Journal of International Peace Operations
Volume 7, Number 4 – January-February 2012

The role of Afghan women supporting the build-up of civil society capacity

As international security forces prepare to draw down and civilian contractors brace for reduced contract solicitations and option year renewals, the international community should seriously examine its support for the role that civil society is playing in the growth and long-term viability of the Afghan state.  Specifically, the international community should reinforce positive investments into efforts that explicitly incorporate women’s voices and participation across Afghanistan.

Despite hard-won combat successes by international troops, the future of the country will be won or lost by the Afghans.  In a war where front lines go beyond geography and the battle for hearts and minds reaches past the male population who can walk down the street freely, it is Afghan women who must be included in building the community  organizations and social infrastructure necessary to enable the country’s future success.  The opportunity to combat violence and extremism democratically already exists in Afghanistan through participation in civil society initiatives that empower all citizens to play a greater role in building a common future for the Afghan state.

Journal of International Peace Operations
Volume 6, Number 6 – May-June, 2011

Over a year after relief groups kicked off operations in Haiti, many people are left wondering, why are we still asking the same questions about aid delivery and efficacy, and facing the same problems with implementation and reach that were painfully apparent in the days both before and after the tragedy? Foreign aid and disaster assistance have inarguably improved the living standards and recovery capacity for the millions affected, yet such assistance treats Haiti’s complex challenges on a case-by-case basis and does little to reform the country’s long term aid dependency issues.

Challenges

In the earthquake’s wake, the shattered country saw a complete breakdown of social contracts. The vast majority of the government’s ministries were destroyed, as were the lives and institutional knowledge that gave the buildings a purpose. The vital stabilization knowledge housed in MINUSTAH, the U.N. peacekeeping force in Haiti, was also crippled by the deaths of scores of experienced staff. These losses speak nothing of the suffering of the wider population, in which nearly everyone lost someone close to them.

Computers and cell phones have revolutionized the way individuals across the planet communicate and live, but in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) their biggest legacy has proven to be conflict. The DRC is home to many of the largest and most accessible deposits of columbite-tantalite, a precious ore that is used in the production of electronics, including the GPS system that directed you to the office, the laptop that you work on, the PlayStation that you play to unwind, the cell phone that you use throughout the day,and scores of other appliances in between. It just so happens that coltan (the short form of columbite-tantalite) is most commonly found and mined in rebel-controlled territory at the expense of national parks, wildlife and innocent civilians.

Finding mineral resources at the center of conflict and suffering in the DRC is nothing new. Ever since 1885, when King Leopold II of Belgium effectively made the Congo Free State his personal property and ravaged the country mercilessly for its ivory and rubber the fortune promised by the land’s resources has also been a curse. While King Leopold’s mismanagement of the Congo resulted in the deaths of as many as fifteen million people, the current decade-long conflict over coltan mines has victimized over 5.4 million Congolese via armed conflict and war-related causes. Egregious human rights abuses, including the institutionalization of rape as a weapon of war, continue to tear the country’s social structures apart and perpetuate the cycle of violence that has devolved into the world’s deadliest conflict since World War II. Despite the country’s wealth of natural resources, such as diamonds, hydroelectric power, wood and strategic minerals, the DRC now ranks 176th on the UNDP Human Development index of 182 countries.