleavages through the promise of looting and a modicum of payment in exchange for joining an informal militia, as was the case in Rwanda (Gasana, 2001).

In the West Bank and Gaza, the Palestinian Authority provides a quarter of the available jobs, and nearly half of those are in the security sector (Ohlsson, 2000). Such conditions make it imperative that the Bretton Woods Institutions make the creation of livelihoods, especially through improved natural resource management, a top priority in promoting human security, reducing poverty, and the managing the risk of violent conflict.

Mainstreaming human security analysis in economic and sector work: the new LICUS instruments

Positive steps are already being taken to increase sensitivity to conflict and development through the piloting of conflict analysis methods in countries like Nigeria and Burundi. However, the ultimate outcome must be to expand and mainstream such risk and vulnerability analysis as a standard part of economic and sector work, particularly in the PRSPs, Public Expenditure Reviews (PERs), and Country Assistance Strategies (CAS). Also, initiatives such as LICUS are searching for innovative ways to analyze and address the characteristics, conditions, and technical needs of failing states without compromising the basic tenets that ensure quality and link performance to reward. While there are no easy answers, the risk of inaction is greater than that of well-prepared and guided innovation and learning. The integration of human security analysis into LICUS efforts is critical to addressing the problems of failing states and preventing violent conflict.

Developing a Human Security Index to complement the existing Human Development Index, Transparency International’s Corruption Index and Freedom House’s Democracy Index, among other such indices, might be a useful direction in expanding the existing conflict analysis into a full-blown Human Security Analysis. Such an analytical and public policy advocacy instrument may be both necessary and timely to encouraging the IFIs to take such indicators (for instance, human rights violations, asset inequality, and social cohesion-fragmentation) on board as standard features in their own policy and operational work. Andrew Mack (2002) at the University of British Columbia is working on the development of a human security index; however, its present focus is more narrowly confined to the measurement of violence and criminality. There may be a need for a broader, more comprehensive index of human security covering the full range of new global threats discussed earlier.

Developing new social safeguards on human rights and social cohesion

In addition to the above reform initiatives, the IFIs must also develop new social safeguards against human rights abuses and the breakdown of social cohesion. These are often unintended consequences of macroeconomic policies and programs that divide societies. Neglecting these important aspects of development might abet a retreat into a new tribalism that could ignite latent social and political cleavages, resulting in elite manipulation and increased human insecurities. As Amin Maalouf (2002) observes in his recent book In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong, people fear for their sense of belonging due in large part to the marginalizing economic impact of globalization, the erosion of national sovereignty, the collapse of secular regimes, and the general dominance of Western civilization. Such fears often perversely serve as the source of violent acts of desperation to affirm and preserve one’s psychosocial identity in the face of material impoverishment.

Treating security as a public good

First and foremost, the IFIs must expand their present scope on governance through the promotion of efficiency and transparency in the public administration of security. Not only should they be active in the areas of economic management and social services—in the education and health sectors, for example—but they must also give consideration to the security sector. This means that in addition to monitoring security-related expenditures of the ministries of defense, the IFIs must include also policing and related security sector establishments in their evaluation. Countries need to build their capacity for managing expenditures, relating to communities, and delivering services in a transparent, efficient, and accountable manner. Police in many poor countries are frequently the most backward and corrupt institutions, often accused of perpetrating crime as much as preventing it. The failure to build and reform policing agencies only feeds the escalation of crime, violence, and citizen fear. This environment of insecurity becomes a real barrier to investment, stability, and poverty reduction. Yet the police are responsible for performing an essential public service.

Such public sector reform is not unlike any other public sector which the Bank currently works in. It may be achieved through the provision of training, management advice, and other means; such as improving communications between the public security department and the community it serves. Police forces must also build the capacity for civilian oversight and accountability through the establishment of parliamentary, media, and civil society oversight bodies that monitor and report on the broader security sector. As related above, efforts to support police development in Afghanistan were recently debated within the World Bank, but the legal department chose a narrow mandate and decided to limit Bank support through UN implementation by combining funds in a multi-donor Trust Fund. Thus a unique opportunity to debate and reform the Bank’s role in this critical area of security was missed. Without basic security and freedom from fear there can be no free market and sustainable development.

Ensuring basic human rights, judicial and security sector reforms are complements to economic, and social sector reforms

It would be naïve and shortsighted to think that police reform itself would render the desired results for human security. Successful reform cannot be uni-dimensional; it must be accompanied by judicial and penal systems in an integrated package. Respect for human rights and the rule of law must be deepened within the IFIs and their work on governance. It may also be necessary to refocus the work of the legal departments within the Bretton Woods institutions to address local legal capacity in the areas of human rights and criminal law as well as commercial law.

