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Africa Region Working Paper Series No. 73 Post-Conflict
Peace Building in Africa Abstract The policy objectives in a typical post-war economy would be to restore and maintain peace, improve security, prevent the renewal of war, facilitate rapid socio-economic recovery, and start to build the institutional framework favorable to development and sustained poverty reduction. Socio-economic recovery and poverty reduction are important elements of building peace while improving peace and security reinforce economic growth. This paper seeks to address the challenges of socio-economic recovery and long-term development in post-civil war countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The paper reviews the causes of civil wars, including from the perspective of the challenges of the socio-economic transitions in SSA, and assesses economic costs and consequences of these civil wars. It discusses the challenges of managing a post-war economy, and the processes and priorities of humanitarian and development assistance and post-war economic reforms for socio-economic recovery, reintegration and development. The paper examines the needs and mechanisms for the financing of the transition from emergency to development and the roles of international relief and development institutions and their instruments for promoting the process of peaceful change and development in a war ravaged country. Finally, the paper identifies and discusses some key institutional reforms to deal with the legacies of the war including frank and open national dialogue, reform of government and the security services, capacity building in the public sector, integration of ethnic dimensions into the economic and governance reforms, promotion of trade and employment creation, and forging strong partnership with external aid agencies, to facilitate the path to sustained long-term development. Full
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