The Bank has endeavored to link human rights and development by strengthening institutions of governance and addressing poverty and exclusion. In this way, it has verbally supported a rights-based approach to development (see World Bank, 1998). However, it still lacks explicit legal instruments necessary to mainstream human rights into the development process.

What is needed is the establishment of a special emergency legal unit or team within the World Bank to focus on human rights as an important dimension of sustainable development, and to participate in post conflict assessment missions. These missions are normally staffed with humanitarian, sector development, political, and military contingents. Such an emergency legal team could assess judicial and legal needs and capacity, including traditional systems of justice and dispute resolution, in order to tackle difficult problems including human rights, property rights and contract law, and criminal investigation and prosecution capacity in the wake of war. All too often these areas are not addressed in the post-conflict reconstruction process, even though many areas of reconstruction, especially, for instance, encouraging private investment and community-led investment, depend on the early resolution of such problems. Human security for all must ensure that principles of transparency, efficiency, and accountability of government to its people are enshrined in legal operational terms.

Reassessing peace conditionality in the context of partnership and performance

IFI conditionality, or the quid pro quo of financial assistance for policy reform, has conventionally targeted economic policies that are deemed essential for macroeconomic stability and economic growth. More recently, IFI conditionality has been broadened to effect a wide range of social and environmental safeguards—against involuntary resettlement and environmental hazard creation. However, when linked to human security concerns, conditionality has the potential to function as an effective conflict prevention measure and should be integrated with UN-mediated peace operations. It is time to revisit ‘peace conditionality,’ especially in relationship to the implementation of peace accords (Annan, 2000).

IFIs should engage in designing development programs aimed at reinforcing peace and security agreements. These should be consistent with peace accords, providing financial incentives for national reconciliation and social cohesion/integration programs, linking rewards and sanctions for borrower levels of military expenditure and security sector reforms, and helping poor countries meet the costs of participation in new global human security-oriented regimes such as treaties on water resources, biological diversity, and carbon emission controls. Such development programs should all be discussed during peace negotiations as a means of supporting human security and preventing conflict.

As alluded to earlier, this may mean reviewing the World Bank Articles of Agreement and their interpretation with regards to the Bank’s role in ‘politically construed’ activities. Perhaps it is the rapid ascent of globalization and new insecurities, particularly as manifested in the September 11 attack, that has created the momentum for moving from debt relief for environmental conservation to debt relief for disarmament. Surely, adjustment conditions need to be imposed on such unregulated arms-exporting countries such as the Ukraine, among others. The IFIs must stress the importance of establishing a regulated and licensed arms trade. This is the important supply side of regulation, in this case of the illicit arms trade, that is necessary to accompany the demand side global regulatory regimes such as the Kimberly process governing the diamond trade.

Speaking a the language of ‘performance criteria’ rather than conditionality per se, and embedding it in ‘partnership’ arrangements could present a more flexible and feasible way to engage in such issues. In this vein, Michael Edwards (2001) in his work on foreign aid calls for ‘new coalitions’ in addition to the current trend to ease the exclusionary and poverty-aggravating impact of macroeconomic policies on the poor. He advocates social protection mechanisms, early retirement packages, and shared ownership schemes to spread the benefits of privatization. ‘Investment, not aid: compacts, not conditionality’ is the current discourse.

Closing the gaps between relief and development

One new coalition worth building is the cooperation between the humanitarian and the development communities to close the financial, technical, and organizational gaps between relief, rehabilitation, and reconstruction (Ogata and Wolfensohn, 1999). Relief should become more development-oriented, using humanitarian space to jumpstart social and economic development. There must be hope beyond survival, thus nipping in the bud the latent potential for conflict. As Childers (2000) points out, interlocking mandates could give humanitarian operations room to work in tandem with service-related governing structures such as health clinics, schools, and agricultural extension programs. This is especially important when the central government or traditional community structures are not functioning. Somalia is a good example of this problem. Here, the bifurcation of humanitarian, political and security elements coupled with lagging economic and social development responses have led to a missed opportunity to prevent further violence.

While memoranda of agreement have been signed between the IFIs and such agencies as the UN High Commission for Refugees and the International Committee of the Red Cross, the actual implementation of these agreements has been on an ad hoc and limited basis. Improving practice in the implementation of such partnering arrangements is sorely needed. One way to nurture coordination is through joint training and secondment across the humanitarian, military, and development agencies. These mechanisms for cooperation between the UN system and the Bretton Woods institutions have been underutilized. Proper implementation will require special, and perhaps external, monitoring, and reporting on performance.

Re-aligning the financing of human security and development

On the financing side, changes have taken place that enable IDA grants to be used for post conflict reconstruction. The establishment of the Post Conflict Fund (PCF) has also helped considerably in providing quicker, more flexible resources to address human security concerns. In addition, in his recent report on globalization, George Soros (2002) calls for radical reform of the International Monetary Fund and the creation of a new financial instrument: special drawing rights for public goods to address the nagging resource gap, particularly in Africa where the net flow of capital is insufficient to meet the challenge of poverty reduction and sustainable development.

A single human security funding pool should be considered for countries on the brink of state failure as an investment in conflict management and prevention. An expanded multi-donor ‘Human Security and Development Fund’ building on the one that now exists under sponsorship of the Japanese government might be the vehicle for achieving this end. It is the funding mechanism that drives coordination—not committees, commissions, or other administrative mechanisms. The problem is that the UN Consolidated Appeals operate on separate parallel paths from IFI Trust Funds, and bi-laterals are torn between achieving their own political agendas and working in multilateral partnerships for the greater good. As a result, war-torn countries attempting to transition to a state of sustainable development inevitably fail due to conflicting priorities and political agendas and a lack of coordination.

Enhancing the role of the private sector in human security

In Privatizing Peace: from Conflict to Security, Gerson and Colletta (2002) echo the importance of expanding investment guarantees (MIGA, for example), along with mutually reinforcing global and national legal and regulatory frameworks. In addition, the new sense of corporate social responsibility, especially in war-torn and at-risk countries, needs to be expanded within the United Nations Global Compact with business. This combination of policy alternatives is central to attracting badly needed private investment to create ‘real jobs,’ the foundation of the tax base that will eventually replace international aid. There may also be a case for increased risk taking by the IFC in providing venture capital—not loans— to create sustainable livelihoods in the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector. Given the pivotal relationship of youth unemployment and violent conflict, and the long time horizons of large corporate investors, the SME sector and domestic (and diasporas) resource mobilization is a logical entry point for local investors. The West Bank-Gaza, Eritrea, Somalia and Afghanistan are good examples of the importance of diaspora investors and domestic resource mobilization in the face of risk aversive foreign investors.

Clearly, the private sector arms of the IFIs can do much more to promote human security by providing incentives to the private sector. Finally, while the World Bank Private Sector Partnership program is pushing the frontiers of corporate social responsibility, especially in natural resource rich and conflict-prone areas, more still needs to be done to invite the private sector to become an integral partner in promoting human security and sustainable development.

Conclusion

The Bretton Woods institutions must now shift emphasis to give increased priority to objectives of promoting social inclusion, human rights, and human security as a means to reducing poverty, preventing conflict, and achieving sustainable development. The key actions to achieve these objectives are as follows:

a) Revisiting the Articles of Agreement especially pertaining to ‘political considerations’ is both timely and necessary;
b) Linking environmental degradation and the loss of property-user rights to the loss of livelihood and the potential for conflict exacerbation and or prevention in Country Assistance Strategy and project and program design;
c) Mainstreaming human security analysis in economic and sector work, and LICUS analytical, financing, and advocacy instruments;
d) Incorporating human rights and social cohesion as new social policy safeguards as well as within quality assurance (QUAG) screening criteria;
e) Treating the security sector, particularly community policing, as a public good;
f) Ensuring basic human rights, security and judicial reform as essential complements to economic and social sector reform within the overall Comprehensive Development Framework (CDF);
g) Reassessing ‘Peace- building’ conditionality in the context of performance and partnership, closely linking peace implementation actions to donor assistance and the prevention of conflict;
h) Making good on closing the gaps between relief and development;
i) Realigning the financing for human security and development by devising new financing instruments to assist failing states (LICUS countries) in concert with the UN Human Security Fund and other bilateral resource mobilization efforts;
j) Enhancing the role of the private sector in human security and development.

Improved policy analysis and operational practices with a heightened sensitivity across the Bretton Woods institutions to human security and its relationship to sustainable development can be accelerated through targeted management and staff development training programs on human security, poverty reduction and conflict management, preferably designed and undertaken in an integrated fashion with other UN, NGO, private sector, and bilateral actors.

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Nat J. Colletta is Founder and Former Managing Director of the Post-Conflict Unit at the World Bank. He is now at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University.

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